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Thread: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

  1. Link to Post #2761
    Avalon Member TraineeHuman's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Hi Ernie,

    I don't have an interest myself (particularly in recent years) in saying things about spirituality that aren't based on my own experience(s), or extrapolated from that experience as some kind of an explanation of it. So, then, based on my experience (in the real world), the only way to become free of any particular form or kind of suffering is through joy and acceptance of it. In other words, the suffering essentially dissolves (or dissolves within several minutes) even as I'm experiencing it. Or else, I'm certainly not free of that particular area of suffering yet.

    It would seem to me, then, that the only way to get free of this "vale of suffering" would be, as I say, through being able to maintain joy and positive mood even in the midst of all suffering. No sour grapes about it. I don't see how one could do that with the point of view that suffering is too terrible to re-experience it. Rather, the point of view should be, surely, that one can re-experience it and not be defeated or wounded by it at all, but one no longer needs to do so, because there are other things to do, or not-do.

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    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Thank you for replying to what truly amounted to a non-sequitur.

    So I'll drop the drama...to reply.

    The point I am trying to make is that it is this world that sours my experience, that if it was a world of our own choosing it would be otherwise. It is the travesties of this life that assault my sensibilities. The unfairness, the pain. And the knowledge that this world could be a place of joy in a matter of days, if that was the intent. But it is not. And so here we are.

    I do not pretend to know the intent of the Creator. But it is obvious this world was intended. And so I rile against the idea that such a world is a place in which I belong, but I must since here I am.

    Blind, I turn to look but cannot see. Deaf, I hear a call that is not there. Mute, I utter a plea and silence ushers forth.

    Like that.
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Ultimately, I find the ones who see the most, have the most pain for the injustice in this world.
    But, I try to flip it and think.."Well, what if we were sent here with amnesia, to somehow help the situation."

    Perhaps, if we had full recall of who we are and why we are here, we could be tortured for information or otherwise blow our cover. Look what happened to Jesus. He knew his full power and connection to source. I like to think this is a different way to help.

    I say this, because I have had some recall of our true nature or mine specifically, but was not allowed to fully remember or hold on to that knowledge.

    Thus, I am just an average girl who is seen as a bit kooky. You know, the Fool. If it's for the greater good, I'm all in and I can handle this.
    "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone when we are uncool." From the movie "Almost Famous""l "Let yourself stand cool and composed before a million universes." Walt Whitman

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    I a long time ago I came to the realization that there is no hell or heaven. Those concepts are a
    construct of religion trying to control the people they were assigned to "shepherd" and keep in line.

    There may be an existence beyond our physical lives after many reincarnations when we reach an
    enlightened state butt that's a maybe also.

    There is evidence, according to Dr. Ian Stephenson, that reincarnation does indeed exist, but
    that does not tell us a lot. That could be the way things are and we do not know why.

    Have we lived many lives and not have clue as to what we experienced? In all reality we just
    don't know.

    Is there a god, maybe yes and maybe no. If yes, that god could be totally different to anything
    we can imagine.

    I try to keep an open mind to all possibilities.
    Question Everything, always speak truth... Make the best of today, for there may not be a tomorrow!!! But, that's OK because tomorrow never comes, so we have nothing to worry about!!!

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  9. Link to Post #2765
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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Let's assume that in reality everything truly is one. Also let's assume that you yourself are in touch with full reality (or, is it that you are really and permanently consciously merged into full reality?) , so much that you know that this total oneness is the truth, and the whole truth.

    Then I need to respectfully point out that actually, in that case, you don't know what "one" means. Why not? Well, to see this we need to build up a picture of the implications of utter oneness. Firstly, if all there is is one, the one, the oneness, then anything, and everything, other than "the one", or "oneness", is an illusion, and non-existent. In other words, it's not "one" as in contrast to "two" or as in contrast to anything else, is it?

