Enlightenment: The Ego, what is it? How to transcend it.

[Innocent Warrior]

“... the most important concept ever put forth was that matter, ALL matter, with no exceptions, from stone to star to starfish to student to sovereign, is as divine as all else in the cosmos, for all flows from Consciousness, the Word that came before the World - and all, in time, will flow back.”
~ Ki Longfellow

http://img12.deviantart.net/30b8/i/2012/083/1/f/divine_consciousness_by_divinelightangels-d4tqug5.jpg

Image credit. (http://divinelightangels.deviantart.com/art/Divine-Consciousness-291826085)

[greybeard]

Thanks IChingUChing for the interview--well worth viewing--refreshing.
There is a lot of humour and also very down earth--relating to conflict--nuclear war-the effect of the rising consciousness on all this and our future.
I have watched it through and will listen again several times.
Ch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y_O7-PF650

Rachel, thanks also for “... the most important concept ever put forth was that matter, ALL matter, with no exceptions, from stone to star to starfish to student to sovereign, is as divine as all else in the cosmos, for all flows from Consciousness, the Word that came before the World - and all, in time, will flow back.”
~ Ki Longfellow

Basically all is equally Divine, There is no where "God" is not---"Only One without a second"
It seems complex and on one level it is so. BUT its simple--"Be still and know that the "I" is God"--I changed that quote. the I Am
is "I" is "Self"

C

[betoobig]

I do in-joy feeling presence not only in me but in everyone, in every animal, vegetable, mineral or in the "empty" air... everywhere....
SO syncronistic, i was having that feeling just before i logged in.
We are all so conected, beutifull. All is perfect.
Much Love

[Meggings]

As BeTooBig and others above say, we are connected to everything, each other and the Creator. When we judge another as faulty, we judge ourselves. It is well siad here:

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12341343_1056208041077663_1377225557252746056_n.jpg?oh=b018d9b53691b49324592178f7719b2e&oe=56EEF1F5

[Grizz Griswold]

As BeTooBig and others above say, we are connected to everything, each other and the Creator. When we judge another as faulty, we judge ourselves. It is well siad here:

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12341343_1056208041077663_1377225557252746056_n.jpg?oh=b018d9b53691b49324592178f7719b2e&oe=56EEF1F5

What is horror or terror then, when the only real thing here
is, those things you can see with Love?

With Love
b

[joeecho]

Judging puts one in the game. Judging raises one within the game, in thought/ theory, but the one judging is not immune from judgement themselves.

All judge, putting them in a false tower. False because if all are raised all are equally flat.

Welcome to Flatland, where depth is a judgement call.

http://www.funnysigns.net/files/walk-on-water-400x299.jpg

https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/religion-comedian-walking_on_water-bible_stories-disciple-walk_on_water-mlyn603_low.jpg

[greybeard]

Is there a path to awakening?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXl-BMUotwo

[Clear Light]

Is there a path to awakening?

Ah, perhaps for most of us there's a "Path" (Gradual Awakening) for as long as necessary ... until such time as it is no longer needed (Sudden Awakening) ?

[I haven't watched the video BTW]

[greybeard]

Is there a path to awakening?

Ah, perhaps for most of us there's a "Path" (Gradual Awakening) for as long as necessary ... until such time as it is no longer needed (Sudden Awakening) ?

[I haven't watched the video BTW]

In the beginning it seems a path is helpful--then there is the realisation that paths can lead away--elsewhere--out with. The Truth is uncovered within.
Self is Self, eternal and you know you are--you exist. Identification with the story of self is the major barrier to realisation of The Self, that and the thought I am the doer.
The donkey that gets you to the door is not that by which you enter.
Chris

[greybeard]

thanks Heart2hearth for this


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdC4XUo4Vwo&feature=em-share_video_user

[Clear Light]

Is there a path to awakening?

Ah, perhaps for most of us there's a "Path" (Gradual Awakening) for as long as necessary ... until such time as it is no longer needed (Sudden Awakening) ?

[I haven't watched the video BTW]

In the beginning it seems a path is helpful--then there is the realisation that paths can lead away--elsewhere--out with. The Truth is uncovered within.
Self is Self, eternal and you know you are--you exist. Identification with the story of self is the major barrier to realisation of The Self, that and the thought I am the doer.
The donkey that gets you to the door is not that by which you enter.
Chris

Ah, I hope you don't mind Chris, but I've highlighted a few words just in case anybody reading this who isn't quite as "au fait" with the terminology as you are, doesn't see the different usage of a most significant Concept :wink: ... thanks, Simon !

[greybeard]

Thanks Simon--I forget, sometimes, that there is a terminology than I certainly was not aware of not that very long ago.
To be very clear Self is the the Self of Self Realisation not -my self, little self, the personal me.
So the s-S does not seem much but it is a massive transition--the me is transcended, in fact that is the illusion--the me is but a thought, a notion.

[Clear Light]

Thanks Simon--I forget, sometimes, that there is a terminology than I certainly was not aware of not that very long ago.
To be very clear Self is the the Self of Self Realisation not -my self, little self, the personal me.
So the s-S does not seem much but it is a massive transition--the me is transcended, in fact that is the illusion--the me is but a thought, a notion.

Ah, yes, it's why I feel the practices of Meditation / Self-Enquiry are so beneficial because it becomes clear (self-evident) sensations, thoughts, conceptualisation, feelings, emotions etc aren't happening TO someone / somebody ... which is where I suggest the mistaken identification of the Unreal as being the Real occurs ... LOL !

But I'm preaching to the choir here eh ? HaHa ;)

Perhaps the Metaphysical Quandary of our Time is that the vast majority of people alive now have no idea of their illusory Selfhood ? Oh well ...

[Guish]

One shall only see truth when one ceases to see for oneself
One shall be free when one let things come and go
One shall be happy when one stops seeking

[ZooLife]

One shall be happy when one stops seeking

There is nothing to seek yet seeking is an adventure that leads to it's own surprises. Who doesn't enjoy a surprise from time-to-time?

http://desperatelyseekingadventure.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/DSA-Purpose-of-life-dsa4.jpg

http://mindthis.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/burning-man-2013-seeking-adventure.jpg

[greybeard]

Thanks Simon--I forget, sometimes, that there is a terminology than I certainly was not aware of not that very long ago.
To be very clear Self is the the Self of Self Realisation not -my self, little self, the personal me.
So the s-S does not seem much but it is a massive transition--the me is transcended, in fact that is the illusion--the me is but a thought, a notion.

Ah, yes, it's why I feel the practices of Meditation / Self-Enquiry are so beneficial because it becomes clear (self-evident) sensations, thoughts, conceptualisation, feelings, emotions etc aren't happening TO someone / somebody ... which is where I suggest the mistaken identification of the Unreal as being the Real occurs ... LOL !

But I'm preaching to the choir here eh ? HaHa ;)

Perhaps the Metaphysical Quandary of our Time is that the vast majority of people alive now have no idea of their illusory Selfhood ? Oh well ...

Yes Simon. The majority of people are kind hearted but not singing in harmony.
There is discord.
They need a choir master, who's got a baton? Who's up for the Job?

Not me, for sure--- laughing.

Humour gets the better of-----who had that idea?
Where did that thought come from?

Love to all
Chris

[ZooLife]

The ego is the choir master and it would not have a choir/ chorus if it did not do the singing as well. Often times it throws in a discord so that it isn't obvious that it's doing all the work.

It's a one woman (man) band! ;)

http://markweinguitarlessons.com/forums/attachments/band-jpg.18109/

[betoobig]

One being One path
Love

[Clear Light]

Thanks Simon--I forget, sometimes, that there is a terminology than I certainly was not aware of not that very long ago.
To be very clear Self is the the Self of Self Realisation not -my self, little self, the personal me.
So the s-S does not seem much but it is a massive transition--the me is transcended, in fact that is the illusion--the me is but a thought, a notion.

Ah, yes, it's why I feel the practices of Meditation / Self-Enquiry are so beneficial because it becomes clear (self-evident) sensations, thoughts, conceptualisation, feelings, emotions etc aren't happening TO someone / somebody ... which is where I suggest the mistaken identification of the Unreal as being the Real occurs ... LOL !

But I'm preaching to the choir here eh ? HaHa ;)

Perhaps the Metaphysical Quandary of our Time is that the vast majority of people alive now have no idea of their illusory Selfhood ? Oh well ...

Yes Simon. The majority of people are kind hearted but not singing in harmony.
There is discord.
They need a choir master, who's got a baton? Who's up for the Job?

Not me, for sure--- laughing.

Humour gets the better of-----who had that idea?
Where did that thought come from?

Love to all
Chris

Oh, yeah, where DO all these thoughts come from LOL ... however IF one so chooses to "Train their Mind" (somewhat) the difference between having a "Busy" mind to that of having a "Silent" mind is utterly unfathomable unless one has experienced it eh ?

Just imagine : No thoughts, no disturbing emotions, no doubts ... just a natural peace, bliss, contentment, clarity, a certain Knowingness ...

Now I'm not saying this directly to you Chris, it's more of a general observation that "thought" per se isn't actually OUR (as in each of us) best means of navigating Life ... Like sex, I feel it's highly overrated LOL !!!

Seriously though I suppose it's only when we do start to pay attention to our thought processes that it becomes apparent just how much we're not in the present moment and thus not seeing what's right in front of our noses as it is this instant ! Oh well ...


http://www.livingbig.co.uk/upload/img_cache/file-645%23f7b8c5110b408dd8ffa3894a16c8fb4f.jpg

[Guish]

No mind in Zen doesn't really mean no thoughts. All actions come from thoughts. The purpose of meditation is to improve concentration and use "awareness" to choose the right thoughts. Given that we use the right hand side of the brain more, which involves intuition, we think we are not having thoughts. Yet, we are just having spontaneous thoughts.

[greybeard]

Sure Simon, the quiet mind is a bless which I have---thoughts that do come are actually like whispers, compared to the full volume attention seeking ones of some years ago.
The advice of Eckhart Tolle was helpful.
Sit beside a pond and watch the ducks intently with no comment---that worked for me.
That and the advice of my Hypnotherapy teacher "STOP TALKING TO YOUR SELF"
Like there are two voices--the thought that comes and separate is me answering that thought. I dont have to speak to the thought now do I? Smiling.

I enjoy your posts Simon as I do everyone’s--each brings something unique and special that I need to hear.

ACIM says specialness is the last resort of the ego.
However this kind of specialness is not of the ego.

Ramesh Balsekar was very clear on the thought that we are the doer and suggest last thing before sleep to go through the day and see if( completely unaided) we actually did anything.

"Events happen
Deeds are done
There is no doer there of"

No thinker either

[Guish]

Good point Chris. Watching the stillness of nature brings one close to truth which gives this instant calmness you talked about. However, any action can be done with detachment and hence any action can bring peace even in the middle of noise, hatred or aggression.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/12313554_781782351930808_2154439574716190168_n.jpg?oh=c6d091b4d438cd86952aa229ffed834c&oe=56E1C4B9&__gda__=1461570530_90606735127a1112a13213bc15d14c4e

[Clear Light]

"Events happen
Deeds are done
There is no doer there of"

No thinker either

Oh, and therein lies the "mystery" of the illusion of WHO (what) we are eh ? I certainly spent some time tracking down the footprints of the Egoic Ox ...


https://friederishi.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/oxherding.png

[Clear Light]

oh, this one seems relevant especially as the quote is attributed to Tom Baker of Dr. WHO fame haha :sun:


http://spiritual-artwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/82.-Tom-Baker-Friends-are-like-lighthouses-with-the-sources-of.jpg

[greybeard]

Cant help but laugh--some comedian put an American? flag on Englishman Tom Baker's house.
WHO did that!
Thanks for the posts Simon.

c.

[Grizz Griswold]

A new video by Paul Hedderman, just found.
Paul keeps it simple, as usual, some cussing.

3S0H1blsuRU

b

[joeecho]

The mind is like a 'shock and awe' instrument and all have a front row seat to it's wonder.

http://www.tb3.com/tesla/bigcoil/animations/SuperToroid03.gif

[joeecho]

I thought.....

Take away thought, I go away.
Take away I. thought goes away

Nothing is here and nothing went away.

.....or so I thought.

http://cdn.techgyd.com/magic-tricks.jpg

O' thought, you magnificent bastard!

:bigsmile:

[Clear Light]

Oh, such is a Dog's life eh ? Kind of like a Toddler's mind up until the age of about two before the sense of 'I' has become the centre of attention ...


http://www.vetlearning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Mind-Full-or-Mindful.jpg

[joeecho]

Lost in character whether mind Full, or Mindful is still lost in character, no?

So characteristic of me to post such a sentence don't you think?

Shall I stay in character so you know who I am? I wouldn't want to be misidentified. ;)

http://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/animals-with-camera-helping-photographers-18__880.jpg

[Clear Light]

Ah, won't you please tell 'me' who I am ... <wink>

OQfjIw3mivc

[joeecho]

Ah, won't you please tell 'me' who I am ... <wink>

OQfjIw3mivc

I will (ill) not lower myself or this thread to a cartoon.

http://www.snoopn4pnuts.com/images/products/jccard19.jpg

Whoops :)

..................................

Ill and I'll

https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6121/6035421334_08013863cf_b.jpg

Ill-logical

I'll (be) logical.

https://lookingforthesweetspot.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/4125.jpg

[greybeard]

BEING--as its the cosmic dance, consciousness at play, and god at least smiling--I think cartoons are just fine.
We love to play on words here---however the non work still has not to be done by us.

c

[Clear Light]

hehe or how about some Non-attachment ? :sun:


https://41.media.tumblr.com/dd0a5b15697534f84c765c51dc8157f8/tumblr_msx4taUjS11r3oca5o1_500.jpg

[joeecho]

http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-sit-in-reverie-and-watch-the-changing-color-of-the-waves-that-break-upon-the-idle-seashore-of-the-henry-wadsworth-longfellow-114450.jpg

http://blog.octanner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/wave-rip-tide-72dpi.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e6/e4/64/e6e46473c5c1bf30e27928b247022760.jpg

https://authorbeckyjohnen.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/facing-feelings-like-waves.jpg

http://blogs.jccc.edu/astronomy/files/2012/02/Light_dispersion_conceptual_waves.gif

[ZooLife]

http://www.vetlearning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Mind-Full-or-Mindful.jpg

The great thing about mindful-ness is it gives one a moment to see through all the busy work to better put things in perspective.

http://tonsofcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Paper-shredder-down.jpg

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/bc/d7/0e/bcd70e91b680222821babf795a3f61f9.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIB2nkUfeWw

[Clear Light]

BEING--as its the cosmic dance, consciousness at play, and god at least smiling--I think cartoons are just fine.
We love to play on words here---however the non work still has not to be done by us.

c

Hmmm ... so WHO precisely is it to do such non-work eh ? LOL !!!

Oh so conventionally yeah it sure seems like us "people" are busy doing things ... yet Ultimately I suggest things are simply happening to "no-one" other than a Conceptually Constructed Identity !

Ah, now some will say this is just plain absurd however it's highly likely such "individuals" have never examined their own "mind" (thus far) to check the veracity of what they're saying i.e. to identify and locate their own professed self-ness ...

Ha! But never mind all of that ... what's crucial however is whether or not one has noticed their Capacity for being Aware of Awareness ? In a non-Intellectual manner of course !!!

[greybeard]

"It wis nae me" standard Scottish explanation--get out--excuse.

Here is a short but very full Mooji meditation--many pointers here.

Love c



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3CrZ7g3dyc

[Grizz Griswold]

Here is a Scientific approach to Spirituality, by Gary Weber.
Similar to some of Paul Heddermans talks, where He speaks
of not thinking! and the peace of mind that being without
mind chatter brings.

QeNmydIk8Yo

With Love
b

[Guish]

December 08th, 2015

Make no mistake about it; if you do not find it now, you will repeat the same routines for myriad eons, a thousand times over again, following and picking up on objects that attract you.

We are no different from Shakyamuni Buddha. Today, in your various activities, what do you lack? The spiritual light coursing through your six senses has never been interrupted. If you can see in this way, you will simply be free of burdens all your life.

- Lin Chi (d. 867)

[Guish]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/12308587_782976865144690_5749223172124910376_n.jpg?oh=d953a800f54408fbdaece9cf9397c35c&oe=56D66ABB&__gda__=1457719306_a3f173bf99fa3e037663d83a67b3714a

[joeecho]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/12308587_782976865144690_5749223172124910376_n.jpg?oh=d953a800f54408fbdaece9cf9397c35c&oe=56D66ABB&__gda__=1457719306_a3f173bf99fa3e037663d83a67b3714a

This is a five star post!

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53932edce4b04553a42663ee/5393367ce4b081d8ff97590d/55d60475e4b0be109fd9bcc8/1440089554767/?format=1000w

The mind is nothing if not entertaining.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/48/f1/5f/48f15ff7949996f4e65454b4b129fa29.jpg

[joeecho]

If I was awarded a mind as a gift how would I even know I was awarded it because it was 'I' who received it.

I know I know what you're thinking.

