Important! - Nobody On This Forum Is AWAKE

[Moksha]

32 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

you call it mind because it imagines limitations, right?  if it did not imagine anything and simply were the infinite being, would you still call it mind?

I prefer awareness or god or absolute, but it is the same regardless of the name. It is infinite reality, within and beyond imagination, whatever you call it.

[Breakingthewall]

Maybe i didn't explain good. What if there is nothing definite, just the infinity formless without any limitation. Is it  a mind?

Edited May 30, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

16 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Maybe i didn't explain good. What if there is nothing definite, just the infinity formless without any limitation. Is it  a mind?

Dude, you can call it mind, consciousness, intelligence, reality, existence, this, God, John Wayne... what does it matter which name you give it?

[Moksha]

11 minutes ago, Vibes said:

What do you mean by beyond imagination?

Changeless, timeless, infinite, motionless, immaterial, energyless, inexperienced, unconditioned absolute reality.

[Breakingthewall]

7 minutes ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

Dude, you can call it mind, consciousness, intelligence, reality, existence, this, God, John Wayne... what does it matter which name you give it?

Matter a lot. If you call it mind, it's for a reason. we are trying to understand the nature of reality. Why something exists instead of nothing is obvious: due to the absence of limits. Why there is limited appearance instead of only unlimited absolute it also happens because of the absence of limits. nothing limits god to create itself in the infinite absolute. God is the mind that creates the experience by being the experience, but it is limited since it is mind as soon as it imagines something, if it stops imagining, it disappears, it is not absolute. the infinite primordial absolute is mindless. it just is, is everything, and it includes god 

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

8 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Matter a lot. If you call it mind, it's for a reason. we are trying to understand the nature of reality. Why something exists instead of nothing is obvious: due to the absence of limits. Why there is limited appearance instead of only unlimited absolute it also happens because of the absence of limits. nothing limits god to create itself in the infinite absolute. God is the mind that creates the experience by being the experience, but it is limited since it is mind as soon as it imagines something, if it stops imagining, it disappears, it is not absolute. the infinite primordial absolute is mindless. it just is, is everything, and it includes god 

This is what the mind loves to do... chasing its own tail.

It's all much ado about Nothing, if you ask me.

[Moksha]

44 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Maybe i didn't explain good. What if there is nothing definite, just the infinity formless without any limitation. Is it  a mind?

You're correct, the absolute is infinite, limitless and indefinite. Form and formless are just dualities within the dream, god awareness is beyond both.

This is what happens when words try to explain the inexplicable. They turn away in fear. Let's call it Nameless Mystery ftw 

[Moksha]

14 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

if it stops imagining, it disappears, it is not absolute. the infinite primordial absolute is mindless. it just is, is everything, and it includes god 

There's a difference between disappearing and being beyond the illusion of appearance. The absolute is awareness, which doesn't appear or disappear. Any appearance or disappearance isn't real. Directly look inside yourself and see.

[Dazgwny]

1437 responses! The triggering of his statement has shown him exactly where the majority of his audience is at. No wonder he hasn’t posted a video in 2 months or so. He’s probably giving you lot some time to catch up. To watch some of his older videos on repeat ? until yous actually take them in, understand them, and do some WORK regarding them. It’s no wonder either he tried to remove the solipsism video. Reason being immaturity. And that wasn’t meant in a practical humanely or intellectual sense, although paradoxically to a degree it was, but more the immaturity in a spiritual sense. I’d slow down myself too if I felt I was talking to someone about something and it felt like I was talking to a brick wall. He must feel that way sometimes, maybe a lot of the time. Time to GET IT, or be left behind

[Water by the River]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

12 hours ago, Water by the River said:

All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the Universal Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong too the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, traces, and comparisons."

 according to my current understanding, which is recent and surely must be quite nuanced, reality is not a mind, it is the total infinity that it is. total infinity gives rise to a mind that has attributes such as intelligence and will, which limits and creates forms getting blind to the infinity and creating the finite. this mind is also limited in some way because if it were not, it would not create limitation. Ultimately, the absolute is undifferentiated, infinite, and total, without creation or activity.

First, I am in full alignment with everything Moksha said. That description is precise, beautiful, and doesn't have the problem that many other pointers have.