    "Oneness", then, because of this, is in many respects a stand-alone concept . Here, reality is the one without a second. No need for any other concept -- or, at the very least, definitely not any other numbers-wise concept. Paradoxically, though, it seems to me this stand-alone quality of that concept (the concept of the one) flatly and totally contradicts the quality of ultimate boundless interaction and inter-relation and fertility -- i.e., the manyness --, which is what that concept is presumably intended by you to be pointing at when you speak of oneness (because you're saying, of course, that the one is the all, an all which to us seems supremely interactive by its very nature, and even necessarily so).

    Let me put this point a slightly different way. If there is only oneness, then you just don't really know twoness or separation, at all. Not really. Instead, everything must in some sense or subtle fashion be very tightly glued together, in a way rather like sticky toffee. And it would be just too confusing to have two notions (such as "oneness" and "twoness") referring to exactly the same thing or phenomenon. So, the "one" here must be very different in meaning from the number "one" we know in daily life when we do our shopping or our paperwork, where it always points towards the possibility of "two". That's because here, there isn't even any possibility of "two". But -- to go a step further -- I suggest it's also even misleading to talk of "the one" at all here, in the "space" of nothing-but-one. It would be more accurate -- or, at least, more clear -- to instead use a phrase like "all existence" or "all reality" -- something that we don't even imagine there could ever be two of, because it would be impossible by the very definition of the words and concepts.

    This brings me to asking certain questions about how people who describe themselves as "nondualists" live. For instance, it seems to be the case their actions make it clear that they do after all know, and respect, the existence of physical separation. I question, though, whether many such individuals really have fully integrated the oneness with "the illusion" in their daily lives. In my adolescence and before, and in my twenties, I had many experiences of what was clearly profound oneness in some sense. At sixteen I would ponder what it might really mean to apparently know, as it seemed I did, that I was the universe and I was God and so on. And I would also, for example, wonder about how to solve the problem that it seems impossible to find a "before" in relation to something "before:" the whole of linear time. Then I gradually realized, more and more, over a period of years, that what it was really all about was just integrating the Divine, the One, into ordinary experience. Then I realized that no, it was really about integrating the soul or the spirit into the same. (This is also why I expect experiences with drugs won't do it for anyone. Because it's all about integration into ordinary everyday life, and not escaping, at all, in many ways.) But many of the nondualists seem to insist on believing that the ordinary is an illusion, and it seems to me they thereby miss the whole point, and the true benefits. Don't get me wrong. I certainly don't mind someone saying that the truest reality is oneness -- as long as they every day continuously keep living what they're saying.
    Last edited by TraineeHuman; 15th November 2019 at 00:09.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    The only way oneness is real is if we share one mind. If we share one mind this must be one heck of a large mind. And if we live in a mind scape this reality is truly an illusion but so is every experience of individuality.

    If we exist in the mind of a great being, are we even real?
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    How far can one take their individuality before it clashes with the collective? How far can god take the notion of plurality? God is One, to make any sense. Why does god need two, or even contemplate the many, when clearly there can be no such things?

    TH touches on it when writing,
    Quote I question, though, whether many such individuals really have fully integrated the oneness with "the illusion" in their daily lives. In my adolescence and before, and in my twenties, I had many experiences of what was clearly profound oneness in some sense.
    It seems that it is the context in which one places such a sense of oneness that makes a difference. TraineeHuman goes on to say,
    Quote Then I gradually realized, more and more, over a period of years, that what it was really all about was just integrating the Divine, the One, into ordinary experience. Then I realized that no, it was really about integrating the soul or the spirit into the same.
    Imagine a condition whereby even thought is one, is so comprehensive that it has no counter or opposite - we cannot. And yet we can because we are exactly that!

    There are two interconnected thought trains that are required in order for our reality to sprout forth. The first is the grainier of the two. It is the idea of a finite realm, where all is separate and unique. The second is of a finer quality and represents the larger realm of the infinite.