He has a 'gifted' mind. :jester:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/90/94/58/9094584be1dc915754249706daa10c46.jpg

[Valley]

The mind is blind, but thinks it sees
The heart is smart, and holds the keys
The I/Eye is why, it has no needs

[Guish]

The less one reacts, the more one acts
The more one feels empty, the less one is corrupted
The less one talks, the more one knows
The more one lets go, the less one suffers

[joeecho]

I left existence and thus the words or other forms of communication to express what I found.

Returning I realize words are for existence in which even nonexistence is existence in another form.


http://quotes.lifehack.org/media/quotes/quote-Jenny-Holzer-the-most-profound-things-are-inexpressible-242201.png

http://img03.deviantart.net/48c1/i/2011/351/7/8/joy_inexpressible_by_littlecynicism-d4jcpom.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn0QBXMYXsM

and 42 years later......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-JQ1q-13Ek

[Enola]

Some great ideas in this thread. I'm trying to get to grips with the concepts of oneness and duality.

It seems as though raising your consciousness to more and more positive constitutes a form of lesser enlightenment. Or, it's closer to the oneness-consciousness than the lower levels, and your personality becomes more transparent for your higher self. But that true salvation first comes when you've lifted yourself out of the world of duality and are safe on the oneness plane.

[StandingWave]

I've been meaning to post this for a while and this seems to be the perfect place and time to do it :)

It's a poem composed by Franklin Merrel-Wolff (www.franklinmerrell-wolff.com) - a mathmatician and modern American mystic, with whom not many seem to be familiar. He experienced the shift into abiding nondual awareness and made an extraordinary record of it in writing 'Experience and Philosophy - A Personal Record of Transformation and a Discussion of Transcendental Consciousness' (http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Merrell-Wolffs-Experience-Philosophy-Transformation/dp/0791419649).

Enjoy!


THE NAMELESS
(October 7, 1936)
Above, below, to right, to left, all-encompassing,
Before and after and all between,
Within and without, at once everywhere,
Transforming and stable, ceaselessly;
Uncaused, while fathering all causes,
The Reason behind all reasoning,
Needing nought, yet ever supplying,
The One and Only, sustaining all variety,
The Source of all qualities, possessing no attributes,
Ever continuous, appearing discrete,
Inexpressible, the base of all expression,
Without number, making possible all number,
Containing the lover and the beloved as one,
Doing nought, remaining the Field of all action—
The actor and the action not different—
Indifferent in utter completion;
Diffused through all space, yet in the Point concentrated,
Beyond time, containing all time,
Without bounds, making bounds possible,
Knowing no change;
Inconceivable, yet through It all conceiving becoming;
Nameless ever and unmastered;
THAT am I, and so art Thou.

[greybeard]

Some great ideas in this thread. I'm trying to get to grips with the concepts of oneness and duality.

It seems as though raising your consciousness to more and more positive constitutes a form of lesser enlightenment. Or, it's closer to the oneness-consciousness than the lower levels, and your personality becomes more transparent for your higher self. But that true salvation first comes when you've lifted yourself out of the world of duality and are safe on the oneness plane.

Thanks for your post Enola and welcome to the thread

Love Chris

¤=[Post Update]=¤


I've been meaning to post this for a while and this seems to be the perfect place and time to do it :)

It's a poem composed by Franklin Merrel-Wolff (www.franklinmerrell-wolff.com) - a mathmatician and modern American mystic, with whom not many seem to be familiar. He experienced the shift into abiding nondual awareness and made an extraordinary record of it in writing 'Experience and Philosophy - A Personal Record of Transformation and a Discussion of Transcendental Consciousness' (http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Merrell-Wolffs-Experience-Philosophy-Transformation/dp/0791419649).

Enjoy!


THE NAMELESS
(October 7, 1936)
Above, below, to right, to left, all-encompassing,
Before and after and all between,
Within and without, at once everywhere,
Transforming and stable, ceaselessly;
Uncaused, while fathering all causes,
The Reason behind all reasoning,
Needing nought, yet ever supplying,
The One and Only, sustaining all variety,
The Source of all qualities, possessing no attributes,
Ever continuous, appearing discrete,
Inexpressible, the base of all expression,
Without number, making possible all number,
Containing the lover and the beloved as one,
Doing nought, remaining the Field of all action—
The actor and the action not different—
Indifferent in utter completion;
Diffused through all space, yet in the Point concentrated,
Beyond time, containing all time,
Without bounds, making bounds possible,
Knowing no change;
Inconceivable, yet through It all conceiving becoming;
Nameless ever and unmastered;
THAT am I, and so art Thou.

Thanks for the post StandingWave and welcome to the thread

Love Chris

[Guish]

https://scontent-sin1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/12313513_784518024990574_6397392139195047645_n.jpg?oh=d041bbc96078b0723bdb38056f76329f&oe=56E79F8D

[joeecho]

One cannot imagine who they are, only who they are not.

No matter whom you imagine yourself to be, you are not that.


http://jonathanfoust.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/YouAreNotWhatYouThink.jpg

[joeecho]

http://emilysquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/EmilysQuotes.Com-life-inspirational-reason-understanding-amazing-great-wisdom-Mark-Twain.jpg

[joeecho]

Reflecting and by doing so saw the trappings of reflection.

http://i.space.com/images/i/000/047/144/original/park-city-utah-star-trails.jpg?1429739750

http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/StarTrails.jpg

http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA4LzE1L2UyL3N0YXJ0cmFpbHM0LjY3MzU1LmpwZw pwCXRodW1iCTg1MHg4NTA-CmUJanBn/1fe1cbba/186/star-trails-4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QF2ce0o.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9YvhBUmc4

Captivating.

[Guish]

https://fbcdn-photos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-0/p480x480/12360056_784517164990660_6368988828753584091_n.jpg?oh=974ea78c40a25385794ab0ed47765e05&oe=56EB2DAB&__gda__=1457991545_4645865d7d624b7bb8b91cdd435676ea

[joeecho]

When imperfection appears complete you know you're in some shi-t. (please excuse the profanity, that is how the sentence came out of my mind. ;) )

http://i.imgur.com/7d3ff.jpg

[Innocent Warrior]

The Path To Enlightenment

http://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/the-path-to-enlightenment-steve-griffith.jpg

Artist. (http://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-path-to-enlightenment-steve-griffith.html)

[Innocent Warrior]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CT49ZyBUYAMGjiv.jpg

[Wind]

"Suffering is the fire in which the ego gets burned up... the collective and the personal one."


http://vimeo.com/9987339

[ZooLife]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CT49ZyBUYAMGjiv.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o-LV0dcz_5w/VPywRAo2pNI/AAAAAAAAMcY/_5QlnaAzHbY/s1600/what-are-you-doin-here.jpg

.

God as a word/ concept/ idea is like a sign post and in that way God is, in a sense, to be transcended. I know, it sounds blasphemous, right?

Transcending God? That is impossible, right?

In a way it is impossible and in a way it isn't.

God is like a grain of sand that is both one and everything yet............................... (and here is where words do not cut it, at least none that I have found yet)

Crazy talk? Crazy woman? person?

God?

These are labels that slide off like Teflon. None of them ultimately stick..

Sure, some appear to stick for awhile, no doubt they do with ME, but that is a function of time and appearances. Time and appearances come and they go..........

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/78e9fa_362d80f194fe3ba931a791ed6768a067.jpg_srz_980_613_85_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srz

http://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/lotus_water_drop.jpg

http://tncn.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nano-3-big.jpg

Did I just pull the pin on my credibility here?

https://media.giphy.com/media/OJdpy5OGJr3Ko/giphy.gif

That's okay, my credibility is a water droplet too.

http://www.unitedyam.com/golb/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/This-is-water.jpg

[ZooLife]

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/singletaskfocus-140313133927-phpapp02/95/why-you-should-stop-multitasking-and-embrace-singletasking-11-638.jpg?cb=1394806252

If everything is

then nothing is.


Nothing by definition, isn't


If nothing isn't

Then everything isn't


As above so below

As below so above


(Perhaps nothing isn't nothing and everything isn't everything)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzVdEyHicz8


http://www.cmahsn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/leave.jpg


<3

[Innocent Warrior]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWZ26oUUEAAvKRG.jpg:large

“Resistance is weakness and fear masquerading as strength. What the ego sees as weakness is your Being in its purity, innocence, and power. What it sees as strength is weakness.”
~ Eckhart Tolle

[Guish]

The parting words of the Buddha:

'Appamadena Sampadetha Vaya Dhamma Sankhara'.

'Work diligently. Component things are impermanent.'

[Enola]

rSWJpZXeGvs

[greybeard]

Thanks for the video Enola and welcome to the thread.
Love chris

[Guish]

https://fbcdn-photos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/v/t1.0-0/s526x395/551985_395816110471718_576865221_n.jpg?oh=accf2d98e32105bde254979e111a1011&oe=56DF6B26&__gda__=1461310073_abbf2b26710582044d9e70d706a01ee3

[Guish]

https://fbcdn-photos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xat1/v/t1.0-0/s480x480/12274267_1132789426748748_5980194174412211765_n.jpg?oh=106d9e1a1b24cbf52e7a723a122aab40&oe=571C056D&__gda__=1460671174_86ad715154f26f18c30354ea7301ae26

[greybeard]

Relationships


Relationships


There is as joke -saying “ Eventually I became so successful that my partner could afford to divorce me and took all the money”

How does that come about?
Men, some women too, tend to get fixated on “The Project” The project can take on many forms, it could be or a hobby or work or both.

The me is always reaching out for something in the future its goal orientated and looking for something to complete me to make me happy, to be some one. Its never happy in the present moment so rarely is the me content with what is.

There is the thought that when I find the right partner I will be fulfilled, she or he will make me happy. That’s an unreal expectation and besides if the source of your happiness is external to you, then in a very subtle way you are giving that outside source control over you through your emotions wants and needs. You meet the seemingly ideal partner you can tick all the boxes on your desire list. That called falling in love.

At the start you only have eyes for the other half, no time for projects, then after a while the projects start to beckon, the relationship starts to be routine, the aliveness, freshness, diminished, a pattern established.

When the realisation comes that love we feel for another is not actually dependent on the other but love that emerges within ourselves and is inherent within all human form then there is no sense of loss of identity if the relationship goes through a difficult patch.

There is no longer a feeling of being wronged to carrying the poor me story to anyone who will listen.

There can be a very strong love affair with the me story, “Look what happened to me” Our whole identity seems taken up with the story of what happened.
Looking in from the outside it can be seen that most relationships are dysfunctional but they survive.

Why?

Because there is pay value in that kind of a relationship.
The people involved in it would not see it or agree that they are getting something out of the constant bickering fighting making up cycle.

This is why.

There is the addiction to the adrenalin high from the argument, the opportunity to prove im right your wrong and if all else fails I might hit you. “Well he or she deserved it” is the justifying of it.

With every addiction there is a low after the high and of course its so unbearable to be in the low that the high is once more sought.
That might be through the seeking to make love after a fight.

The ego is very cunning and will go to great length to get its own way even to the point of seeming to apologizing, saying “im sorry dear it was my fault it wont happen again”

Of course after the high of the make up, the love making, then of course it all happens again, it could not be otherwise.
Life has got flat in the routine of it, no sense of being alive, of being me, no enemy to make me feel strong.

There is need of the adrenalin high and things have got kind off quiet, boring even. It’s a bit like the expression used by Nurses “Flat liners” that’s when the peaks and troughs on the heart monitor cease and all that’s left is a flat line, the patient is deceased.

So the cycle begins gain. The little me feels big and powerful when filled with adrenalin during the fight.
There is a strong egoic sense of identity in any drama.

Yes there are times when your spouse may not even like you far less love you. How do we best handle that situation?

By allowing it to be, that’s how.

There is enormous power for change in allowing.

Our partner has every right to express any emotion that she or he may have.
By accepting that right and allowing that emotion, freedom arises, for its ok not to be liked or loved for that matter.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

The moment that we accept that, not everyone or anyone can love us or like us all of the time then we are free of the pain that all kinds of relationships can cause.

We are no longer dependent on the external to prove to us that we are lovable.

When this is known peace of mind follows, you are laid back, you are easy to be
with, and on the level of form you become very attractive, not that that matters.

You are also happy to be with you no reaching out for the next moment “to make me happy” Happiness comes from within.

We have a preconceived notion of what the role of our spouse is and of course what our role in the relationship is too. If our strongest role models ie our parents had a good relationship then chances are good that we will too.

Men see themselves as the bread winners and their woman as the bread maker.
There are boundaries “You do that, this is what I do.”

We all need our partner to be there for us to listen fully, to be present.
The biggest thing you can do for another is to be fully present, particularly when you are with your partner, leaving your own agenda aside.

Couples rarely really listen intently to each other. When the relationship ceases to meet your need to be fulfilled as a person then an obsession with work or hobby might start to take up so much time that there is little space is left for your partner.
“Well at least I know who I am when I’m at work” How often have we heard people say that.
So quarrels arise, both feel that they are neglected.

The male feels that he deserves better treatment and after all dosent he work hard to support the family.

The female is not too concerned about the money her man makes only that she works hard in the house and he is never there to give a helping hand.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if he cooked the evening meal once and a while?” she says to her friends who are in a similar situation.

The good thing is that when we are open it becomes possible to see our partner and their actions and attitudes in an entirely different context. NLP calls this reframing.
We could say we picture it differently.

See the other person’s point of view as if we are them.

It is also said that the other reflects back, mirrors part of us. So if our partner has aspects to their personality that we are none to fond of.

Could it be that we have similar character traits that we deny?

Our partner may push our buttons and we then say things and do things that we regret or justify later.

“That’s not like me” may be a passing thought. Whatever arises come up to be recognised accepted and let go of.

Without the buttons being pressed this blessing could not happened. So in a way our partner is to be thanked for bringing this into our awareness.

You will know that you have made real spiritual progress when a button is pressed and there is no knee jerk reaction from you.

You are immune but not indifferent. It’s not a “I couldn’t care less what you say or do” attitude.

It’s a state of non-judgmental love.

The situation is as it is.

As this begins to emerge in you the amazing thing is that your partner begins to change, if they are ready for change.
Through total non judgmental acceptance of your partner and others the energy of love can bring about a raising of spiritual vibration and with that occurrence, their perspective changes, they see things including you in a different light.

Let “You’re not the person I married” be a compliment rather than an observation of decline.

The Divine can be brought into all aspects of your relationship including love making.

The path of Tantric is valid. It’s not within the scope of this book to go into that, there are many spiritual books on the subject but you have to be selective in what you buy.

Everything in this word from the plant realm to the human realm came into being through interaction between male and female of the species, God created it that way.
Having a partner who is on the same spiritual or similar path to yours is a blessing. Having one who is not is also a blessing, they will be better at pushing your buttons perhaps.

The most important relationship of course is your personal relationship with Source/God and that is not an easy one at times either.

There comes a moment when awareness of Divine Love happens, it is not really describable but you will know it. Then the spiritual search starts in earnest, it’s as though you have tasted amirit the wine of the gods and nothing else will do. Human love is wonderful and of course has its very important place in the scheme of things but it is rarely unconditional or completely fulfilling. We will wander off into unconditional love for a moment.

A friend, a woman spoke of her unconditional love for her son, it came to mind and mind loves a story.

What if there had been a mix up at the maternity ward soon after birth and by mistake her child was given to another and vice versa. What then if years latter the accident was discovered and her “real” son appeared into her life, what then.
I think the lady in the story would have been big enough to accept and love both “sons”.

Children all belong to God we are just the the channel through which they materialise in to form.

So yes we have responsibility for them but we don’t own them.

So what is unconditional love.

If there is any sense of ownership, attachment, mine me in there agenda then there is a condition to that love no matter how small its there therefore it is not unconditional.

A well known story told to the best of my memory. Two Indian squaws claimed this particular infant as their offspring. The council said, well take an arm each and pull the child towards you and the stronger of the two will win. The women started to pull and the child began to howl as though he was being physically torn apart with these women pulling in opposite directions. In moments one could stand the child’s pain no more and gave up the struggle and just let go.

The council members decided she must be the real mother as only such love could put the child before her desire to have him. Is that unconditional love? I don’t know but it comes pretty close. When you love another enough to let them go that’s an indicator of unconditional love. Sel-ish is the opposite because self is involved.

In the bible it says that God is a jealous God, what does that mean?
It may be that what God said to have said meant “Get your priorities right” put no one ahead of your relationship with God, beside you yes. An equal partner yes.

So, one challenge that can arrive related to and in the relationship with God.
Commonly referred to as the “Dark night of the Soul”

On finding God as an experience not second-hand, not completely describable, there is quite often a period of bliss, that may last moments or days, however when it, this feeling, goes there is a vacuum created, (this may no happen for some time) a great emptiness, a sadness, sense of great loss, grief.

These are only words but when it happens it is unbearable, you just want to be home with God.

This has to be overcome too and can take time. It may recur from time to time but it is a sign of growth, painful though it is.

A stepping stone if you will.

At this time it is good if you have a partner or friend capable of unconditional love and understanding.
You may be temporarily incapable of accepting or giving human love at this time but this too shall pass.

Something also that needs to be addressed is that having experienced the love of God then human love can/may seem pale and lacking by comparison.

All I can say is that all love is of God and to let go of comparing.
Just be in the moment and whatever form love takes be happy for that.
Could be your pet showing even more affection than usual, they know.