That said: I would have probably never gotten it from the usual very concise pointers. Maybe I would have, but much much later. Of that I am convinced.  Looking back after got it, its totally clear what is meant with these pointers.

What is written below would have helped me quite a lot back in the day. So excuse the length please.

Topic 1: Why does Huang Po use Universal Mind? Why is Infinite or Absolute a better pointer, althoug Universal Mind/Infinite Consciousness is still correct?

Better Pointer is: Infinite Reality. Absolute. Because no object/appearance = No Awareness. Infinite. Empty. Nothingness. Similiar to Deep Sleep. Not exactly the same, but by definition "one" is still existing then, else one wouldn't come back in the morning. And one can't say what Infinite Reality is, because it is infinite. Infinite Reality IS. So best pointer is: Infinite Reality. Nothingness. Not yet awareness or mind. But:

Infinite Reality has the potential/capacity for sentience/awareness. As soon as something shows up, then its no longer Infinite. Massaros water pistol example of a waterpistol just appearing in Infinite Vastness (which was "the case" before the water pistol/anything showed up.  The potential for awareness just showed up as awareness, because an object and duality appeared.

So because of this potential for sentience/Awareness, one can describe IT as Universal Mind, Infinite Consciousness/Awareness. But even more precise is Infinite Reality/Nothingness. Because without anything appearing, it isn't really a mind. It is IT. Infinite. But also not different from Impersonal Infinite Consciousness/Awareness.

It all depends on the meaning of the concepts/pointers.

Wolinsky goes the hardcore-path: The Absolute/Infinity Reality/True You is NOT Awarnesness nor Consciousness. He described Awareness/Consciousness as Awareness OF, Consciousness OF. And rejects Awareness/Consciousness  as Absolute. Because for him its always Awareness OF, Consciousness OF. Which is not incorrect, see the Water Pistol example. That is also correct.

Same does Andrew Halaw, and his pointer Nothingness.

So the problem with Awareness is: There is always (!) an Awareness OF, even if its a subtle formless object, like certain causal states. An infinite darkness suffused with light. Ok, what is the light? Ah,... .

Without the OF (or the object appearing), Awareness is still there, but more as potential. Infinite. Or Nothing/empty. These Dualities collapse then. And that is the most important meaning of all of it. At the Absolute and Infinite Reality, any duality or any pointer just collapses. Infinite. Empty/Nothing specific. Potential for Awareness. And all of that not different things, but ONE without a second, Infinite. Real Nondual Infinite.

 

Topic 2: And then, the separate-self, the self-reflective mind: Looking AT something thinking it is one self, or looking over its shoulds trying to see itself, and generating an EXPERIENCE of emptiness/Nothingness/Awareness/blank/whatever. JUST AN EXPIRIENCE, not real you/Infinite/Absolute.

And next challenge is: The separate-self is a self-reflexive movement in Infinite Reality: Consciousness turning its head back to see itself, doesn't see itself of course, has an EXPERIENCE of Nothingness/emptiness/Infinity. And this LOOKING over its shoulder IS the Illusion of the separate self, of the self-reflective mind. And that movement of looking over its shoulds happens IN Infinite Reality/IN Infinite Consciousness. And all doubting/searching/reflecting/thinking that is it/what is it/that is not/do I have it/do I understand it.... ALL of that is "movement" within Infinite Consciousness, OBJECTS appearing, staying, disappearing. Moving within oneself. And even the understanding/realization/Enlightenment happens within it, within Pure Impersonal Infinite Consciousness/Infinite Reality that can be unaware of itself.

One never can get "out" of this Infinite.

And Infinite Reality is NEVER and object. It is not the experience of "oneself" or anything within it TRYING to see itself (the eye can't see itself). 

Jac O'Keffe: Primary Consciousness (her term for Infinite Reality and Infinite Consciousness) IS SUCH A FUNDAMENTAL that it CANT TURN AROUND AND SEE ITSELF. Cant look back over its shoulder to see itself. That would be a movement within it.

Please watch this video a few times:

"Primary Consciousness (Infinite Consciousness) is such a fundamental it CANT SEE ITSELF."

Ok, I am rambling on. Please go through the links & video a few times. There are enough pointers in there to really get it.

And sorry guys if it is so long. I can't make it shorter and still get the meaning across with any reasonable chance. If anybody can make it shorter, and still get the complexity of it across, please let me know. You get a few free beers from me while you explain me how to do it shorter. 