    These thought trains inter-mesh, and flesh out the notion, making it seem more real and profound. Yet the entire finite realm is a mere infinitesimal sum spanning a mere instant in duration, surrounded and suffused by infinity.

    And here it might be seen that it is the confusion between infinity and eternity that allows the error in perception, both physical and intellectual, to occur. Infinity is a description of an impossibility in terms of our accepted state.

    It is as though there are these reality bubbles that surround each individual, protecting the individual from the truth of their environment and willfully upholding the illusion of their separate selves.

    This 'bubble' is the miracle.

    That these 'bubbles' float about totally unmindful of a larger existence is the mystery.

    To try and unravel these inter-meshing thought trains is to totally unravel the 'reality' we experience.

    Into what does the 'bubble' expand or extend when it no longer insulates the perceiver from the perceived?

    Is there a 'largest' 'bubble' that includes god?

    How far can god go with the notion of plurality before god ends up with the notion of YOU?
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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  14. Link to Post #2768
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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Hi again, Ernie,
    If one is going to be accurate (despite some of my posts), I claim that the essence of all reality, and of all that's important in it, is, if you like, totally verb-like (or relational) and not noun-like (object-like, or subject-like) at all. That's one thing I eventually realized I had seen with certainty a long time ago. Throw out all objects and subjects, as far as practicable. (Of course, though, in our everyday lives there are practical reasons why we need to rather seriously play the subject and object charade.)

    The problem here, for me, is that God ("god") as you evidently would conceive it/him/her seems, to me , to be sometimes an object (even "oneness" is an object, albeit an abstract one), and sometimes a subject that, however, gets implicitly objectized just about every time anyone speaks about it. And, I claim again, objects (and subjects) are anathema if you want to get a truer account of reality.

    Eventually I learnt that the philosopher A. N. Whitehead was one Westerner who discovered this and clarified it I think over a hundred years ago, in quite Western language. Traditional Zen Buddhism was kind of doctrinally almost based on it, though, very sadly, I find that most (but not all) Western Zen "Masters" don't seem to me to really understand it, far as I can tell. But what can you do? At least the top-level Tibetans understand perfectly that the true essence of Buddhism is the interrelations, the interconnections, of absolutely all things.

    My post #2649 in this thread, if you ignore the first two paragraphs (which unfortunately were on a different topic), describes the relational metaphysics as far as I originally worked it out.

    Maybe it's useful to think of "the intuition" here. The intuition starts from, or patly operates from, a very wholistic perception. The intuition, when developed and used accurately, and sufficiently, has a higher (or deeper) type of understanding That's why we tend to feel "completed" by it. So, the intuition (which functions in a verblike way in spite of being labelled by a noun) can be a kind of bridge towards seeing beyond the subject/object illusion.
    Last edited by TraineeHuman; 21st December 2019 at 07:34.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    The last time I had a full-blown trans-personal experience I was in an altered state for almost two weeks. I cannot even remember what it felt like except to say I was absolutely certain, and so full of love I oozed the stuff. I missed most of the connections and totally missed the repercussions. I could have performed incredible miracles, and I guess I did do some bits of magic, but I was completely taken with the feel of the experience, and not so much the intellectual meaning of it - the things it implied...
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    From my point of view, Ernie, you're seeing (and I don't mean intellectually seeing) that state of bliss, that you've just described, as supposedly exceptional (and "altered"). Exceptional rather than normal and everyday and already your true state that you (the many false parts of you) have been very laboriously hiding from yourself since early childhood-- and that are still present in you, but locked away and hidden, whenever you get in a mundane or stressful or "boring" or painful situation.

    It sounds to me like your next step (congratulations!) would be to slowly learn to inject that same profound bliss and contentment more and more fully. and within fewer and fewer minutes, and for longer and longer, into all those "unspecial" if not "anti-special" situations. This is a gradual and long process, but that's the next stage.