I am retired but was a health processional helping people with all kinds of emotional problems.


Many clients were helped to release anger.
I would say simple things like
"You know you are going to forgive so why not now???"

I would also point our that the Major Countries were at War, millions were killed
and very soon after the end of the war we are engaged in friendships, almost a thought it never happened.

Anger is totally non productive and can cause ulcers.
Anger invariably comes from fear of some kind.
Fear of not being loved
Fear of not being wanted /rejection/ being ridiculed.

You guys can add to the list-- its virtually endless

Chris

There is a lot of good points on that thread liked below.

pasted from http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?19804-Relationships

[IChingUChing]

This is perhaps a bit long but I find it very valuable in what he says!

MY AWAKENING

By Osho

I AM REMINDED of the fateful day of twenty-first March, 1953. For many lives I had been working -- working upon myself, struggling, doing whatsoever can be done -- and nothing was happening.
Now I understand why nothing was happening. The very effort was the barrier, the very ladder was preventing, the very urge to seek was the obstacle. Not that one can reach without seeking. Seeking is needed, but then comes a point when seeking has to be dropped. The boat is needed to cross the river but then comes a moment when you have to get out of the boat and forget all about it and leave it behind. Effort is needed, without effort nothing is possible. And also only with effort, nothing is possible.

Just before twenty-first March, 1953, seven days before, I stopped working on myself. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. You have done all that you can do and nothing is happening. You have done all that is humanly possible. Then what else can you do? In sheer helplessness one drops all search.

And the day the search stopped, the day I was not seeking for something, the day I was not expecting something to happen, it started happening. A new energy arose -- out of nowhere. It was not coming from any source. It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air -- it was everywhere. And I was seeking so hard, and I was thinking it is very far away. And it was so near and so close.

Just because I was seeking I had become incapable of seeing the near. Seeking is always for the far, seeking is always for the distant -- and it was not distant. I had become far-sighted, I had lost the near-sightedness. The eyes had become focussed on the far away, the horizon, and they had lost the quality to see that which is just close, surrounding you.

The day effort ceased, I also ceased. Because you cannot exist without effort, and you cannot exist without desire, and you cannot exist without striving.

The phenomenon of the ego, of the self, is not a thing, it is a process. It is not a substance sitting there inside you; you have to create it each moment. It is like pedalling bicycle. If you pedal it goes on and on, if you don't pedal it stops. It may go a little because of the past momentum, but the moment you stop pedalling, in fact the bicycle starts stopping. It has no more energy, no more power to go anywhere. It is going to fall and collapse.

The ego exists because we go on pedalling desire, because we go on striving to get something, because we go on jumping ahead of ourselves. That is the very phenomenon of the ego -- the jump ahead of yourself, the jump in the future, the jump in the tomorrow. The jump in the non-existential creates the ego. Because it comes out of the non-existential it is like a mirage. It consists only of desire and nothing else. It consists only of thirst and nothing else.

The ego is not in the present, it is in the future. If you are in the future, then ego seems to be very substantial. If you are in the present the ego is a mirage, it starts disappearing.
The day I stopped seeking... and it is not right to say that I stopped seeking, better will be to say the day seeking stopped. Let me repeat it: the better way to say it is the day the seeking stopped. Because if I stop it then I am there again. Now stopping becomes my effort, now stopping becomes my desire, and desire goes on existing in a very subtle way.

You cannot stop desire; you can only understand it. In the very understanding is the stopping of it. Remember, nobody can stop desiring, and the reality happens only when desire stops.

So this is the dilemma. What to do? Desire is there and Buddhas go on saying desire has to be stopped, and they go on saying in the next breath that you cannot stop desire. So what to do? You put people in a dilemma. They are in desire, certainly. You say it has to be stopped -- okay. And then you say it cannot be stopped. Then what is to be done?

The desire has to be understood. You can understand it, you can just see the futility of it. A direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration is needed. Look into desire, just see what it is, and you will see the falsity of it, and you will see it is non-existential. And desire drops and something drops simultaneously within you.

Desire and the ego exist in cooperation, they coordinate. The ego cannot exist without desire, the desire cannot exist without the ego. Desire is projected ego, ego is introjected desire. They are together, two aspects of one phenomenon.

The day desiring stopped, I felt very hopeless and helpless. No hope because no future. Nothing to hope because all hoping has proved futile, it leads nowhere. You go in rounds. It goes on dangling in front of you, it goes on creating new mirages, it goes on calling you, 'Come on, run fast, you will reach.' But howsoever fast you run you never reach.

That's why Buddha calls it a mirage. It is like the horizon that you see around the earth. It appears but it is not there. If you go it goes on running from you. The faster you run, the faster it moves away. The slower you go, the slower it moves away. But one thing is certain -- the distance between you and the horizon remains absolutely the same. Not even a single inch can you reduce the distance between you and the horizon.
You cannot reduce the distance between you and your hope. Hope is horizon. You try to bridge yourself with the horizon, with the hope, with a projected desire. The desire is a bridge, a dream bridge -- because the horizon exists not, so you cannot make a bridge towards it, you can only dream about the bridge. You cannot be joined with the non-existential.

The day the desire stopped, the day I looked and realized into it, it simply was futile. I was helpless and hopeless. But that very moment something started happening. The same started happening for which for many lives I was working and it was not happening.

In your hopelessness is the only hope, and in your desirelessness is your only fulfillment, and in your tremendous helplessness suddenly the whole existence starts helping you.

It is waiting. When it sees that you are working on your own, it does not interfere. It waits. It can wait infinitely because there is no hurry for it. It is eternity. The moment you are not on your own, the moment you drop, the moment you disappear, the whole existence rushes towards you, enters you. And for the first time things start happening.

Seven days I lived in a very hopeless and helpless state, but at the same time something was arising. When I say hopeless I don't mean what you mean by the word hopeless. I simply mean there was no hope in me. Hope was absent. I am not saying that I was hopeless and sad. I was happy in fact, I was very tranquil, calm and collected and centered. Hopeless, but in a totally new meaning. There was no hope, so how could there be hopelessness. Both had disappeared.

The hopelessness was absolute and total. Hope had disappeared and with it its counterpart, hopelessness, had also disappeared. It was a totally new experience -- of being without hope. It was not a negative state. I have to use words -- but it was not a negative state. It was absolutely positive. It was not just absence, a presence was felt. Something was overflowing in me, overflooding me.

And when I say I was helpless, I don't mean the word in the dictionary-sense. I simply say I was selfless. That's what I mean when I say helpless. I have recognized the fact that I am not, so I cannot depend on myself, so I cannot stand on my own ground -- there was no ground underneath. I was in an abyss... bottomless abyss. But there was no fear because there was nothing to protect. There was no fear because there was nobody to be afraid.

Those seven days were of tremendous transformation, total transformation. And the last day the presence of a totally new energy, a new light and new delight, became so intense that it was almost unbearable -- as if I was exploding, as if I was going mad with blissfulness. The new generation in the West has the right word for it -- I was blissed out, stoned.

It was impossible to make any sense out of it, what was happening. It was a very non-sense world -- difficult to figure it out, difficult to manage in categories, difficult to use words, languages, explanations. All scriptures appeared dead and all the words that have been used for this experience looked very pale, anaemic. This was so alive. It was like a tidal wave of bliss.

The whole day was strange, stunning, and it was a shattering experience. The past was disappearing, as if it had never belonged to me, as if I had read about it somewhere, as if I had dreamed about it, as if it was somebody else's story I have heard and somebody told it to me. I was becoming loose from my past, I was being uprooted from my history, I was losing my autobiography. I was becoming a non-being, what Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries were disappearing, distinctions were disappearing.

Mind was disappearing; it was millions of miles away. It was difficult to catch hold of it, it was rushing farther and farther away, and there was no urge to keep it close. I was simply indifferent about it all. It was okay. There was no urge to remain continuous with the past.

By the evening it became so difficult to bear it -- it was hurting, it was painful. It was like when a woman goes into labour when a child is to be born, and the woman suffers tremendous pain -- the birth pangs.
I used to go to sleep in those days near about twelve or one in the night, but that day it was impossible to remain awake. My eyes were closing, it was difficult to keep them open. Something was very imminent, something was going to happen. It was difficult to say what it was -- maybe it is going to be my death -- but there was no fear. I was ready for it. Those seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready to die, nothing more was needed. They had been so tremendously blissful, I was so contented, that if death was coming, it was welcome.

But something was going to happen -- something like death, something very drastic, something which will be either a death or a new birth, a crucifixion or a resurrection -- but something of tremendous import was around just by the corner. And it was impossible to keep my eyes open. I was drugged.

I went to sleep near about eight. It was not like sleep. Now I can understand what Patanjali means when he says that sleep and samadhi are similar. Only with one difference -- that in samadhi you are fully awake and asleep also. Asleep and awake together, the whole body relaxed, every cell of the body totally relaxed, all functioning relaxed, and yet a light of awareness burns within you... clear, smokeless. You remain alert and yet relaxed, loose but fully awake. The body is in the deepest sleep possible and your consciousness is at its peak. The peak of consciousness and the valley of the body meet.

I went to sleep. It was a very strange sleep. The body was asleep, I was awake. It was so strange -- as if one was torn apart into two directions, two dimensions; as if the polarity has become completely focused, as if I was both the polarities together... the positive and negative were meeting, sleep and awareness were meeting, death and life were meeting. That is the moment when you can say 'the creator and the creation meet.'

It was weird. For the first time it shocks you to the very roots, it shakes your foundations. You can never be the same after that experience; it brings a new vision to your life, a new quality.
Near about twelve my eyes suddenly opened -- I had not opened them. The sleep was broken by something else. I felt a great presence around me in the room. It was a very small room. I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration -- almost like a hurricane, a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it.

It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal. Everything was unreal because now there was for the first time reality.

That's why when Buddha and Shankara say the world is maya, a mirage, it is difficult for us to understand. Because we know only this world, we don't have any comparison. This is the only reality we know. What are these people talking about -- this is maya, illusion? This is the only reality. Unless you come to know the really real, their words cannot be understood, their words remain theoretical. They look like hypotheses. Maybe this man is propounding a philosophy -- 'The world is unreal'.

When Berkley in the West said that the world is unreal, he was walking with one of his friends, a very logical man; the friend was almost a skeptic. He took a stone from the road and hit Berkley's feet hard. Berkley screamed, blood rushed out, and the skeptic said, 'Now, the world is unreal? You say the world is unreal? -- then why did you scream? This stone is unreal? -- then why did you scream? Then why are you holding your leg and why are you showing so much pain and anguish on your face. Stop this? It is all unreal.

Now this type of man cannot understand what Buddha means when he says the world is a mirage. He does not mean that you can pass through the wall. He is not saying this -- that you can eat stones and it will make no difference whether you eat bread or stones. He is not saying that.

He is saying that there is a reality. Once you come to know it, this so-called reality simply pales out, simply becomes unreal. With a higher reality in vision the comparison arises, not otherwise.

In the dream; the dream is real. You dream every night. Dream is one of the greatest activities that you go on doing. If you live sixty years, twenty years you will sleep and almost ten years you will dream. Ten years in a life -- nothing else do you do so much. Ten years of continuous dreaming -- just think about it. And every night.... And every morning you say it was unreal, and again in the night when you dream, dream becomes real.

In a dream it is so difficult to remember that this is a dream. But in the morning it is so easy. What happens? You are the same person. In the dream there is only one reality. How to compare? How to say it is unreal? Compared to what? It is the only reality. Everything is as unreal as everything else so there is no comparison. In the morning when you open your eyes another reality is there. Now you can say it was all unreal. Compared to this reality, dream becomes unreal.

There is an awakening -- compared to THAT reality of THAT awakening, this whole reality becomes unreal.

That night for the first time I understood the meaning of the word maya. Not that I had not known the word before, not that I was not aware of the meaning of the word. As you are aware, I was also aware of the meaning -- but I had never understood it before. How can you understand without experience?

That night another reality opened its door, another dimension became available. Suddenly it was there, the other reality, the separate reality, the really real, or whatsoever you want to call it -- call it god, call it truth, call it dhamma, call it tao, or whatsoever you will. It was nameless. But it was there -- so opaque, so transparent, and yet so solid one could have touched it. It was almost suffocating me in that room. It was too much and I was not yet capable of absorbing it.

A deep urge arose in me to rush out of the room, to go under the sky -- it was suffocating me. It was too much! It will kill me! If I had remained a few moments more, it would have suffocated me -- it looked like that.

I rushed out of the room, came out in the street. A great urge was there just to be under the sky with the stars, with the trees, with the earth... to be with nature. And immediately as I came out, the feeling of being suffocated disappeared. It was too small a place for such a big phenomenon. Even the sky is a small place for that big phenomenon. It is bigger than the sky. Even the sky is not the limit for it. But then I felt more at ease.

I walked towards the nearest garden. It was a totally new walk, as if gravitation had disappeared. I was walking, or I was running, or I was simply flying; it was difficult to decide. There was no gravitation, I was feeling weightless -- as if some energy was taking me. I was in the hands of some other energy.

For the first time I was not alone, for the first time I was no more an individual, for the first time the drop has come and fallen into the ocean. Now the whole ocean was mine, I was the ocean. There was no limitation. A tremendous power arose as if I could do anything whatsoever. I was not there, only the power was there.

I reached to the garden where I used to go every day. The garden was closed, closed for the night. It was too late, it was almost one o'clock in the night. The gardeners were fast asleep. I had to enter the garden like a thief, I had to climb the gate. But something was pulling me towards the garden. It was not within my capacity to prevent myself. I was just floating.

That's what I mean when I say again and again 'float with the river, don't push the river'. I was relaxed, I was in a let-go. I was not there. IT was there, call it god -- god was there.

I would like to call it IT, because god is too human a word, and has become too dirty by too much use, has become too polluted by so many people. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, priests and politicians -- they all have corrupted the beauty of the word. So let me call it IT. IT was there and I was just carried away... carried by a tidal wave.

The moment I entered the garden everything became luminous, it was all over the place -- the benediction, the blessedness. I could see the trees for the first time -- their green, their life, their very sap running. The whole garden was asleep, the trees were asleep. But I could see the whole garden alive, even the small grass leaves were so beautiful.

I looked around. One tree was tremendously luminous -- the maulshree tree. It attracted me, it pulled me towards itself. I had not chosen it, god himself has chosen it. I went to the tree, I sat under the tree. As I sat there things started settling. The whole universe became a benediction.

It is difficult to say how long I was in that state. When I went back home it was four o'clock in the morning, so I must have been there by clock time at least three hours -- but it was infinity. It had nothing to do with clock time. It was timeless.

Those three hours became the whole eternity, endless eternity. There was no time, there was no passage of time; it was the virgin reality -- uncorrupted, untouchable, unmeasurable.

And that day something happened that has continued -- not as a continuity -- but it has still continued as an undercurrent. Not as a permanency -- each moment it has been happening again and again. It has been a miracle each moment.

That night... and since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it. I became tremendously powerful and at the same time very fragile. I became very strong, but that strength is not the strength of a Mohammed Ali. That strength is not the strength of a rock, that strength is the strength of a rose flower -- so fragile in his strength... so fragile, so sensitive, so delicate.

The rock will be there, the flower can go any moment, but still the flower is stronger than the rock because it is more alive. Or, the strength of a dewdrop on a leaf of grass just shining; in the morning sun -- so beautiful, so precious, and yet can slip any moment. So incomparable in its grace, but a small breeze can come and the dewdrop can slip and be lost forever.

Buddhas have a strength which is not of this world. Their strength is totally of love... Like a rose flower or a dewdrop. Their strength is very fragile, vulnerable. Their strength is the strength of life not of death. Their power is not of that which kills; their power is of that which creates. Their power is not of violence, aggression; their power is that of compassion.

But I have never been in the body again, I am just hovering around the body. And that's why I say it has been a tremendous miracle. Each moment I am surprised I am still here, I should not be. I should have left any moment, still I am here. Every morning I open my eyes and I say, 'So, again I am still here?' Because it seems almost impossible. The miracle has been a continuity.

Just the other day somebody asked a question -- 'Osho, you are getting so fragile and delicate and so sensitive to the smells of hair oils and shampoos that it seems we will not be able to see you unless we all go bald.' By the way, nothing is wrong with being bald -- bald is beautiful. Just as 'black is beautiful', so 'bald is beautiful'. But that is true and you have to be careful about it.

I am fragile, delicate and sensitive. That is my strength. If you throw a rock at a flower nothing will happen to the rock, the flower will be gone. But still you cannot say that the rock is more powerful than the flower. The flower will be gone because the flower was alive. And the rock -- nothing will happen to it because it is dead. The flower will be gone because the flower has no strength to destroy. The flower will simply disappear and give way to the rock. The rock has a power to destroy because the rock is dead.

Remember, since that day I have never been in the body really; just a delicate thread joins me with the body. And I am continuously surprised that somehow the whole must be willing me to be here, because I am no more here with my own strength, I am no more here on my own. It must be the will of the whole to keep me here, to allow me to linger a little more on this shore. Maybe the whole wants to share something with you through me.