I also can do the frog pond plop, or Infinite Mind, or whatever in a one liner. Just probably nobody will get it.,, The way above, probably also nearly nobody will get it. Takes awakened states. But maybe some who are on the edge will, and others will have a better map up the mountain, and will spot and get what to do/where to go at certain stages.

Bon voyage!

Selling Water by the River

[Yimpa]

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

I prefer awareness or god or absolute, but it is the same regardless of the name. It is infinite reality, within and beyond imagination, whatever you call it.

Capitalize the G or you’re going to hell

[Moksha]

@Water by the River Keep the epic train rolling 

Mystics describe it differently, but for whatever reason, I see the absolute as light. The idea that the absolute is blind doesn't resonate for me.

I agree with the problem of describing the absolute as anything OF. It is not aware OF anything, as this would imply the subject-object duality of the dream. Every OF dissolves in the absolute ocean.

It reaches the point where words simply fail, and only direct realization suffices. Below are a few pointers:

[I experienced] the direct, total awareness, from the inside, so to say, of Love as the primary and fundamental cosmic fact…I was this fact; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that this fact occupied the place where I had been.
- Aldous Huxley

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi swaha!
Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond all going [please don't slay me, gladiator], offering the heart-mind to the fire of awareness!
- Buddhist Heart Sutra (final mantra)

The Self, pure awareness, shines as the light within the heart, surrounded by the senses. Only seeming to think, seeming to move, the Self neither sleeps nor wakes nor dreams.
- Katha 4.1.7

Keep the "I am" in the focus of awareness, remember that you -are-, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious. Once free to mingle, the two become one and the one becomes all. The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost, only its limitations are lost.
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.

There is no duality. Your present knowledge is due to the ego and is only relative. Relative knowledge requires a subject and an object, whereas the awareness of the Self is absolute and requires no object.

- Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Water by the River]

Lovely Pointers. Thanks for the post.

8 hours ago, Moksha said:

The idea that the absolute is blind doesn't resonate for me.

Yes, words fail. I don't mean to describe the Absolute as blind in any way. That is not its nature. If any, its nature IS Awareness, at its core. But too much "its" in this sentence of mine, and Awareness is not any "thing" being pointed to, despite the word awareness is a noun.

One can go via the via negativa path: Nothingness. Or with positive description of properties or potential or "doing": Awareness. Potential for sentience. Or Awareness of perceptions perceiving themselves.

At the end, "it" is empty, aware, nondual, infinite, all there is. And the Infinite Reality beyond all appearance. And IT is ones True Self. Nondual, Infinite. One without a second. Pure Impersonal Infinite Consciousness, Infinite Reality itself. Unchanging, Silent, eternal, unchanging, unmoving, without "anything" being possibly outside of it (infinite).

So all "via negative", not this not that. And its potential or essence of Awareness. But Awareness is a "loaded" concept, see below. The negative concept are more uncritical.

Nothing is as close to the divine as silence.

And Nothingness as pointer for example covers Deep Sleep quite well. While describing the Absolute only as Awareness would cause probably some hard time understanding it for a non-enlightened being, since the experience/"memory" of it is different.

As long as one can intuit right now what is still present in Deep Sleep, which can not not be there, it aligns again.

 

 

Nothingness, as defined by Andrew Hawal, God is Nothingness. A pointer I personally like a lot. No danger of "solidfying" it as some kind of thing, or not empty consciousness. And "the" Awareness, or potential for it, clearly stil there

Appendix I of "God is Nothingness"
Some readers may be wondering why I say that awareness is not the Absolute, despite the fact that so many ancient scriptures and eminent teachers say that they are identical. For instance, Nisargadatta taught that consciousness is rooted in (and therefore limited to) the physical human form, while awareness transcended the individual body and was actually the Absolute—that everything is Universal Consciousness.

This is more of an instructive approach than a philosophical commitment. If pressed as to whether the Absolute is awareness or not, I would say, like Huang Po did, that, “Mind is not mind, yet neither is it no-mind.”

In Nothingness, there is some degree of awareness present—it is not how most people imagine brain death—albeit unconditioned, object- and subjectless. The Consciousness (for lack of a better word) of Non-being is so subtle that the moment we try to reflect upon it to check if we are conscious, we are jarred back into ‘being’ and into our ordinary dualistic consciousness. I hesitate even to call this experience “pure subjectivity,” for that invites a metaphysical position that I am not willing to support.