    By the way, if you experience sustained bliss like that for two weeks, what always happens is that within the next year or two if not earlier, the Universe will kind of slap you in the face by throwing the opposite state at you. That will leave you feeling "lost", like someone adrift in the ocean in a heavy storm without a raft or lifejacket or lifebuoy. In my next post I'll try to briefly describe, in general terms, how one gradually saves oneself from that.

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    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    That experience was 14 years ago. It is barely a memory.

    Since, I feel I have been under constant attack, barring me from further attempts for fear of being forcibly stopped.

    But it is also that I fear my own power. I fear the responsibility. I fear the change it represents. I even fear that I will have to become what I do not want to be - a martyr and a holy man...eschewing the fruits of this world.

    When I get the message of the wonders I could achieve I immediately ask, 'what about me?', 'what's in it for me?'. The reply is not what I want to hear. Although of course it is about me, I'm told, the adults need to tend to the children - and most are but children in this world. So I'm told to want nothing and accumulate nothing and not covet anything here. My reward is in another place at another time, I'm told.

    I'm tired of being told to value the (p)light of others more than my own. And that my own blazing light must first burn away the thing I believe I am - that is the plight I find myself in.

    I am afraid of failing, like I have in this mundane world as a little peon of no import. I have learned failure is my plight. I'd rather not try at something so important and fail - in my mind it is better just to know I probably couldn't have succeeded anyway.

    But the little world I have carved out for myself is coming undone. I cannot hold at bay the forces that try and undermine my efforts. My bubble of safety has been breeched and my woman is the first to suffer. Of course she is, I have focused all my energy on her. But as her health finally fails because of my lack of power and faith I see I will soon be forced into the world again where chaos will consume me.

    My time has come and gone.
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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  22. Link to Post #2772
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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    I'd like to make some comments about one or two of the things involved in making a certain transition. The transition I'm concerned with is from having the kind of experience Ernie described in post #2769 only on rare or special occasions, such as during and following a meditation retreat, to something in the end within one's reach daily.

    Firstly, all the Indian gurus (including even Krishnamurti) unfortunately described the essential basis, the foundation, of true meditation as being a state of "no thinking". These days we're able to measure, though, that the most proficient meditators and psychic healers quickly bring the thought waves in their brain down to half a cycle per second. But then, the flow of electricity throughout the brain doesn't get any stiller than that. And we know for a fact that whenever there's a flow of electric current, thoughts are going on there.

    So, let me suggest it's certainly more accurate and much less confusing to say that the basis of meditation is a state of something like holding no opinions, or no judgments, or no interpretations, at all. Indeed, on closer examination we find that by "no thoughts" the Indian gurus really mean merely not having our primary focus of attention or concentration on the thoughts going on inside us, or not on their rational content.
    I once made a list of more than fifty different commonly used instructions, each of them considered to be supposedly describing the basis or essence of meditation. Of these, one of the ones that I find particularly informative is the one that's well-known to have been the meditation instruction the Buddha had most often preferred to give. This was the instruction to simply let everything be just exactly as it is. I find this revealing because it implies both having no opinions at all (no judgments, no interpretations, no identity) regarding whatever is going on inside one, but also no opinions regarding whatever is going on, or that one is in any way aware of going on, in the world around one.

    Once one becomes skilful at consciously entering into and "holding" that no-opinions state, one discovers more and more that this is a state of greater (higher, deeper) understanding. Not only that, but one eventually discovers that one can begin to enter that no-opinions state briefly while in the midst of a difficult situation in everyday life. And that out of the no-opinions state there kind of spontaneously comes joy, or bliss, and creative, constructive, positive solutions that apply to the everyday situations, and that you can quickly bring in to those situations and transform them. But that usually takes many years to develop.