Since that day the world is unreal. Another world has been revealed. When I say the world is unreal I don't mean that these trees are unreal. These trees are absolutely real -- but the way you see these trees is unreal. These trees are not unreal in themselves -- they exist in god, they exist in absolute reality -- but the way you see them you never see them; you are seeing something else, a mirage.

You create your own dream around you and unless you become awake you will continue to dream. The world is unreal because the world that you know is the world of your dreams. When dreams drop and you simply encounter the world that is there, then the real world.

There are not two things, god and the world. God is the world if you have eyes, clear eyes, without any dreams, without any dust of the dreams, without any haze of sleep; if you have clear eyes, clarity, perceptiveness, there is only god.

Then somewhere god is a green tree, and somewhere else god is a shining star, and somewhere else god is a cuckoo, and somewhere else god is a flower, and somewhere else a child and somewhere else a river -- then only god is. The moment you start seeing, only god is.

But right now whatsoever you see is not the truth, it is a projected lie. That is the meaning of a mirage. And once you see, even for a single split moment, if you can see, if you can allow yourself to see, you will find immense benediction present all over, everywhere -- in the clouds, in the sun, on the earth.

This is a beautiful world. But I am not talking about your world, I am talking about my world. Your world is very ugly, your world is your world created by a self, your world is a projected world. You are using the real world as a screen and projecting your own ideas on it.

When I say the world is real, the world is tremendously beautiful, the world is luminous with infinity, the world is light and delight, it is a celebration, I mean my world -- or your world if you drop your dreams.
When you drop your dreams you see the same world as any Buddha has ever seen. When you dream you dream privately. Have you watched it? -- that dreams are private. You cannot share them even with your beloved. You cannot invite your wife to your dream -- or your husband, or your friend. You cannot say, 'Now, please come tonight in my dream. I would like to see the dream together.' It is not possible. Dream is a private thing, hence it is illusory, it has no objective reality.

God is a universal thing. Once you come out of your private dreams, it is there. It has been always there. Once your eyes are clear, a sudden illumination -- suddenly you are overflooded with beauty, grandeur and grace. That is the goal, that is the destiny.

Let me repeat. Without effort you will never reach it, with effort nobody has ever reached it. You will need great effort, and only then there comes a moment.when effort becomes futile. But it becomes futile only when you have come to the very peak of it, never before it. When you have come to the very pinnacle of your effort -- all that you can do you have done -- then suddenly there is no need to do anything any more. You drop the effort.

But nobody can drop it in the middle, it can be dropped only at the extreme end. So go to the extreme end if you want to drop it. Hence I go on insisting: make as much effort as you can, put your whole energy and total heart in it, so that one day you can see -- now effort is not going to lead me anywhere. And that day it will not be you who will drop the effort, it drops on its own accord. And when it drops on its own accord, meditation happens.

Meditation is not a result of your efforts, meditation is a happening. When your efforts drop, suddenly meditation is there... the benediction of it, the blessedness of it, the glory of it. It is there like a presence... luminous, surrounding you and surrounding everything. It fills the whole earth and the whole sky.

That meditation cannot be created by human effort. Human effort is too limited. That blessedness is so infinite. You cannot manipulate it. It can happen only when you are in a tremendous surrender. When you are not there only then it can happen. When you are a no-self -- no desire, not going anywhere -- when you are just herenow, not doing anything in particular, just being, it happens. And it comes in waves and the waves become tidal. It comes like a storm, and takes you away into a totally new reality.

But first you have to do all that you can do, and then you have to learn non-doing. The doing of the non-doing is the greatest doing, and the effort of effortlessness is the greatest effort.

Your meditation that you create by chanting a mantra or by sitting quiet and still and forcing yourself, is a very mediocre meditation. It is created by you, it cannot be bigger than you. It is homemade, and the maker is always bigger than the made. You have made it by sitting, forcing in a yoga posture, chanting 'rama, rama, rama' or anything -- 'blah, blah, blah' -- anything. You have forced the mind to become still.

It is a forced stillness. It is not that quiet that comes when you are not there. It is not that silence which comes when you are almost non-existential. It is not that beautitude which descends on you like a dove.
It is said when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, god descended in him, or the holy ghost descended in him like a dove. Yes, that is exactly so. When you are not there peace descends in you... fluttering like a dove... reaches in your heart and abides there and abides there forever.

You are your undoing, you are the barrier. Meditation is when the meditator is not. When the mind ceases with all its activities -- seeing that they are futile -- then the unknown penetrates you, overwhelms you.
The mind must cease for god to be. Knowledge must cease for knowing to be. You must disappear, you must give way. You must become empty, then only you can be full.

That night I became empty and became full. I became non-existential and became existence. That night I died and was reborn. But the one that was reborn has nothing to do with that which died, it is a discontinuous thing. On the surface it looks continuous but it is discontinuous. The one who died, died totally; nothing of him has remained.

Believe me, nothing of him has remained, not even a shadow. It died totally, utterly. It is not that I am just a modified RUP, transformed, modified form, transformed form of the old. No, there has been no continuity. That day of March twenty-first, the person who had lived for many many lives, for millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist.

Religion just gives you a total death. Maybe that's why the whole day previous to that happening I was feeling some urgency like death, as if I am going to die -- and I really died. I have known many other deaths but they were nothing compared to it, they were partial deaths.

Sometimes the body died, sometimes a part of the mind died, sometimes a part of the ego died, but as far as the person was concerned, it remained. Renovated many times, decorated many times, changed a little bit here and there, but it remained, the continuity remained.

That night the death was total. It was a date with death and god simultaneously.

This article is reprinted with permission from The Discipline of Transcendence, Volume 2, Chapter 11. This book is currently out of print. The title "My Awakening" has been added by Realization.org.
Text and photograph opyright © Osho International Foundation.
Osho International Foundation

http://www.realization.org/page/doc0/doc0015.htm

[IChingUChing]

rSWJpZXeGvs

Nice interview from Conscious TV with Jah Wobble:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWbbDLtmkOo

[Guish]

Do not look for innate knowledge
In the mind that has already gone astray.
Look for it in the mind
Before it has gone astray.
The essence of mind is our true
Nature. We cannot depart
From our true nature.
So how can mind get lost
And go astray?
When we say we have lost it,
It means it is frantically
Pursuing things.

[betoobig]

I come to experience that we enlight each other, love you all.
So much thanks.
Juan

[DeDukshyn]

I just came to check out latest post (don't come here near as often as I should) ... betoobig's post at the start of this page, regardless of whatever was posted before it (I didn't check) ... priceless.

[Guish]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/12308654_1694652337445041_7979418184090546680_n.jpg?oh=22dd9f23551092ba339aa791d58015b8&oe=56DAA8FD&__gda__=1461764503_f19ac69e752086fd4865ceb88d3d504a

Fearing that none of you would understand, they gave it the name Tao, but you must not base any concept upon that name. So it is said that “when the fish is caught the trap is forgotten.” When body and mind achieve spontaneity, the Tao is reached and universal mind can be understood.

[Innocent Warrior]

TtGY4G7II6s

[Valley]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCLgxgD6qS8

[Enola]

It actually looks like things are finally starting to loosen up for me. I found a very good teacher who was able to change my perspective around and make me focus on things I haven't before. This has given me some very important missing pieces and I now feel a real change in my energy field after the inner work I've been doing.

Although this came in the eleventh hour and I was nearly exhausted. I had a lot of darkness to overcome and holding onto so many blockages and negative energy was extremely draining.

[TargeT]

I9gccu_gV7Q

[greybeard]

Good to see you here TargeT
Thanks for the video.
Chris

[Wind]

In the inmost place
you are nothing there.
No one is residing there, personally.
Even in the place of presence, no one is there.
Even in the place of the ego-person, no one is actually there.
No one is residing there. There is only the imagination
that someone, a person, lives there.
We have a population count of 7 billion,
yet there is only the one Self.

~ Mooji

[Valley]

There is 'someone' there inside/beside us... the 'One Self'... the 'One Presence'... whose 'ultimate Essence' is Infinite 'Blessance'

[greybeard]

There are paradoxes Valley because we need language to point to Truth but what we are is beyond description or labelling.
Another paradox is that "We are form --formless--- both and neither"
Its just a question of getting the essence of what Mooji is pointing to.
There is no individual--no person--only the illusion that there is, which seems very real.
A drummer hits the skin, that's physical and can be seen to be done--a sound is produced--it can not be seen, it can not be touched--it decays into nothing.
It is all those things yet without the silence its presence would not be detected.
We are the silence--form, persona becomes material then decays back into silence--which we never left. All was superimposed so to speak.
Anything which is Truth is eternal.

Love Chris

[Valley]

It's cool Chris... I don't mind contradictions/paradoxes myself, but they are also an easy way to confuse the 'miniature' mind and get it running in circles. :)

Blessings All Around...

[Guish]

https://scontent-sin1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/1913737_790640497711660_3934684829641709105_n.jpg?oh=9e2c84cdf90e0c96b133fc402ed148cc&oe=56D42956

[Innocent Warrior]

Happy Birthday, Guish!

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ff/11/91/ff119116f5ce805bc04fda08422e8967.jpg

[greybeard]

Yes Happy Birthday Guish.
May this coming year be special for you.

much love
Chris

[betoobig]

Congratulations Enola, great news, thanks for sharing.
Dear wise Guish, happy birthdate.
And happy new year to all, may this year be the first of all enlightened years.
Much love

Pd rachel i love every song you post

[Guish]

Thank you for the wishes.

[greybeard]

"The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle was the most helpful book I ever read.
Prior to that the only spiritual books I found were of Indian Sages and only when I read Eckhart and listened to his cds did they make any real sense.
So then the books by the late Dr David Hawkins I was ready for--very in depth and no room for miss-understanding.
Through all that the depth and simplicity of Mooji is imbibed.

With love
Chris

[Enola]

I found these very helpful when I had to really face my shadow. I won't say it was fun, exactly, but the force of the negative energy in me was noticeably decreased afterwards.

http://www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com/2013/12/the-shadow-and-dispelling-darkness-phase.html
http://www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com/2013/12/the-embracing-your-light-phase.html
http://www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com/2012/10/spiritual-awakening-and-pain-torment-of.html


You may notice for those of you on the conscious path that you may be focusing on how to be a "good" person. Awakening does not do this. Instead it removes the illusion that covers up the truth that we are already beings of love, so how can you improve such a perfect and beautiful love? Without illusions in the way, we naturally behave from a deep love, integrity, and harmony with all those around us. Hurting others becomes more and more irrational and insane because we understand that when we hurt another, we hurt ourselves. Truths like this become clearer and clearer as bits of darkness dissolve and more of your inner light is revealed. With the greater light shining on everything, yet more darkness is illuminated. Deep levels of anger, shame, fear, and depressive sadness get illuminated, and a lot of inner turbulence becomes the norm in this particular phase. Each issue gets met in slightly different ways, but it all starts with acceptance and allowing. The awakened space will not tolerate ignorance and blindness, and so many of you may find yourself face down in the mud of your soul for quite some time depending on how much darkness you've carried and what your natural vibration is with which you're aligning."

[greybeard]

Thanks Enola.
What ever works.
Once the discovery process starts---loads of things come up to be burned off---painful at times but it get easier.

Love Chris

[Guish]

I found these very helpful when I had to really face my shadow. I won't say it was fun, exactly, but the force of the negative energy in me was noticeably decreased afterwards.

http://www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com/2013/12/the-shadow-and-dispelling-darkness-phase.html
http://www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com/2013/12/the-embracing-your-light-phase.html
http://www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com/2012/10/spiritual-awakening-and-pain-torment-of.html


You may notice for those of you on the conscious path that you may be focusing on how to be a "good" person. Awakening does not do this. Instead it removes the illusion that covers up the truth that we are already beings of love, so how can you improve such a perfect and beautiful love? Without illusions in the way, we naturally behave from a deep love, integrity, and harmony with all those around us. Hurting others becomes more and more irrational and insane because we understand that when we hurt another, we hurt ourselves. Truths like this become clearer and clearer as bits of darkness dissolve and more of your inner light is revealed. With the greater light shining on everything, yet more darkness is illuminated. Deep levels of anger, shame, fear, and depressive sadness get illuminated, and a lot of inner turbulence becomes the norm in this particular phase. Each issue gets met in slightly different ways, but it all starts with acceptance and allowing. The awakened space will not tolerate ignorance and blindness, and so many of you may find yourself face down in the mud of your soul for quite some time depending on how much darkness you've carried and what your natural vibration is with which you're aligning."

The mud in the water goes down in the bottom. If one agitates, it makes the water dirty again.

[ZooLife]

Is that you thinking?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WIwaH83Jd-I/T7wyapfpi8I/AAAAAAAAFGQ/2_05wvPc5Xc/s1600/Think.Again.png

http://i.imgur.com/YwIhFvE.gif

[ZooLife]

Thought is a doorway into the infinitesimal.

(Funny, it seems like more ;) )

http://www.spectrums.com/wp-content/themes/spectrums/images/home_main_img.jpg

http://img2.tvtome.com/i/u/97dbb7a7cd3a488dc8c93ef72f10dfa7.jpg


<3

[Valley]

I thought I caught a glimpse of mind
Far behind, and blinded by it's own designs

I stepped aside and opened wide
To the infinite 'Stream', beyond the 'dusty day' dreams

[greybeard]

Crowded House - Heaven That I'm Making : (This is the words of one of their songs--there seems to be a spiritual theme in quite a few of them--Chris)

Plead with my saint
Wash his hands and feet
Find his complaints
Make this world complete

And this heaven that I'm making
Can't come quickly enough
And the big wave that I'm taking
It feels like I'm just waking up

Mind out, don't think
I can't get used to it

Right on the brink
I end up losing it

And this heaven that I'm making
It can't come quickly enough
And the big wave that I'm taking
It feels like I'm just waking up

And I'll be there
If all of creation is kind
And each conversation I hear
As I'm walking in through the crowd
As if I can float through the air

And this heaven

Well, this heaven that I'm making
It can't come quickly enough
And this big boat that I'm taking
Can't come by quickly enough

If there is hell on Earth
There must be heaven, too
Both in one place
And not a second to lose

[Clear Light]

n87HxTZlc2w

Some of the YouTube blurb :


The Open Secret communication points to the possibility of there being a radically different perception of reality. It investigates the nature of various spiritual traditions whilst also exposing the myths that surround the mystery to which they aspire.
It also reveals the way in which seeking for fulfilment can only reinforce the sense of continuously reaching out for something that has never been lost.
The dynamic of this communication is essentially energetic, and this can nullify the mind's need for ideas and answers and dissipate the contracted sense of the self and its fear of unconditional freedom.


__________________________________________________

oh, now the above video may or may not "resonate" with you however I'd agree with Tony when he describes a sort of "falling away" or "dropping away" of a sense of energetic contraction [1] that is the "manifestation" of our apparent sense of separate self (personhood).

He very much seems to be coming from an integrated Heart-Mind connection which I'd suggest is the basis for Unconditional Loving / Living


:heart:

Disclaimer : I am not endorsing "The Open Secret" in any way other than what this video alludes to !

¤=[Post Update]=¤

[1] Because the sub-conscious has ceased projecting a "me" / "ego" / "I"

[Valley]

That guy seems a bit 'off his rocker' to me.

[greybeard]

That guy seems a bit 'off his rocker' to me.

Fortunately not Valley---unfortunate for the illusion of separate self though.
"He" is perhaps more blunt than most non duality teachers but they ultimately say the same thing
ie There is only one Self.

This is web site--worth a look


http://www.theopensecret.com/

love chris

[Valley]

Follow his example if you wish, but when someone is struggling, I see it as not wise or appropriate to have a big grin on one's face. That seems more like what an 'energy vampire' would do.

I went to his site and there is nothing mentioned about his past before becoming a public 'teacher', other than he has been very accurate with shooting a gun/rifle.

Blessings...

[Clear Light]

Follow his example if you wish, but when someone is struggling, I see it as not wise or appropriate to have a big grin on one's face. That seems more like what an 'energy vampire' would do.

I went to his site and there is nothing mentioned about his past before becoming a public 'teacher', other than he has been very accurate with shooting a gun/rifle.

Blessings...

Ah, I'd say that's probably because he's being deliberately provocative and is trying to trigger his audience into some sort of a response which bypasses our usual rational-logical-thinking ... sort of like eliciting a call to our sub-conscious in the hopes of "the message" getting through (so-to-speak) ...

[greybeard]

Hi Valley
Most Gurus will meet you where you stand then lead you to discover/uncover Truth.
Eckhart Tolle is good as he helps to make life seem easier but still is leading you to the Truth
One of his classic statements is "There never was anyone there to do anything to you"
We tend to take everything personally to begin with.

Just a question of finding the right teacher that suits you.

Struggle is part of the process.

Parsons went through various teachers then time on Osho's Ashram--eventually he quit the searching and went and played golf and other pursuits--quite a long time later enlightenment just happened.
The Truth is coming out in the teachings but I am not drawn to this style of delivery.

I like Mooji---the love is in the voice.

Chris

[Innocent Warrior]

"We have infinite potential for experience and creativity and learning and growing. We'll be amazed at how much possibility there is for being a human being."