In the end, to paraphrase Socrates, all that I know is Nothing.

This Consciousness has shed all of the characteristics that people normally identify with awareness, such as perspective, spatial and temporal contexts, objects, ownership, etc. Yet, if there were no awareness, then it would be impossible to differentiate the numinous Nothingness from how people conventionally conceive of blankness or being comatose.

Personally, I think that differentiating between Nothingness and consciousness is helpful, and that is my ultimate goal—to help people realize Non-being or Absolute Consciousness. At that point, I can care less whether people call it Nothingness, God, Brahman, Buddha Nature, One Mind, Universal Consciousness, or a kangaroo.

Names at that point, after the Absolute has been realized, are insignificant."

 

 

8 hours ago, Moksha said:

It reaches the point where words simply fail, and only direct realization suffices. 

Yes, and that needs to be added.

8 hours ago, Moksha said:

I see the absolute as light.

I can understand why you write that.

 

All Pointers at the end are not it, but arise in it.

Probably some resonate more with certain pointers than with others.

We are all just starting communicating that. There are no studies showing which pointers work better for which practitioner. And that should be the goal: To get the maximum number of people to get "it". Of course not in a grasping way.

So, I can just state the Pointers that worked for me. And for other practitioners wired similiar as me, probably could work too. And try to intuit which pointers probably work for the largest number of beings. 

Anyway, as we both know, the bliss & love these awakened nondual states of Pure Infinite Consciousness bring, leading to a drowning of the activities and self-contraction of the separate self, conversing about pointers arising within IT is just some minor nuisance that one just does to be able to communicate it at least a bit.

I do have a faible for trying to align the pointers of different systems/traditions/teachings. Being able to explain which mystic used which pointer (and some are quite contradicting, for example the topic of Its Awareness vs. Awareness is not it), and what he/she means with the concepts. If for example using the term/pointer/concept "Awareness", there is a huge spectrum ranging from Awareness OF, to Pure witnessing Awareness to Nondual Unity Awareness to Infinite boundless timeless Awareness....

And that faible for aligning the pointers of different systems comes from having needed to do that on the path. My path. And there many many paths up the mountain, and many many pointers.... 

Ah, UnbornTao, please hit me. Seems I can't write short posts.

Water by the River

Edited May 31, 2023 by Water by the River

[Leo Gura]

There is only one thing: MIND. It can be actively dreaming, or it can be at rest, but it is still MIND.

If you say there is something other than Mind, then you created duality, since now you've got Mind and not-mind. So just expand your notion of Mind to include EVERYTHING, including Nothing.

A TV is still a TV even if it's set to off. Think about it.

Anything you say isn't MIND, I will say is MIND. Until you get that it's all ONE MIND, YOUR MIND.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Moksha]

@Water by the River ⚡Infinite boundless timeless Awareness. I like that (with the small request to change the A to a)  

Every name is a sword that people can cut themselves with, if not careful. It's one reason I try not to even capitalize (@Yimpa) any pointer that I use to describe the absolute. You're right that awareness can be misleading for many people, because the natural inclination is to apply it conceptually, on the relative level.

The polarities of negative (Eastern) and positive (Western) spirituality are collectively a powerful pointer to the absolute, which is beyond both. Eastern mystics see god as emptiness, Western mystics see god as abundance. Both are right, but the absolute is beyond emptiness and abundance.

It is a conceptually impenetrable mystery. How does the mind grasp spirit? It is only directly seen by letting go of all knowledge, and becoming small enough to pass through the silent gate of absolute realization.

Edited May 31, 2023 by Moksha

[Breakingthewall]

The absolute is indescribable and unthinkable for the simple reason that it is absolute. any description is contrast, that is, limit.

[gettoefl]

there in Mind and mind, mind is an object in Mind, Mind is all this, mind is what an ego uses to create and dream all day and at night to practice itself being Mind so that (baby) mind grows up to be (daddy) Mind ... my dreams give me a taste of being what i am destined to become; they motivate the apparent small me to wake up and be the actual real me

[Yimpa]

Silly humans…

Nobody here is AWAKE because this is an INFINITE DREAM