    Early in this thread, various individuals would describe parts of their dreams and usually try to present their own interpretation of a dream's meaning, or try to analyze what the meaning might be. I instinctively knew that something big was completely missing there. But at the time I couldn't work out exactly what. Later on, after considerable reflection, I came to the following conclusion. As I've explained, one can only access one's higher understanding (and therefore a proper interpretation of a dream) by going into the no-opinions state first. And no-opinions does mean absolutely no opinions. (By contrast, notice that the individuals who'd had a dream would often be eager and in a hurry to form their opinion about what it meant first, before looking at anything further.) That no-opinions state involves a kind of entry into "nothingness", though I consider that "everythingness" would be a more accurate term to use with Westerners. In "everythingness", one gains access to a higher kind of seeing, a seeing of all possibilities at once simultaneously, in perfect balance with one another. Out of this very big picture one becomes able to see the real truth about one's own situation, or about the broad interpretation of one's own particular dream, and to then apply that back in the world of opinions and judgments and identities. After all, most "skills" in any line of work do necessarily involve the making of judgments and decisions of various kinds, and of forming certain opinions about what's required at various times.

    If one learns to cultivate the no-opinions state readily and deeply enough, from my experience it will eventually become something that intertwines with more and more of one's daily life. That intertwining also needs to be cultivated extensively enough and in an enormous variety of situations. The experience will no doubt eventually seem to become more "ordinary" and less spectacular, once one at long last no longer needs to kind of super-dramatize going into one's true deeper state of being.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    There was a time, in my early thirties, when for the first time ever, I found myself living alone. I did not like it. I was just getting over my divorce and settling into single-fatherhood. I began to obsess over my next significant other. Who I wanted her to be. I remember pacing round and round my apartment, for hours at a stretch, every day for weeks, considering the qualities I wished her to have. Even down to physical appearance, including red hair.

    It would be about 18 months later that this exact woman came into my life, right down to the demeanor, profession, and red hair!

    With all the rationalizing, with all my experience, with all my wisdom (ya, right), she would not be the one, although I was with her for almost ten years.

    And then after a great deal of chaos, a woman with almost the exact opposite qualities would become the one. Go figure.

    For all of our intellectual prowess, imagined or otherwise, there is a source that knows best. And when we are thinking our rational thoughts, that source merely observes and remains silent...but give it room, give it an ear, or merely stay out of its way to let happen the marvels it can manifest.
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Apparently I need to explain again (though I did so in 2013) what I mean in this thread by "descension". This term is very familiar to initiates above a certain level equally in both the Western and the Eastern esoteric traditions.

    Firstly, in such traditions the term "ascension" normally refers to the individual rising of consciousness to a higher level. As one develops spiritually, there may come the point where one experiences apparent union with the entire universe. This is known as "the top of the first mountain (or of the white mountain)".

    Following that experience, the next step for the individual is to bring a finer level of awareness (of understanding and empathy) progressively down to the levels of consciousness one has risen up: -- the spirit level, then the soul or intuitive level, then the mental level, then the emotional, then the physical, then the subconscious. At the mental and emotional levels there is some healing and reduction of one's traumas and conditioning, and also all the more so at the subconscious level.

    As I explained in post #2745, properly doing this at the physical level involves (the genuine variety of) kundalini experience, which often lasts for months or years continuously and in the end leaves the direction of flow of energy vertically through the front of the body, and in certain other areas of the body, permanently reversed.

    Descension into the sub-conscious means reaching he foot of the first mountain and also the foot of the second mountain, which is the first of the "golden" mountains.

    One's continued evolvement involves "climbing" up and down the two golden (or divine) mountains. As far as I understand, once one has got through descension through the physical level of the third mountain, one has the option to remain physically immortal for as long as one wishes. One does this by generating a youngish new body whenever desired.

    Various individuals, both Eastern and Western, are considered to have done this. In India today, with the advent of the internet many consider that Sri Babaji, the inventor of kriya yoga, is at least seven thousand years old. This is because there has been an unbroken chain on record of Babaji having taught kriya yoga to one guru, and that guru's guru, and the latter's guru, in a verifiably unbroken sequence for thousands of years. There is also considerable anecdotal evidence that the Buddha resurrected himself for quite a considerable number of years.