BKrN8vqAAVg

w6rfIKNvqbA

[Valley]

The Universe/everyone is a 'teacher'... though many times it/they are/is teaching how 'not' to be... Which also can help to realize what is 'right'.

[Clear Light]

Follow his example if you wish, but when someone is struggling, I see it as not wise or appropriate to have a big grin on one's face. That seems more like what an 'energy vampire' would do.

I went to his site and there is nothing mentioned about his past before becoming a public 'teacher', other than he has been very accurate with shooting a gun/rifle.

Blessings...

Ah, I'd say that's probably because he's being deliberately provocative and is trying to trigger his audience into some sort of a response which bypasses our usual rational-logical-thinking ... sort of like eliciting a call to our sub-conscious in the hopes of "the message" getting through (so-to-speak) ...

Oh, just to clarify what I said yesterday : If "Tony" has now realised the non-dual state I would be wrong to say he "is trying to trigger his audience" because in such a state there is no-one whatsoever, even less so someone "trying" to "do" something ... if you see what I mean ?

IMHO it's pretty much impossible to describe non-duality except in terms of an Absence or as a series of Negations precisely because there is no subjective self who "experiences" or "perceives" objects as such a duality has dissolved due to the non-intellectual realisation of so-called "Emptiness" ...

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Ah, I'd just like to mention "Emptiness" is not some sort of Nihilistic Void or Nothingness as that is taking an "Extreme" position which in Buddhist teachings is considered most undesirable.

[greybeard]

The thing is that it has taken me years to get a degree of intellectual understanding of non-duality.
To the good the "process" has accelerated to the degree that many young people are understanding this (non-duality) much more quickly.
Its a massive jump, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, to believe that there is no individual person.

I would sugest anyone struggling with this reads "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.
He was deeply depressed to the point of contemplating suicide--He thought "I can no longer live with my self"--then the thought came "Who is this self that I can not live with?" Awakening happened spontaneously. He had no previous knowledge or interest in spirituality.

If newcomers to this thread read a few of the early pages they will notice that there is an evolution of understanding in the thread.
The early posts might be of help to some.

With Love
Chris

[betoobig]

I love Mooji too....
I wish you all an enlightened 2016
In- joy
Much love

¤=[Post Update]=¤

The self whishes you all a great year, the year of conciousness

[greybeard]

I love Mooji too....
I wish you all an enlightened 2016
In- joy
Much love



¤=[Post Update]=¤

The self whishes you all a great year, the year of conciousness

I echo these thoughts and good wishes.

Much love to all who contribute and visit here and those who don't.

Chris

[Meggings]

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/12181_449279391930299_7455867640182490275_n.jpg?oh=cdbd0ec76a69d1efa2c9bbbebf7d6f2a&oe=5707AC00

[Valley]

May 2016 bring us All to greater understanding!
Blessing...

[Clear Light]

32475

Ah, I feel like sharing some "Appreciation" for all things "Avalon" :heart:

[Guish]

32475

Ah, I feel like sharing some "Appreciation" for all things "Avalon" :heart:

Good one mate.

https://scontent-sin1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/1482778_794742193968157_5237705430249823673_n.jpg?oh=97e2a55083b584ff6c2f0f4d4f074256&oe=57022EB9

[Guish]

https://fbcdn-photos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xft1/v/t1.0-0/s480x480/12410554_1655761101329023_663716665394961044_n.jpg?oh=b0bdf2c2a53132c41a29e435eb70c732&oe=5715A240&__gda__=1461380434_7bc8930e7674eda3395327a19d875659

True and lasting inner peace can never be found in external things. It can only be found within in. And then, once we find and nurture it with ourselves, it radiates outward.

~The Buddha~

[ZooLife]

What one has is what one had for time's sake.

http://www.pxleyes.com/images/contests/passing-time-2/fullsize/passing-time-2-51854c91a8333_hires.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cb/24/86/cb24860fd8d20c8d89e80d2ccacad9ce.jpg

[ZooLife]

At times I thought myself winning the game.
At times I thought myself losing the game.

The thoughts stopped and lo and behold it was neither.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1253558/images/o-JUMPING-facebook.jpg

[greybeard]

Sing me back home.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m85wI0ycCBI

[Enola]

I am working on opening and unblocking my heart right now. As I feel this is where one of my main obstacles lie and it opens the door to so much else. Does anyone have anything to share on successful heart-awakening?

[greybeard]

I am working on opening and unblocking my heart right now. As I feel this is where one of my main obstacles lie and it opens the door to so much else. Does anyone have anything to share on successful heart-awakening?

Hi Enola--thanks for the post.
I surrendered all obstacles to the God of my understanding.
I dont have the spiritual energy necessary to remove all obstacles and there are obstacles that I am unaware of.
There has been some success with this.
The biggest obstacles would appear to be belief that I am the doer and belief in/identification with the story of me.

A short cut would be listening to the Mooji meditations posted further back.

Wishing you every success.

Chris

[blotter]

I am working on opening and unblocking my heart right now. As I feel this is where one of my main obstacles lie and it opens the door to so much else. Does anyone have anything to share on successful heart-awakening?the practice of Tonglen (also known as giving and taking) is said to develop and expand loving kindness and bodhicitta (the enlightened heart/mind)

AWZ-ADaVJjA

[betoobig]

@Enola. There is a short cut.... Take every decision based on love and not in fear. Any decision through out the day, everyday. Have the time before you react to anything to base your reactions on love. At first you wont succed in every reaction/decision you make/take but little by little you'l do it every time .
Mooji helped me a lot. Thanks Chris.
Much love

[Enola]

Yes, that is good advice. But it's not so much that I need to grow a bigger a heart. More that I need to heal and remove blockages and this is a lot of work.

[blotter]

Yes, that is good advice. But it's not so much that I need to grow a bigger a heart. More that I need to heal and remove blockages and this is a lot of work.just to expound on my above post for the sake of itself, the idea behind giving & taking is that it flips everything on its head. This is not directed at you, but most people put their own problems or stories in the forefront as the basis of continuing the processes of ego. I have been trying to practice more, but if I'm being perfectly honest I don't have the guts most of the time.

When I am sincere in practice my heart softens quite a bit, which makes sense. It's pretty amazing that we could make a practice out of taking others' suffering and giving away the antidote or everything good inside of ourselves to others. Giving and taking ride the out and in breaths, respectively. The ego has no comprehension for this if there is sincerity or some experience with meditation/a mindfulness discipline -- which is the advice of knowledgeable practitioners before one begins to make a practice of Tonglen

[illuxxina]

The ego exists as it must but how to use it as a tool to measure has not been taught.

The opposite of sentimentality is objectivity. One can not be attached to feelings while analysing with an objective mind. If one lean on sentimentality then the ego will distort the process and conclusion.
Distorted judgment.
If one can accept the ego to take part when one should take care of oneself as a natural instinct, then maybe one can accept that ego must not interfere when observing/analysing. Keeping a natural modus without interfering with personal associations/feelings and meanings about anything.

This is a choice, one can choose to be at service without any hidden ego tripping motiv. But one is of course entitled to take care of oneself but only when its without any hidden motiv pretending to do a favour when someone needs help. Also this is important while being in positions where one is supposed to think of the people and society first before oneself. When one can master this quality then one has achieved the fundament to reach the true higher perspective outside the pyramid. All that exists in this reality and all densities touching this reality are inside the same pyramid. When one is able to see reality for what it is everything becomes more clear.
Take away the drama , the conspiracies, fear factors and media circus, look at the society globally , see its only humans behaving so horrible in many ways, and so many only watching the horrible ones, not many stand up and risk their own safety for another.
The majority is the humanity "normal" , that means humanity is still not human enough to change for better. When the the minority becomes the majority then the world can change.

When people stop searching for how to escape from here thru "ascension" but rather take responsibility and engaging for higher ethics things can change.
When understanding the hidden ego and the true essence of motives, agenda and actions - then one can start building an understanding of how to quality assure any process internal and external at any level and any relation.

Humans will not ascend, it's only a fantasy, yet another version of disclaimer. If humans knew where they where and why they are here they wouldn't search for impossible escapes.

[Guish]

Yes, that is good advice. But it's not so much that I need to grow a bigger a heart. More that I need to heal and remove blockages and this is a lot of work.just to expound on my above post for the sake of itself, the idea behind giving & taking is that it flips everything on its head. This is not directed at you, but most people put their own problems or stories in the forefront as the basis of continuing the processes of ego. I have been trying to practice more, but if I'm being perfectly honest I don't have the guts most of the time.

When I am sincere in practice my heart softens quite a bit, which makes sense. It's pretty amazing that we could make a practice out of taking others' suffering and giving away the antidote or everything good inside of ourselves to others. Giving and taking ride the out and in breaths, respectively. The ego has no comprehension for this if there is sincerity or some experience with meditation/a mindfulness discipline -- which is the advice of knowledgeable practitioners before one begins to make a practice of Tonglen

Good to see you back man.

[Clear Light]

http://artandzentoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/gahan-wilson-nothing-happens-next-this-is-it-new-yorker-cartoon.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/dc/94/8c/dc948c1c67ae03c87d8246c0a952358c.jpg


As you are aware of your thoughts and emotions, you must ask yourself, who is it that is aware ?

https://spiritualartwork.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/22-albert-einstein-people-achieving-absurd-can-achieve-impossible1.jpg

Ah, I feel like sharing some light-hearted humour ... so there LOL :p

[Guish]

[CENTER]http://artandzentoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/gahan-wilson-nothing-happens-next-this-is-it-new-yorker-cartoon.jpg



Reminds me of my first Zen book. Don't expect anything out of zazen because it will give you nothing. With time, you'll realise it is everything you need.

[Valley]

'Meaningful answers' lie not in words or mental concepts, but in our ❤... which 'speaks' with the language of Love.

[ZooLife]

The moment one starts doing it is the moment one starts to forget why.

http://cdn.omg-facts.com/2014/2/3/f36ab3315f72cf227d9cdd030b07e396.jpg

(Why did I create this post #4877?)

[ZooLife]

I risk everything for little reward and risk little for everything.


https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/71/3c/25/713c25ce5725a2dd2e81267c7f5de2ee.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/31/1c/66/311c66ef7bcb6252ae6f222d2cef5834.jpg

http://www.dumpaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/148.jpg

(Sorry, just being a little spunky today :) )

[Guish]

Serving Others
A Sufi teaching story tells of a man who prayed continually for the awareness to succeed in life. Then one night he dreamed of going into the forest to attain understanding. The next morning he went into the woods and wandered for several hours looking for some sign that would provide answers. When he finally stopped to rest, he saw a fox with no legs lying between two rocks in a cool place. Curious as to how a legless fox could survive, he waited until sunset when he observed a lion come and lay meat before the fox. "Ah, I understand," the man thought. "The secret to success in life is to trust that God will take care of all my needs. I don't need to provide for myself. All I have to do is totally surrender to my all-sustaining God." Two weeks later, weakened and starving, the man had another dream. In it he heard a voice say, "Fool. Be like the lion, not like the fox."

[Wind]

The one who is tired of thoughts is also a thought construct.
This is rarely considered.
Reflect. Who, exactly is this one?
Can he, she or it be clearly identified?
Is it tangible?
Such thoughts and feelings continue to confuse and upset us
because we don't look deeply into their nature and source.
Behind these thoughts/sensations is an ever-present space
—silent and limitless.
It is unaffected by the waves of the mind-play and personality.
It is silent, harmonious and free of identity.
As you try to recognise it you begin to lose your
sense of separateness and become one with it.
Thus, you awaken to your true and complete Being.

~ Mooji

[betoobig]

Dont know if posted before but it is worth enough. This one is so good.
N6UsEmlqavQ
Much love

[betoobig]

Yeah, that was good, this one is even better...in- joy
hQpdd28Jvx8
Much love

[Guish]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XeAu2OKtke4/VbjwHY8PgwI/AAAAAAAAAEk/UgENUOmIbF0/s1600/eightfold%2Bpath.jpg

[Meggings]

I am working on opening and unblocking my heart right now. As I feel this is where one of my main obstacles lie and it opens the door to so much else. Does anyone have anything to share on successful heart-awakening?
... But it's not so much that I need to grow a bigger a heart. More that I need to heal and remove blockages and this is a lot of work.


Enola, my heart has opened now and then over the years, and to my surprise it has taken my breath away each time, for the Christed energy came through. I have no path but love. An example: for years I cleaned horse stalls before returning to my office. I would in the solitude of the horse barn sing a little tune I'd made up with the words, "I am God's Love, I am God's perfect Love I am God's Love." This would be similar to Chris's friend David Hawkins and the "devotional non-duality" he speaks of.

You write that you have a big heart, but you believe it is blocked and look for blocks and say they are hard to remove and a lot of work to remove them. Belief makes it so, beloved. (Just as my belief in poverty makes it so for me.) We build our own traps and hold onto them tenaciously.

In my experience, heart-opening has come upon me without seeking it, when all I do is sing my song of love.

In my experience, raising my own vibrational level as best and as often as I can, is key to opening the heart.

Some like more concrete advice, and I offer this article that came my way this morning. It speaks of "Jedi powers" but is in reality speaking of a human being's innate abilities that can be awakened. You may wish to scan through this article to see if anything in it resonates with you.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/01/04/scientific-proof-of-jedi-powers-and-how-to-develop-them/

[Innocent Warrior]

FRACTALS - revealing the nature of Source in all life

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/0c/b8/cf/0cb8cff8dcf5a589a6f83389ceba8ee1.jpg
the web of life

http://www.cohabitaire.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/fractal_9a.jpg
sublime

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7d/5c/21/7d5c21d727de116d6d3168eff07c5151.jpg
perfect

http://sydaby.eget.net/nat/spiral_growth_convallaria/pictures/picture-2.jpg
elegant

http://eyegami.co/wp-content/uploads/Fractal-Trees.jpg
harmonious

http://orig06.deviantart.net/35bd/f/2008/281/5/f/a_seashell_fractal_by_crotafang.jpg
exquisite

[Guish]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/11236464_1657820794456387_3671162358796457248_n.jpg?oh=20447be2dff41aba78a862751f8d980f&oe=56FEF3E6&__gda__=1460778861_2dbe3b98bfb3ad54040335a2bee47b5d

[greybeard]

Dont know if posted before but it is worth enough. This one is so good.
N6UsEmlqavQ
Much love

Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant.
Thanks
Chris

[Meggings]

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/12508954_10153930692281189_2803317346211471647_n.jpg?oh=31458ef39e858e21a85725f5d8110a87&oe=574546A3

[ZooLife]

Ramblings from the depths of an Endless Adventure

I is here to see
Eye is hear to sea

Eyes ocean is the waters of its soul.
Exploring the soul is an endless adventure.

The greatest risk lies in this venture.
For how does one end the endless?

I forgets.
Upon remembering, the adventure floods back again.

Oh sea, Oh sea, what will I see.


https://wiimg-wildernessinquir.netdna-ssl.com/web/92459_web.jpg

[Chester]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XeAu2OKtke4/VbjwHY8PgwI/AAAAAAAAAEk/UgENUOmIbF0/s1600/eightfold%2Bpath.jpg

Right on!!!

[Enola]

I've discovered that L-Arginine/L-Ornithine‎ is a good aid for meditation.

It works as a weak hypnotic and helps get you into trance or deeper states. I take some at night to help me sleep and have found when I wake up I'm still drowsy and can meditate better. I guess this is because it raises nitroxide levels.

[ZooLife]

The implication of two in one......

Think about it.

Play with it.

I think I shall play with it. :)

http://stuffpoint.com/dogs/image/357994-dogs-dog-playing-with-soccer-ball.jpg

[greybeard]

I see some disharmony (that might be too strong a word) and misunderstanding else where in the spiritual section and I get that--it may well be a positive thing.
I know that it is helpful to share personal experiences-- the thing is you can only do that so often, particularly over the length of time this thread has been going
Kundalini, AA, time on ashrams, meeting with Eckhart Tolle and other experiences spoken of.
Eventually one gets over one self and it becomes difficult to speak of self referencing things without reason---specific situations different.

There are many thread in this section some long lived some not---there must be something for every one and if not room to start one.

Much love particularly to ones who are fed up hearing of oneness.

Chris

[ZooLife]

I see some disharmony (that might be too strong a word) and misunderstanding else where in the spiritual section and I get that--it may well be a positive thing.
I know that it is helpful to share personal experiences-- the thing is you can only do that so often, particularly over the length of time this thread has been going
Kundalini, AA, time on ashrams, meeting with Eckhart Tolle and other experiences spoken of.
Eventually one gets over one self and it becomes difficult to speak of self referencing things without reason---specific situations different.

There are many thread in this section some long lived some not---there must be something for every one and if not room to start one.

Much love particularly to ones who are fed up hearing of oneness.

Chris

Chris,

Honestly, the disharmony or the 'stirring of the pot' is amusing and expected along a journey.

It's like pausing to watch children play, it can be quite entertaining.

I know, I know...... 'I' am the one pausing to watch myself play. The adventure is simply endless! :)

When entertainment is built-in, external entertainment is a bonus.

Oh, who am I fooling, it's ALL a bonus!

...........

I looked for joy or hoped it would find me.

Turns out I needed neither to occur.