    In the West there has been a somewhat similar story with "St. Germain", who is also reputed to have invented sixteenth century alchemy, among other things. Also, in France in the nineteenth century and early twentieth there was a pair of adolescent boys who seemed to never age, over a number of decades, but apparently changed their town of residence every so many years. They always finished first in every subject at school and also in every sport and in all fine arts.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs


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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    My addictions isolate me.

    My smokings require a lot of investment that I am not even aware is transpiring until I suddenly need to focus on something actually truly important. Then my addictions become a nuisance. It feels like I am a slave to these cravings I cannot abate.

    The same can be said of my fears. I invest a lot in my fears. More than I know. They shape who I am.

    Or more accurately they appear to shape who I appear to be.

    Interestingly, the same applies to my true identity.

    My love connects me, and never lets that connection fade even though at times it has been convenient to pretend otherwise. And my knowledge, my conviction especially, is always there to draw on, even when I feel I am bereft. It too is a distraction, when faced with the concerns of this corporeal life. But it is not an addiction, although it behaves the same from my perspective. I have to invest time and effort to assuage the need to love, to stay true to my convictions, to remain aware of my connection to All.

    In the state of bliss, being authentic is effortless.

    Just an observation from recent experience.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    I'm not understanding the "Understanding the self" video. He says that self-realization isn't about becoming your higher self, or super self, or whatever other name you might ascribe to it. He says it's about understanding our human self with all it's warts and imperfections.

    Yeah, ... well, .... I already know that self. I live it every waking second. So, by his definition, we are all self-realized beings by default just by being alive. (Or should I say just by being aware).

    The thing is, I want to go beyond this self-realized aware state and experience a little ... (borrowing the title of this thread), ... "The higher self and transcendent experience, including OBE's". Or, as I mentioned already, maybe I'm totally missing the point of this video.
    I am enlightened, ............ Oh wait. That's just the police shining their spotlights on me.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Hi, Orph. The video above was of Sri M during satsang, so the implication is that he's talking about meditation or the need for meditation, plus the application in real life of some of the skills that get strengthened during meditation.

    Essentially all forms of meditation, as I understand them, involve going into one's subconscious and (whether one at all consciously knows it or not) looking at some of those ugly aspects of one's lower self -- such as those that Ernie has so eloquently described just above. Meditation (most forms of it) always involves looking at one's lower self from a space of no opinions, no judgments, and no interpretations, as I mentioned in a recent post. This is of course kind of the opposite of what Ernie was expressing in the above post. It's kind of saying and energetically holding to: "So what?" to all that, and is also not an intellectual exercise. It takes a long time and strong motivation to keep doing this. One can also at times practise this no-opinions state or position for brief moments in the course of ordinary life. That no-opinions state directly activates some of one's higher faculties. In this way, though, Orph, we may initially only get to using our higher faculties properly by applying them in response to parts of our lower self. Which is as it should be, because that way we learn to be inwardly stronger.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    My addictions isolate me.

    My smokings require a lot of investment that I am not even aware is transpiring until I suddenly need to focus on something actually truly important. Then my addictions become a nuisance. It feels like I am a slave to these cravings I cannot abate.

    The same can be said of my fears. I invest a lot in my fears. More than I know. They shape who I am.

    Or more accurately they appear to shape who I appear to be.

    Interestingly, the same applies to my true identity.

    My love connects me, and never lets that connection fade even though at times it has been convenient to pretend otherwise. And my knowledge, my conviction especially, is always there to draw on, even when I feel I am bereft. It too is a distraction, when faced with the concerns of this corporeal life. But it is not an addiction, although it behaves the same from my perspective. I have to invest time and effort to assuage the need to love, to stay true to my convictions, to remain aware of my connection to All.

    In the state of bliss, being authentic is effortless.

    Just an observation from recent experience.
    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    Thank you for replying to what truly amounted to a non-sequitur.

    So I'll drop the drama...to reply.