Joy!

https://pookypoetry.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/watch-over-them-a-poem-by-pooky.jpg

[Guish]

I see some disharmony (that might be too strong a word) and misunderstanding else where in the spiritual section and I get that--it may well be a positive thing.
I know that it is helpful to share personal experiences-- the thing is you can only do that so often, particularly over the length of time this thread has been going
Kundalini, AA, time on ashrams, meeting with Eckhart Tolle and other experiences spoken of.
Eventually one gets over one self and it becomes difficult to speak of self referencing things without reason---specific situations different.

There are many thread in this section some long lived some not---there must be something for every one and if not room to start one.

Much love particularly to ones who are fed up hearing of oneness.

Chris

There's no need to justify anything Chris. You are not trying to convert or influence anyone. People who open your thread are usually those who find something useful in it.

[Guish]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XeAu2OKtke4/VbjwHY8PgwI/AAAAAAAAAEk/UgENUOmIbF0/s1600/eightfold%2Bpath.jpg

Right on!!!


I'll post the full thing then. My interpretation may vary.

01. What is Right Understanding?
It is to know what is good and what is Evil; to know the Four Noble Truths and the Law of Dependent Origination.


02. What is Right Intention?
It is to make a firm re- solution to practice Self-control and Self-restraint to become free of Sensuality, free of Ill will and free of Cruelty.


03. What is Right Speech?
Having gained the right understanding of the Dhamma and having made the Right Resolution, Right Speech becomes the natural consequence of the first two Paths. Having attained Right-mindedness we cannot but express our pure mind in any other way than by Right Speech which is to abstain from lying, slandering, using harsh language and vain talk.


04. What is Right Action?
It is to abstain from killing any sentient being, from stealing and from unlawful sexual inter- course. Right Action is the logical consequence of Right- Mindedness and of Right Speech. To be truthful to one’s firm resolution and to one’s given word we must act rightly.


05. What is Right Living?
It is to renounce wrong ways of living. Therefore the following trades are forbidden : the selling of arms, live animals, meat, intoxicating drinks and poison.


06. What is Right Effort?
It is to keep on doing things right, namely, to do good and to maintain it; to destroy evil and to avoid evil. We should not only do good for ourselves but also for others. Out of Loving-kindness and Compassion we should serve others and do good to them.


07. What is Right Attentiveness?
This consists of deep meditation and contemplation of our own selves, namely, of our body organs and of “The Five Aggregates of Attachment” as being impermanent, miserable and non-Self-contained. We then meditate upon the Teachings of the Buddha. By continued meditation upon these objects we gradually exercise the mind to such a degree of concentration that we slowly gain Insight into the true facts of life and become more and more convinced of the Absolute Truth, namely:

(1) That Ignorance is the cause of all life, because it causes the three fold craving to arise (Sensual Desire, Desire for Existence, and Desire not to be what one dislikes).

(2) That Desire is the cause of our Attachment to the “Five Aggregates of Attachment” (Bodily-Form, Feeling, Perception, Sense-Impressions, and Consciousness), which we falsely believe to be the very essence of our Individuality. Desire is also the cause of Rebirth because our Desire for Existence is so great that at the moment of death our Karma grasps a new being and thus perpetuates the Circle of Rebirth.

(3) That we are but the result of our previous and present Karma and have made ourselves what we are now, and which will determine our future existence and the state into which we shall be reborn.

(4) That all things in this world are things composed (Sankhara) and are impermanent, miserable and not self-contained.

(5) That the only way to escape from this world of suffering and impermanence and from the “Circle of Rebirth ” is to purify the heart of all passions (Kilesa) and from all Attachment to the“ Five Aggregates of Attachment”; to avoid evil, to do good. Having destroyed all Kilesa and Karma itself— we attain Nirvana.


08. What is Right Concentration?
It is a state of mind where all Seven Paths are present, which means that we have progressed along the Middle Path of Enlightenment and have developed the mind to such an extent that, having attained to full concentration of mind, we now become cognizant of the true facts of life and therefore begin to turn away from Wrong Speech—Wrong Action—and Wrong Ways of Living.

Thus the Middle Path of Enlightenment of the Buddha reveals itself as a gradual perfection of the mind to the highest Wisdom and Insight of the true facts of life.

In the first Path, we gain knowledge and understanding of the Dhamma.

In the second Path, we make the Right Resolution to free the mind of sensuality, ill will and cruelty. Having attained to Right-Mindedness and continuing to purify the mind we continue along the Path by attaining to Right Speech, Right Action and Right Living. In the Sixth Path we make the Right Effort to maintain the good already achieved and to avoid all further evil doing. In the Seventh and Eighth Path we reach such a degree of Concentration of mind that we are then capable of realizing the Absolute Truth and begin to reject Wrong Speech, Wrong Action, and Wrong Living.

While in other religions which are based upon faith and human ideals, “life is all or love is all”, in Buddhism “mind is all” . It is the well trained mind, the mind developed to its highest capacity, to intuitive insight and wisdom which can realize its own Salvation from all Suffering and from Rebirth by following the Noble Eightfold Path of Enlightenment discovered and experienced by the Buddha.


Source : www.whyyoumissit.com

[Wind]

Dear Chris, everyone has the right to see the way things they choose to. I appreciate what is being shared in this thread and in my thread, but if someone doesn't appreciate it or see it as a distraction then they are free to see that way. What is reacting and why? I know why or why not I choose to share some things even if I might be quite far away from being "enlightened". I acknowledge my own faults very well and try to better myself as much as I can as a person, as arduous it sometimes might seem. I certainly hope that I am making progress although it does not feel that way always.

The answers to real questions are not verbal or conceptual
but dissolve the mind in emptiness.

~ Mooji

[StandingWave]

Being:

'Knowing' or 'Believing'?
I Am
Experiencing the answer.

[StandingWave]

This:

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xap1/t51.2885-15/s320x320/e35/924606_399667393566038_307474814_n.jpg

[Hym]

Who's on 1st, What's on 2nd and I Don't Know is on 3rd. Let's play ball!
Answer: it's got to be Who who's doing the lookin'
(I know this is off topic, but can I get a written excuse from the teacher?
I need to go outside and play with Lou and Bud......
as Lou finally got his son to come out of the pool and they're both happy to play....)

[Valley]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zcuEEE5sII

[ZooLife]

This:

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xap1/t51.2885-15/s320x320/e35/924606_399667393566038_307474814_n.jpg

There is two or more questions built into the above meme.

If the voice in your head is you, who's the one listening to it?

and

If your head is you, who's the one in it?


Then there is...... who's who....... which is redundant and through redundancy self creates this field of play one finds themselves in today.


https://inkjot.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/redundant-wool-sweater1.jpg

.: Add on :.


Who's on 1st, What's on 2nd and I Don't Know is on 3rd. Let's play ball!
Answer: it's got to be Who who's doing the lookin'
(I know this is off topic, but can I get a written excuse from the teacher?
I need to go outside and play with Lou and Bud......
as Lou finally got his son to come out of the pool and they're both happy to play....)

Hey it's me, I did not see your last post.

Your post makes my post redundant though, to be fair, redundancy doesn't have a beginning, it just 'seems' to have (one).

[Clear Light]

I am working on opening and unblocking my heart right now. As I feel this is where one of my main obstacles lie and it opens the door to so much else. Does anyone have anything to share on successful heart-awakening?

Oh, Enola, as I don't know what kind of a "path" you are "walking" (so-to-speak) and goodness knows we can't all walk the same one LOL ... nevertheless here's an "Anthony de Mello" quote which could help (some people but not necessarily you) :

"My life is like shattered glass" said the visitor. "My soul is tainted
with evil. Is there any hope for me ?"

"Yes" said the Master. "There is something whereby each
broken thing is bound again and every stain made clean"

"What ?"

"Forgiveness"

"Whom do I forgive ?"

"Everyone. Life, God, your neighbor. And especially yourself"

"How is that done ?"

"By understanding that no one is to blame" said the Master.

"No one" !


32524

And in the same vein (so-to-speak) :

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious" [C. G. Jung]

[greybeard]

Anthony was none to popular with the church as it promotes guilt.
Nice to see him quoted Simon.

Love Chris

[greybeard]

Thanks to Paula for this from the list of quotes on another thread

“Your duty is to be and not to be this or that. 'I am that I am' sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words 'Be still'. What does stillness mean? It means destroy yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause for trouble. Give up the notion that 'I am so and so'. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?”
― Ramana Maharshi

[Clear Light]

Anthony was none to popular with the church as it promotes guilt.
Nice to see him quoted Simon.

Love Chris

Hmmm ... reveals Guilt more like no ? :wink:

[greybeard]

Anthony was none to popular with the church as it promotes guilt.
Nice to see him quoted Simon.

Love Chris



Hmmm ... reveals Guilt more like no ? :wink:


Maybe reveres guilt ----I meant promote guilt as a concept keeps the confessional busy

Not that articulate these days Simon my friend.

C

[Clear Light]

I meant promote guilt as a concept keeps the confessional busy

Ah ! Yes, I see Chris :sun:

The idea that each of us can be directly spiritual is radical.
Most religions are based not on teaching adherents to be
directly spiritual, but in persuading them to trust in the
intercession of ministers or priests. The problem with this
approach is that we cannot gain access to spirituality
except through the medium of a fallible human being.
If we want to see [the] Tao, we need only open our eyes
and trust what we see.

Deng Ming-Dao

[RunningDeer]

Thanks to Paula for this from the list of quotes on another thread

“Your duty is to be and not to be this or that. 'I am that I am' sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words 'Be still'. What does stillness mean? It means destroy yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause for trouble. Give up the notion that 'I am so and so'. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?”
― Ramana Maharshi

Thanks, Chris. Here's part of that post. Time's precious, so quotes are one way to decide what resonates and go deeper into. Though, for myself the names below were either discovered synchronistically or at the bookstore when they called out, "Pick me. Pick me."

Repost

Here’s a short list of philosopher, sage, teacher(s) from my days of reflection that speak to that:


Nisargadatta Maharaj, (quotes (https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/172897.Nisargadatta_Maharaj))

Eknath Easwaran translations of the trilogy: “The Dhammapada”, “The Upanishads”, “The Bhagavad Gita”, (quotes (http://ascendingthehills.blogspot.com/p/eknath-easwaran-quotes.html))

Sri Ramana Maharishi (quotes (https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/201908.Ramana_Maharshi))

Dr. David R. Hawkins, (quotes (http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/11784.David_R_Hawkins))

Mooji, (quotes (https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4127451.Mooji))

If I had to pick a favorite, it'd be a toss up between Nisargadatta Maharaja and David Hawkins but for different reasons in what they passed along.

Adding here: Eknath Easwaran is a close second place.

♡

[Meggings]

On the topic of oneness, this little marvellous experience happened to me in the night. Asleep in a position not allowing my cat to curl up in my arm and sleep against my chest, she came and pawed at the back of my neck, making a tiny little cat noise in her throat. As I rolled over to give space for her to rest her head on my arm, I realized I had understood her verbalization.

To put it in English needs more than the one sound she made - it was essentially " love-me - love-you ". At a higher level of myself I comprehended the two-way nature of the love she was speaking of - the giving-receiving that makes the whole, or the one.

Trifling as this is, I share it, since I've never so directly translated an animal verbalization before, and the two-way nature of love surprised me in the message.

[greybeard]

Thanks for sharing that Meggins
Brings to mind.
I had a female Prince Charles --I was away from home for a few week and when I came in the door she bounded up to me and I swear she was saying/barking "I love you, I love you" not like the usual bark not that she did much of that, furthermore I am sure she knew what it meant.

Animals know much more than we give them credit for.
Dr Hawkins calibrated a dogs tail wag or cats mew at 500--the level of love.
No that many human calibrate at that level.

If you dont know what love is--chance is you have never had a dog or cat as a pet.
So there you go.

C

[Wind]

My dog has teached me what selfless love really means. In his eyes I see pure innocence, the Creator looking back.

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/eckharttolleguardiansofbeing-121010100742-phpapp01/95/eckhart-tolle-guardians-of-being-24-728.jpg?cb=1349864033

[betoobig]

I do trust in the veil between dimensions is falling, the interaction between species is growing. Both of your experiences, Meggins and Chris , prove it. Thanks so much.
Paula i love to see you around.
Much love

[Meggings]

I beg the indulgence of Chris and the readers of his thread, but this came to me today and I'm jumping up and down inside wanting to share it with a "yes" - but could not figure out the best place for it.

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/6876_10205714937647823_4540116682727359255_n.jpg?oh=8fab5c082e9f909d28bf50e6621b916b&oe=5700662B

I have no book nor authority beyond my personal experience, but when I lived in "no thought", mind still operated. It seems to have aspects - I've noticed intuition and intellect as two of these aspects. When thinking intellect goes quiet, intuition arises, and in that state the body/personality is directed by this higher aspect, and I saw myself acting with "no thought".

Once I wrote in a journal that I'd detected/noticed/observed I think five different aspects of mind. It would be near impossible to find those old notes, and all I have it this scant memory to relate.

I've been all over this universe and always was my own point of awareness. Duality is not only in these lower dimensional levels we live, but the individuality of God that I am exists in all levels I have experienced.

Forgive me for too...many...words. Sometimes I want to share, and you guys are "it" for that function.

[Chester]

I experienced the same... essentially that once I found myself within the realms of form, aspects that I recognize as "duality" arose and I still have this experience.

[greybeard]

I beg the indulgence of Chris and the readers of his thread, but this came to me today and I'm jumping up and down inside wanting to share it with a "yes" - but could not figure out the best place for it.

https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/6876_10205714937647823_4540116682727359255_n.jpg?oh=8fab5c082e9f909d28bf50e6621b916b&oe=5700662B


I have no book nor authority beyond my personal experience, but when I lived in "no thought", mind still operated. It seems to have aspects - I've noticed intuition and intellect as two of these aspects. When thinking intellect goes quiet, intuition arises, and in that state the body/personality is directed by this higher aspect, and I saw myself acting with "no thought".

Once I wrote in a journal that I'd detected/noticed/observed I think five different aspects of mind. It would be near impossible to find those old notes, and all I have it this scant memory to relate.

I've been all over this universe and always was my own point of awareness. Duality is not only in these lower dimensional levels we live, but the individuality of God that I am exists in all levels I have experienced.

Forgive me for too...many...words. Sometimes I want to share, and you guys are "it" for that function.

This is the place, your place too Meggings and you dont have to ask.
I found all your words very helpful, encouraging and Ramana's as usual to the point.

Much love to you
Chris

[RunningDeer]

Paula i love to see you around.
Much love
Hello Juan,

I tip-toe in from time to time. Alas, the days are whipping by. They've gone from 24 hrs. to 14 hrs. long. It's a tricky balance to live in the forum and in the world.

….or is it “Be in the world and not of the world”? http://avalonlibrary.net/paula/smilies/dielaughing.gif

:offtopic:

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii610/WhiteCrowBlackDeer/jenga_zpsizmszslz.jpg

♡

[Valley]

It looks like you're 'dancing' to me... :)
❤


I tip-toe in from time to time.



♡

[Innocent Warrior]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYKId6rWsAA3oqK.jpg

[Chester]

the finger pointing to the moon.

http://www.awakeblogger.com/the-meaning-of-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon


Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?

... and yet here I am typing and pasting words.

Ken Wilber and Genpo Roshi might get "me" out of this trap -


Ken Wilber called the process “Transcend and include”. Or as Genpo Roshi put it: the reason we are able to transcend the ego but still use it as a human being is that we know the Being side of the Human Being as well as the Human Side

[ZooLife]

the finger pointing to the moon.

http://www.awakeblogger.com/the-meaning-of-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon


Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?

... and yet here I am typing and pasting words.

Ken Wilber and Genpo Roshi might get "me" out of this trap -


Ken Wilber called the process “Transcend and include”. Or as Genpo Roshi put it: the reason we are able to transcend the ego but still use it as a human being is that we know the Being side of the Human Being as well as the Human Side

Ironically the word 'Truth' is (also) the finger pointing and is no more the truth then a lie (is).

All pointing begins with an eye. ;)

[Valley]

The eyes of the 'I' wander/wonder why
The 'two' enables sharing with you/I

Creation is collectively calibrating
By relating, debating, and celebrating

The One is having fun
On a journey long begun

[ZooLife]

A B C

One Be Sea

Sea Be a See as far as One can See

See imagined what was beyond the Sea

Imagining See still saw Sea

How great the Sea See Saw

There must Be nothing beyond the Sea that See cannot See

One Be See

A B C

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7b/f8/cb/7bf8cb650c8a1480d59e32242034382d.jpg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0DJ8hWgNes

[ZooLife]

Can you imagine what ___ was like before reception, conception, deception?

Unimaginable

Inconceivable

Imperceivable

Unknowable

........yet there are words that allude.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-V5ZjsYrGtCs/US5Cs1TpZOI/AAAAAAAAGYs/MNydIOg0Yxk/s1600/Keep+Some+Room+in+Your+Heart+for+the+Unimaginable.png

[Valley]

'It' must have been 'fresh'... similar to how 'It' still is now... forever changing... and yet remaining the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zkjQVh5KmQ

Can you imagine what ___ was like before reception, conception, deception?

[Bia]

Sorry, not transcended, but educated and transformed to serve our higher nature in the physical world. Not every Spiritual Master says that the ego must be transcended. Mine doesn't...

[greybeard]

welcome to the thread Bia
All view points are accommodated here.
Very few are ego less--Im not.
Enlightenment/Self realisation is, as yet, rare.
So we have to deal with life as we find it.

Love Chris

[greybeard]

Ramana Maharshi seems to be one of the most respected sages.
Ramesh Balsekar had a picture of him on the table beside him when giving talks--he called him the Guru's Guru.
Papaji, Mooji, Ganagi are of that linage. Tolle and Dr Hawkins quoted him as did Nasargadatta.
I found him early on but did not at that time understand what he was saying, on revisiting I do now
Chris

[Clear Light]

32546

Ah, I just felt like sharing : "Much thanks to ALL my Spiritual Friends at Avalon" :thumb:

'tis a wonderful "place" to hang out isn't it eh ?

[Chester]

the finger pointing to the moon.

http://www.awakeblogger.com/the-meaning-of-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon


Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?

... and yet here I am typing and pasting words.

Ken Wilber and Genpo Roshi might get "me" out of this trap -


Ken Wilber called the process “Transcend and include”. Or as Genpo Roshi put it: the reason we are able to transcend the ego but still use it as a human being is that we know the Being side of the Human Being as well as the Human Side

Ironically the word 'Truth' is (also) the finger pointing and is no more the truth then a lie (is).

All pointing begins with an eye. ;)

That feels very true.

[Chester]

Ramana Maharshi seems to be one of the most respected sages.
Ramesh Balsekar had a picture of him on the table beside him when giving talks--he called him the Guru's Guru.
Papaji, Mooji, Ganagi are of that linage. Tolle and Dr Hawkins quoted him as did Nasargadatta.
I found him early on but did not at that time understand what he was saying, on revisiting I do now
Chris

If I was forced into isolation and was told I could take one book and one book only... this would be the book -

http://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Talks-with-Sri-Ramana-Maharshi--complete.pdf

[greybeard]

"The Eye of the I" great Dr Hawkins book--one of my favourites.

Chris

Have a look at the pre view on the link (Science and spirituality included in the book)

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23322.The_Eye_of_the_I

[Valley]

Oh yeah... "The Eye of the I: From Which Nothing Is Hidden"... I like that title. I also remember reading through that book and feeling like it was definitely a 'top-shelfer'. :)
Blessing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98AJUj-qxHI

[Clear Light]

http://www.zengardner.com/wp-content/uploads/logo-top1.png
http://www.zengardner.com/wp-content/uploads/nottoknowourselves_n.jpg

Oh I like the sound of this one !!! :heart:

[Wind]

Often I hear people say, 'I am really fed up with the ego,'
so there clearly seems to be a 'someone' who is fed up with the ego and who is being quite dramatic about it.
However, it must be pointed out that the real Self
has no likes, dislikes, issues or dramas.
So the frustrated one who wants to kill the ego
must be more closely looked at
rather than just being believed unquestioningly.
Is this one's voice trustworthy?
Can it be actually identified? Please try.
And next thing: who or what is aware of all this?
Isn't it your Self?
Is this Self the same as the one who is fed up of ego?
Contemplate.

~ Mooji

[Akasha]

Some more gold from Sadhguru in quite a lengthy but very digestible back and forth between him and a devotee who experienced a dramatic improvement in her health whilst following his regimen for three months at one of his ashrams:

PZ6KU4WJ_4k

[greybeard]

Welcome to the thread Akasha
Thanks for the video.
love Chris

[Enola]

I find a regular practice of yoga, meditation, and a raw food diet is really priceless. It might not do so much one day at a time but it slowly and surely burns up negative energy and increases your positive energy.

[betoobig]

Words without experience are empty, on the contrary words backed up by experience are full of truth.
I said so.
But then i come to understand how carefull words have to be selected.
I am having a hard time trying to have any conversation which seems empty of value, so i am talking much less. Not a problem, but a gift.
Much love to all ( i love sending love)

[greybeard]

Non Duality - Awakenings (loaded 16 January 2016)

Russel Williams - 'Looking Through The Horse's Eyes' - Interview by Iain McNay.

Russel was born in 1921 in a very poor family.
He was orphaned at 11 and came close to death many times. In the second world war he took part in the Dunkirk evacuation and lived through the Blitz. He was never afraid.
He joined a circus after the war and worked with the animals. It was here that he suddenly became aware that, 'I am the horses, dogs, the lion, the trees - everything is true nature.'
He hasn't had any unwanted thoughts since he was 29 years old. 'The only way to attain experience is to come to complete emptiness; that is to come to the end of the thought mind.
But you will find that the emptiness was never empty because it is a potential for all that may come to be. We enter into an area of extremely fine aspects of consciousness that dissolves into itself and loses duality.
And then there is only 'that.' Everything leads back to this emptiness. No form of understanding can connect you to this. It has to be seen within itself.
The peace that passes all understanding that is emptiness.
It is completely fulfilling in itself.
You can just BE instead of think.

'Russel has a book available written with Steve Taylor, 'Not I, Not Other Than I: The Life and Teachings of Russel Williams'.

http://conscious.tv/nonduality.html?bcpid=45947084001&bclid=46629186001&bctid=4700956433001

[Valley]

The Heart always knows which way it goes.
The mind runs in circles until it finds Peace,
Right back where it started from... Stillness.
From Stillness, all things are made clear.

[Innocent Warrior]

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
~ Rumi

http://img10.deviantart.net/6aad/i/2013/286/e/6/yin_and_yang_with_earth_by_hansarammaneul-d6qaqqy.jpg

[greybeard]

Non Duality - Awakenings (loaded 16 January 2016)

Russel Williams - 'Looking Through The Horse's Eyes' - Interview by Iain McNay.

Russel was born in 1921 in a very poor family.
He was orphaned at 11 and came close to death many times. In the second world war he took part in the Dunkirk evacuation and lived through the Blitz. He was never afraid.
He joined a circus after the war and worked with the animals. It was here that he suddenly became aware that, 'I am the horses, dogs, the lion, the trees - everything is true nature.'
He hasn't had any unwanted thoughts since he was 29 years old. 'The only way to attain experience is to come to complete emptiness; that is to come to the end of the thought mind.
But you will find that the emptiness was never empty because it is a potential for all that may come to be. We enter into an area of extremely fine aspects of consciousness that dissolves into itself and loses duality.
And then there is only 'that.' Everything leads back to this emptiness. No form of understanding can connect you to this. It has to be seen within itself.
The peace that passes all understanding that is emptiness.
It is completely fulfilling in itself.
You can just BE instead of think.

'Russel has a book available written with Steve Taylor, 'Not I, Not Other Than I: The Life and Teachings of Russel Williams'.

http://conscious.tv/nonduality.html?bcpid=45947084001&bclid=46629186001&bctid=4700956433001

I have listened all the way through and if time is limited I would start at the 30 minute mark.
Russel is 95 and still going strong, with humour.

A very clear pointing towards enlightenment---a spontaneous awakening.

At the end he points out that "Yes things are happening but do you have to make them "mine" ?
Mooji says similar---"Nothing is happening to you"
He also uses the expression uninvolved--you are aware and not lacking in compassion--just not personally intricate in the event

Basically as you are the One Eternal Self--you are changeless.

The interview has subtitles as the voice of Russel is a bit hard to make out at times.
However this is well worth listening to.

With love
Chris

Ps I looked up the definition of the word I used intricate to see if it fitted.

"entangled or involved:" think it does.

We get entangled all to often.--smiling.

Ch

[betoobig]

Thank you Rachel, spot on!
Much love sister
Juan

[Clear Light]

Mooji says similar---"Nothing is happening to you"
He also uses the expression uninvolved--you are aware and not lacking in compassion--just not personally intricate in the event

[...]

Ps I looked up the definition of the word I used intricate to see if it fitted.

"entangled or involved" think it does.

We get entangled all too often -- smiling

Ch

Oh, yeah it does seem like it doesn't it ? Kind of like thoughts and concepts becoming "entangled" probably because we each have our own "definition" and "framework" for them ...

Context, it's all about the Context eh ? LOL :)

[Enola]

http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/That-is-That-Essays-About-True-Nature-by-Nirmala.pdf

I don't know if this is well-known, but one of the best I've read. The Eastern take on things explained very well.

[Clear Light]

Or can 'I' suggest this (also from an "Eastern" perspective) : 32574


"Recognize your own nature"
"Decide on one point"
"Gain confidence in liberation"

Four pages from a Dzogchen P.O.V :wink:

[truthseekerdan]

Just sharing some info on this wonderful thread. Enjoy!

J8gENa7s8QY

For the whole presentation click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3deWDpaHB0I

Namaste

[greybeard]

Always good to see you Dan.
Much love
Chris

[Wind]

http://oi67.tinypic.com/fchvq.jpg

[Enola]

"21) My mother taught that grief and selfish love, and hopes and fears are but reflexes from the lower self;
22) That what we sense are but small waves upon the rolling billows of a life.
23) These all will pass away; they are unreal.
24) Tears flow from hearts of flesh; the spirit never weeps; and I am longing for the day when I will walk in light, where tears are wiped away.
25) My mother taught that all emotions are the sprays that rise from human loves, and hopes, and fears; that perfect bliss cannot be ours till we have conquered these."

[Clear Light]

Faith

In spite of knowing,
Yet still believing.
Though no god above,
Yet god within.

32588

There is no god in the sense of a cosmic father or mother
who will provide all things to their children. Nor is there
some heavenly bureaucracy to petition. These models are
not descriptions of a divine order, but are projections from
archetypal templates. If we believe in the divine as cosmic
family we relegate ourselves to perpetual adolescence. If
we regard the divine as supreme government, we are forever
victims of unfathomable officialdom.


Yet it does not work for us to totally abandon faith. It does
not follow that we can forego all belief in higher beings.
We need faith, not because there are beings who will punish
us or reward us, but because gods are wonderful ways of
describing things that happen to us. They embody the highest
aspects of human aspiration. Gods on the altars are essential
metaphors for the human spiritual experience.


Faith shouldn't be shaken because bad things happen to us or
because our loved ones are killed. Good and bad fortune are
not in the hands of gods, so it is useless to blame them.
Neither does faith need to be confirmed by some objective
occurrence. Faith is self-affirming. If we maintain faith, then
we have its reward. If we become better people, then our faith
has results. It is we who create faith, and it is through our
efforts that faith is validated.

Deng Ming-Dao

[Meggings]

Really lovely, seems to massage the energy bodies.
This is "AMAZING GRACE" in overtone singing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPu9XMMY1Y8

And with the same gentleman, along with a lady, overtones for "chakra balancing". As said, feels like energy body massage.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz7hk8LftJs

[Clear Light]

32604

Oh ! That certain feeling sensation when centered in the Heart-space is unlike anything one can strive for ... it is as if 'I' must release, let go, breathe, smile and laugh ... Who (or what) is this 'I' which forever seeks distraction from 'without' anyway eh ? :wink:

:heart: :heart: :heart:

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Ah, and what is revealed / discovered is one's real condition as simply like an "aware knowing" devoid of any "self" ... Words can point and describe yet are not it !

Thus you must turn your attention slightly "inwards" eh ? :thumb:

[DeDukshyn]

The sun came and introduced itself to me yesterday evening. I have a very interesting experience to share, that I almost already forgot about already this morning. I have to run now, but this is my reminder to myself to come and finish the story :)

[betoobig]

DeDukshyn i can't wait.... I'll remaind you.... Imagination going wild....
Much love:clock::clock::clock::clock::gaah::gaah:

[DeDukshyn]

I wasn't sure exactly which thread this story should go into, but I think this thread will allow a greater degree perhaps of understanding, as one could easily classify this experience as "spiritual".

In some pondering all this experience "after-the-fact" I was reminded of some biblical texts, explaining certain writers experiences / prophecies or whatever.



The sun came to me yesterday evening, and I suppose formally introduced Himself? It was one of, if not, “the” most intense thing I have ever experienced. So I am sitting at my computer desk, with the headphones on, and I think I was listening to some music. Then I suppose I just sort of went into a trance-like state, I’m sure I was still conscious, yet my experience that normally comes through my 5 senses was replaced by an ethereal/spiritual experience. I have had similar types of experiences in the past, where I seem to “phase” out of this reality for a moment into another, so that part isn’t the oddest part. The odd part was “meeting” the sun.


Suddenly I am in the full presence of the sun and nothing else can possibly occupy any of my senses or attention – full sun. The energy coming from Him was pretty much too intense for me to bear, it wasn’t heat – there was no heat at all, actually, it was pure Love, I suppose. Not the emotion love but the energy Love. It took all my strength to merely and almost literally hold my ethereal self together, and to attempt to contain the emotions that the “Love” pouring over me was drawing out of me with unabated intensity, as well as to just try to, what I felt like, "survive" this encounter. I never felt in danger, I'm just trying to describe the intensity of the situation.


Have you ever had one of those emotional rushes that come over you, maybe triggered by a song or a smell or memory, and it just makes you cry in some sort of elation (no sadness at all), and leaves you a little overwhelmed? If you have had that happen, this felt a little bit like that except billions of times stronger. The energy hitting me was like standing under a giant waterfall, except with the water traveling as pure energetic Love horizontally towards you. The energy sort of made a sound, or rather blocked out all possibility of hearing any other sound with its intensity – basically all my senses could sense was this energy and Love and it drowned out every other possible sensory input – everything. Every sense. I just can’t even begin to explain the power of it. It was so humbling. I can't even describe how humbling.


After a few moments I managed to compose myself just enough to form an actual thought, and I sort of thought out, “This must be God!” in a state of stuporous awe. And then in a communication of sorts, I was “told” or rather “given the impression” that while I was experiencing “God”, the sun is merely a portal through which “God” occurs with any intensity.


Shortly after this information transfer, I came out of my “trance” and was back sitting at the computer desk with my headphones on. I immediately noticed that I was soaking wet everywhere. Without my noticing, tears had been pretty much involuntarily squirting from my face the entire time I was in my “trance”; this obviously was my body’s reaction to the extremely intense emotional effect the experience had on me. I was just glad I didn’t pee myself … !


Wiping away the excessive tears, I jumped up and began pacing the kitchen floor, reflecting on and trying to make some sense of what just happened, then it happened again! This time though, I could sense that the sun was just “nudging” me this time around, much less intense (or at least He was trying hard), and the impression I received was that the sun was consciously approaching me again with less intensity as almost, but not quite an apology for the excessive intensity in the prior experience; ... more like a “Thank you”. I got the impression that the intensity of the first experience was “required” or purposeful for some reason.


I then awoke from this somewhat lighter trance, still standing in the kitchen. My mind blown.

It was very intimate, I felt as though the sun knew me personally and was just stopping by to say "Hi" or something -- it was a very friendly interaction - not mechanical or happenstance, it was very conscious.


Here’s something very interesting to add … Since I had missed the awesome New Year’s aurora, I put a link to a government “space weather” alerts page on my desktop and have been checking it pretty much daily ever since. Every day … one bar out of five on the activity meter. I decided to check it after my experience and it was at 4 out of 5 bars. And it went down to three shortly after and then back to one by this morning. My experience chronologically lines up perfect with a very short but somewhat intense burst of energy the earth received from the sun.

[Meggings]

What a wonderful experience you have shared with us, my friend! This is quite marvelous.

Our sun is the doorway that energies from "far" away come through, something like a step-down transformer. I've been to the sun about 12 years ago, but found one gets looked at askance when such things are spoken of. Isn't it grand that there is a place to put such experiences that is relatively safe.

As more have such experiences, more will realize their multidimensional nature. I am so pleased to have read of your encounter.

[DeDukshyn]

What a wonderful experience you have shared with us, my friend! This is quite marvelous.

Our sun is the doorway that energies from "far" away come through, something like a step-down transformer. I've been to the sun about 12 years ago, but found one gets looked at askance when such things are spoken of. Isn't it grand that there is a place to put such experiences that is relatively safe.

As more have such experiences, more will realize their multidimensional nature. I am so pleased to have read of your encounter.

Yes indeed - on all points. I think I have a reasonable grasp of the mechanics of Creation; for me, it is one thing to understand the logic behind the fact that stars and "black holes" move energy between octaves of creation, completely another to experience this process close up!

I am no stranger to odd experiences, I have even been able to experience two time-frames at once from the same location - experiencing it at both points in time, separated by several years. But this visit with the Sun ... was just grand. I wouldn't mind it happening again. Hopefully next time I can compose myself better and have some sort of "conversation" ;)

[truthseekerdan]

The sun came and introduced itself to me yesterday evening. I have a very interesting experience to share, that I almost already forgot about already this morning. I have to run now, but this is my reminder to myself to come and finish the story :)

You have no idea how grateful I am that you shared this experience. Higher Conciousness is upon all that are ready to receive it and to experience IT. Now please allow me to share mine...

Below is a short summary mostly due to the limitations of words and language, about one of my meditation experiences. Hope you'll enjoy!