    The point I am trying to make is that it is this world that sours my experience, that if it was a world of our own choosing it would be otherwise. It is the travesties of this life that assault my sensibilities. The unfairness, the pain. And the knowledge that this world could be a place of joy in a matter of days, if that was the intent. But it is not. And so here we are.

    I do not pretend to know the intent of the Creator. But it is obvious this world was intended. And so I rile against the idea that such a world is a place in which I belong, but I must since here I am.

    Blind, I turn to look but cannot see. Deaf, I hear a call that is not there. Mute, I utter a plea and silence ushers forth.

    Like that.
    I guess this is a late further part of my response to your post. May I suggest that the only legitimate way out of -- and the lesson that we continually need to "get" from -- any (supposedly) unbearable situation comes through learning how to go through it with full and total acceptance of it. At least, I believe that's step one here. Let me quote Krishnamurti on the subject. (Krishnamurti's position on everything was about 100% pure Buddhism, but updated a little for modern times.)

    "Why are we not capable of looking at the thing exactly 'as is'? Which means that, if we are in pain, let us live with it, look at it, and not try to transform it into something else. If I am in misery, not only physically but especially psychologically, how am I to understand it? By not wishing to be different, surely." True, but to really understand it like that, the part of you that's doing the understanding is immediately right outside the misery game by definition, and it's peacefully watching. This is quite a paradox. Because by truly trying not to escape at all, part of you automatically breaks out of jail, effortlessly, instantly, without even needing to ask.

    Meanwhile, to continue quoting Krishnamurti: "First, I must look at it, I must live with it, I must go into it. I mustn't condemn it, mustn't compare it, wish it to be something else. I must be entirely with that thing, must I not?" Well, yes, except that, again, we are such magical and wholistic beings that our consciousness doesn't ever really allow itself to get boxed into any jail, not fully. Krishnamurti continues: "Which is extremely arduous, because the mind refuses to look at it. It wants to go off at a tangent." Yep, the mind is jealous of whatever things the consciousness does effortlessly. But the mind won't succeed very well here. To continue the quote: The mind "says, 'Let me seek an answer, a solution, there must be one'. In other words, it is escaping from what is. And this escape, with most of us, is what we call search -- search for the Master, search for truth, search for love, search for God ... And, do we have to make an effort to understand what is taking place? We [do, after all,] have to make an effort to escape when we don't want it. But when it is there, to understand it, do we have to make an effort?"

    Krishnamurti is saying here that step two is to understand why we are feeling so uncomfortable or in suffering. And that we get to step two effortlessly, preferably through total acceptance and non-resistance of the situation, which is step one. Going by my own experience, though, I would say that step two is not primarily so much a matter of understanding one's painful situation or feeling. Rather, I would prefer to say it's more a matter, if at all possible for you (for any individual) , of injecting or drawing on the joy of aliveness, or of the I AM. And of in some way blending that into your experience of that situation, so that at least some of the suffering you feel there gets quickly dissolved.

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    Default Re: The Higher Self and transcendent experience, including OBEs

    What happens when you know something?

    What if that something is so simple it is a frustration to comprehend why it is not already known?

    What if you saw that something manifest in an entirely different arena with the exact opposite effect and outcome?

    Look at how quickly certain events galvanize and unify the will of the people. The world can change overnight in such situations. Just look at how quickly the public responded to a world-wide threat, mostly conjured out of thin air.

    Imagine if the public considered unifying in this way with a true cause, insisting on real change. The world could transform overnight for the better.

    That is my message, that is my mission.

    And yet again humanity is on a path to annihilation instead.

    The suffering comes from understanding it is needless, not that it cannot be borne. Being in a body is already a state of suffering, of limitation, of decay and attrition and death. It need not highlight the negative and lead to despair. It could celebrate living and elevate the experience to express and appreciate the beauty and the art of being human.

    That is my pain, a pain much of the astral plane understands to be merely an exercise in futility.

    That is what I know.

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