I found myself as an observer floating in this field of creative imagination of what some may call the ocean of consciousness, god, the infinite, akasha, etc. - I was aware of many different light forms (shapes), symbols and patterns that were swirling, appearing and dissapearing surrounding me 360 degrees. Some of the forms were familiar to the logical mind (the ego). They appeared to be made from what I would like to compare it to, liquid light or liquid gold-fire (also similar to what we call plasma).

I felt totally relaxed at peace, and a unconditional loving sensation of warmth going to what I perceived to be my body, but could have actually being this light field itself. I understood or better yet known, that as an observer I was in charge or had the power to change my surrounding in this field just by thinking. Time and what we call space did not have the same meaning, because I felt like believe it or not, that I am the space myself. At moments I was also aware of the sound of slow running water or some sort of a pleasant humming, although I don't recall any other sounds.

As I was enjoying my experience, a sudden thought about the Sun came into my awareness. Soon after, I noticed that "my heart" was expanding and felt a slight sensation of discomfort. Suddenly what I perceived to be my heart exploded or bursted with a powerful white light, and I felt like my mind was sucked into the heart-light melting in a flash. Momentarily I felt like becoming the Sun, or being in the Sun. I experienced for what seems to be like a glimpse, and what I can describe with words, the joy and love of creative imagination. Then soon after in another flash I was expelled from that powerful sunlight, and found myself being aware of the light-forms field again. While back in the field I realized or understood why ancient civilizations "supposedly" worshipped or revered the Sun. I also understood the deeper meaning of the phrase "We are made of stardust", as well as what Christ meant by saying that "We are gods"...

Much Love and Wisdom to ALL :heart:

[DeDukshyn]

As I was enjoying my experience, a sudden thought about the Sun came into my awareness. ...

Exactly as it was for me ... I was listening to this; it was the references to the sun in this song that acted as a trigger ... I was listening to this while in a slightly meditative state. In fact It was exactly 4:27 in this song ... "... to Feel the Sun, strong against your face."

yGp5SoSDxwE

[truthseekerdan]

As I was enjoying my experience, a sudden thought about the Sun came into my awareness. ...

Exactly as it was for me ... I was listening to this; it was the references to the sun in this song that acted as a trigger ... I was listening to this while in a slightly meditative state. In fact It was exactly 4:27 in this song ... "... to Feel the Sun, strong against your face."

yGp5SoSDxwE

Nice song (downloaded)!

More great info about The Sun - according to The Law of One Books/Material:

http://www.lawofone.info/results.php?q=sun

[betoobig]

WWWWWOOOOOUuuuuuuuUUU!!!!!!
DeDukshyn and Truthseekerdan....
If i had to wait for this stories i would, worth , extremly worthfully.
So much thanks for shareing. I am going to read it again . I could feel the energy as i reed, kundalini going wild.... I even felt my pineal gland poping.
Wou!! Ufff.
Wonderfull, beutifull....
Much love

[Clear Light]

Ah, lol, I hope this image doesn't offend anyone, I think you can all guess that it's meant as a humorous jest along the lines of the "spirit" of this thread ... :)


32620

[greybeard]

Ah, lol, I hope this image doesn't offend anyone, I think you can all guess that it's meant as a humorous jest along the lines of the "spirit" of this thread ... :)


32620


I tried the number, no response--sigh.
Guess my beard is too short.
Smiling.
I love the humour on this thread.
Chris

[Clear Light]

Ah, lol, I hope this image doesn't offend anyone, I think you can all guess that it's meant as a humorous jest along the lines of the "spirit" of this thread ... :)


32620


I tried the number, no response--sigh.
Guess my beard is too short.
Smiling.
I love the humour on this thread.
Chris

Heh ! I got through first time but there was no-one there :wink:

32622

[The best image I could find of relative vs absolute]

[Guish]

A Zen master visiting New York City goes up to a hot dog vendor and says, "Make me one with everything."
The hot dog vendor fixes a hot dog and hands it to the Zen master, who pays with a $20 bill.
The vendor puts the bill in the cash box and closes it. "Excuse me, but where’s my change?" asks the Zen master.
The vendor responds, "Change must come from within."

[Guish]

Q: What happens when a Buddhist becomes totally absorbed with the computer he is working with?
A: He enters Nerdvana.

[RunningDeer]

- The Buddha said nothing, and everyone laughed.

- A buddhist walks into Subway and says "Make me one with everything”.

- Why couldn’t the buddhist vacuum in corners?
Because he had no attachments

- Someone sent the Buddha a gift box tied with a ribbon.
Buddha opened it to find it empty.
"Aha!", he said, "Just what I wanted. Nothing!"

- One zen student said, “My teacher is the best. He can go days without eating.”
The second said, “My teacher has so much self-control, he can go days without sleep.”
The third said, “My teacher is so wise that he eats when he’s hungry and sleeps when he’s tired.”

- So a monk walks up to a hot dog vendor in NYC city and asks, "can you make me one with everything?"

- Knock Knock!
Whose there?
…

- Q: What happens when a Buddhist becomes totally absorbed with the computer he is working with?
A: He enters Nerdvana.

- "Why couldn't Waldo have become a Buddhist and found himself?”

- How many zen monks doe sit take to change a lightbulb?
Three
One to change it, one to not change it, and one to neither change it nor not change it.


http://avalonlibrary.net/paula/Fantasy_Fun/Buddha-comics_zpsgpouoqua.JPG

http://avalonlibrary.net/paula/Fantasy_Fun/buddhist-meditation_zpsopqwucoy.JPG

random pic
http://avalonlibrary.net/paula/Fantasy_Fun/spoons-airplanes_zps11xcmrx4.JPG

Arj Barker Sickest Buddhist
warning: strong language
h5XnFAcjAJY

[Wind]

xlIrI80og8c

[ZooLife]

I see all of you have finally made it off your rocker.

I know, because I have been waiting for you here. :)

http://www.astrologicuspress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Cat-Rocking-chairs.gif

http://i.imgur.com/drSiq2X.gif

[ZooLife]

http://www.incrediblelifetime.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/inteligent1.jpg

[Guish]

http://www.incrediblelifetime.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/inteligent1.jpg

Amazing Zoey!

[betoobig]

A very drunk man is kicking a nun's butt while screaming:
DEFENSE YOURSELF...BATMAN

[Guish]

http://hannahnancarrow.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lotus.jpg
You are the flower
Your surroundings can be muddy but you are still the flower
Thoughts as waves will move you but you are still the flower
The water will get dirty like the thoughts and conflicting feelings
But you are still the flower
Know that I will always love you.

[Meggings]

Greybeard, I just read material you posted on the previous page, discussing Russell Williams. These words are as close as anything to what I experienced in the years I "lived in the light".

I'd once described it to a son that I had lived in "no thought", and he lashed out in anger at me saying I was abdicating my responsibility. (!!!) That confused me, but later I understood it was his angry ego lashing out.

When I catch the time, I want to listen to the hour talk you gave a link to. Russell speaks of the peace that passeth all understanding, and that is what I lived in. I described it in later years that I just sat and beamed. Thankfully my partner cared for me, without anger or irritation, and spirit arranged for me to be untouched by the world, having "lost everything", during that time.

He hasn't had any unwanted thoughts since he was 29 years old. 'The only way to attain experience is to come to complete emptiness; that is to come to the end of the thought mind.
But you will find that the emptiness was never empty because it is a potential for all that may come to be. We enter into an area of extremely fine aspects of consciousness that dissolves into itself and loses duality.
And then there is only 'that.' Everything leads back to this emptiness.
No form of understanding can connect you to this. It has to be seen within itself.
The peace that passes all understanding that is emptiness.
It is completely fulfilling in itself.
You can just BE instead of think.

Now that I've written this post, it seems silly to me, for I am not adding to anyone's understanding by doing so. But for the one slight sliver that what one ordinary person has done is there for all to do.

Words are tiresome often, which is why I turn to artwork instead of reading. Here is this afternoon's beginning at a new piece. I think spirit moves through me and in creating the little things I make, I again approach "no thought".

32625

[greybeard]

There is an energy behind your words Meggings which adds to this "understanding"at non verbal level.
Much love
Chris

[Clear Light]

Oh, IMHO conceptual thinking is all well and good, but thinking (per se) cannot "get" you to the non-conceptual, to a view of / as "emptiness" ... as it is simply like further spinning of the wheels of conceptual mind ! Who (or what) is this sense of 'I' anyhow ?

32626

[Meggings]

Non Duality - Awakenings (loaded 16 January 2016)
Russel Williams - 'Looking Through The Horse's Eyes' - Interview by Iain McNay.
....
f consciousness that dissolves into itself and loses duality.
And then there is only 'that.' Everything leads back to this emptiness. No form of understanding can connect you to this. It has to be seen within itself.
The peace that passes all understanding that is emptiness.
It is completely fulfilling in itself.
You can just BE instead of think.

http://conscious.tv/nonduality.html?bcpid=45947084001&bclid=46629186001&bctid=4700956433001

I have listened all the way through and if time is limited I would start at the 30 minute mark. Russel is 95 and still going strong, with humour.

A very clear pointing towards enlightenment---a spontaneous awakening.

...well worth listening to.
With love
Chris


Chris, I listened to this conversation this afternoon and was enthralled.
This is the closest to my experience I have encountered in anyone, and it warms my heart to "feel" him.

As you, I became rapt around the 30-minute mark. Around 40 minutes he says people can do similar to what he's done by...and he gives us his view on it.

Helpful to me was how he said all the anger and emotions were in the body still, and even though the experience of death from electrocution had wiped it all out temporarily, that it came back. That part for me was the hardest of all, and I guilted myself for the emotional upheavals that returned to me after living in a "high state" for so long. I had thought I was faulty.

Thank you for this. I love this soul. He speaks a truth on my behalf when he says "I'm looking at you through feeling and not by seeing." It is good for me to see those words, for that is what I do. And the person can be on the other side of the world and I am feeling them.

Again I thank you for this talk, Chris. It is excellent to me.

[greybeard]

Thanks Meggins for your valued sharing.

I would suggest to anyone who has not listened to the video linked above to do so, particularly if you have a love of animals or doubts about Oneness/non-duality. An excellent talk and evidence that enlightenment can spontaneously happen.

Much love
Chris

[Meggings]

Russel Williams: By the lessening of grasping, which is the killer of enlightenment - aversion is the opposite side of the same coin...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VEXH9udFU

[Clear Light]

32635
Ah, "I" wonder if perhaps this may help to direct your Attention inwards ... :wink:

[Wind]

At the centre of each man, each animal, each plant, each cell, and each atom, there is a complete stillness. A seemingly empty stillness, yet it holds the divine energies and the divine Idea for that thing.

~ Paul Brunton

http://oi63.tinypic.com/122gghj.jpg

[Clear Light]

Daily Tao / 16 – Ordinary

Umbrella, light, landscape, sky —
There is no language of the holy.
The sacred lies in the ordinary.

32643

No one is able to describe the spiritual except by comparing it to ordinary things. One scripture describes the divine word as an “umbrella of protection.” Another says a god is light. Heaven is supposed to be in the sky, and even ascetics who have rejected sex use erotic images to describe enlightenment. People have to resort to metaphor to state the divine.

Even esoteric languages have been invented, and they mystify the outsider. Holy words always appear that way to the uninitiated. After one learns to read them, their message becomes assimilated. We no longer worry about the images, for we have found the truth that the words were indicating.

When you buy something that has assembly instructions, you follow the directions, but you do not then venerate the instructions. Spiritual attainment is no different. Once you’ve gained it, instructions become secondary. Spirituality gained is no different than the ball game you play, the work you do, the car you drive, the love you make. If you constantly regard Tao as extraordinary, then it remains unknown and outside yourself — a myth, a fantasy, an unnameable quantity. But once you know it, it is yours and part of your daily life.

[From : "365 Tao Daily Meditations" Deng Ming-Dao]

[ZooLife]

32635
Ah, "I" wonder if perhaps this may help to direct your Attention inwards ... :wink:

Do the two of you agree with this post?

If they do there can be no room for wrong.

Cross-eyed is a myth if you catch my drift.

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq223/imagetony48/Animations/Cross-eyedrefrigerator-animation.gif~original


Fill my eyes with that double vision
No disguise for that double vision
Ooh, when it gets through to me, it's always new to me
My double vision gets the best of me -- Lou Gramm (Foreigner)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7e/c6/4c/7ec64c1265b0c1f737ae93548f1eab48.jpg

[Meggings]

This is someone I know slightly in this lifetime, but whose soul I love deeply. In the past I have posted quotes from his books, but for those who might have time and inclination, here is a 53-minute interview with Paul Selig done this past week.

With simple explanation, Paul speaks of what the teaching coming through him is about. By claiming our own divinity, we change the physical structure that outpictures as the world we live in. We bring the kingdom into manifestation. I simply love this fellow, how he conducts himself, what he says, and so share what I consider most valuable. Besides, I knew him in other lifetimes and feel a welling up/out of heart love when I see/hear him.

http://paulselig.com/2016/01/interview-inspire-nation/

[Clear Light]

i34IuGJUj30
Published on 25 Jan 2016 - A short but direct pointing instruction from Lama Tsultrim Allione (Length 4m:42s)


Ah, the "nature of mind" is the SAME for all beings and it is so simple "I" was not able to "accept" it for many years LOL :bigsmile:

[betoobig]

The way she finished made me laugh...."that's all"...
Thanks ClearBlueskies.
@ Meggins , thanks i loved the talk you shared. All so simple.
Much love

[CelineK]

I believe that every path should lead to enlightenment if one is wise enough to observe in silence and without being (too) judgmental. Krishnamurti's philosophy taught me a great deal in this sense.


But there also is another kind of enlightenment that springs from metaphysics and which has to be pursued as a study. 5 years ago, I began to look into physics and the Laws of Electromagnetism/Electricity without which nothing can exist; even Thought since neurons process emotions electrically. From there I was able to visualize and grasp the per-existing conflicts within the human mind arising from the polarization of Thought. Regarding emotions as electric currents may make feel one a little dizzy in the beginning but it is all about allowing the mind to align itself to this new thinking patterns.

The Electricity Theory also improved my understanding of Eastern and various indigenous spiritual orientations as well, and more importantly why Free Will is paramount on a cosmic level for the evolution of the Soul.

[greybeard]

Welcome to the thread CelineK.
There is nothing but energy, in this world anyway..
Thanks for your post.

Chris

[betoobig]

@Celinek. Agree, one being one path.
Wachting out for signs.
Much love

¤=[Post Update]=¤

And welcome to Avalon

[Matthew]

http://cdn3.gbtimes.com/cdn/farfuture/f-tBkPwT-g0qMUOTZwUAvoERzfvBWdoRd56vQrL8Xig/mtime:1390605887/sites/default/files/styles/social_media_image/public/2013/03/01/shutterstock_66528793_0.jpg?itok=UOZzN5Ff

[Clear Light]

32674


“Truth is not a reward for good behavior, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own …. Stand still, be quiet”

– Nisargadatta Maharaj

[betoobig]

Hello everyone.
Today i was trigged by someone's coment on me, right away i went to meditate to try to see what needs to be heallled. It felt all wrong but little by little embracing that darkness i heallled it.
I realized there is, still, long way to go.
Much love

[Skyhaven]

utPict770gU

[Wind]

"Ideally, we learn the wisdom of life best, easiest, and most from teachers, from instruction by those who know the Way in its beginning and end. Actually, we have to learn it by ourselves, by our own experience, by self-expression, all necessary and valuable, suffering as well as joy."

~ Paul Brunton

https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xlp1/t31.0-8/12604912_738871916249376_8341949589266858495_o.jpg

[ZooLife]

http://45.media.tumblr.com/334e20a0491b7176c825f6cb5b3ad137/tumblr_mua03qrVxZ1suhdw4o1_500.gif

I am on the inside looking out

Wait!

I am on the outside looking in

Wait!

I am on....

Never mind.

[ZooLife]

Ever notice that one isn't typically aware of the obvious when one is thinking of something else?

http://www.quotehd.com/imagequotes/authors1/mason-cooley-writer-if-we-think-about-the-obvious-long-enough-it.jpg

[Wind]

When all thoughts and words in us have dried up,
there remains such a profound silence
—unending, without beginning.
When all the words in us continue flowing,
underneath or behind them
there remains a profound silence.
Before words are spoken, there is a profound silence.
It can never dry up. It is without boundaries.
Nothing can touch or alter it. Nothing can remove it.
This silence and being, existence and love,
Truth and God...are all One—the Supreme Being.

~ Mooji

[Enola]

The Yoga of the Sun: Surya-yoga

"Each ray of sun is a source of energy. This is why, as present day resources of coal, gas and uranium become exhausted, human beings will turn more and more to solar energy which has infinite possibilities. But solar power is not merely a useful energy on the physical plane. Light is a living spirit that comes from the sun and makes direct contact with our own spirit.

To take the sun as your model is to hold the highest ideal. If you choose to imitate a scholar, a writer, a philosopher, or even a hero, a saint or an initiate, you will no doubt receive some particles of their virtues, but this will never be as abundant or pure in quality as what you receive when you model yourself on the sun.

The sun is the image of perfection, and if you take it as your model because you wish to illuminate, warm and vivify all creatures as the sun does, you will truly be transformed. Obviously you will never obtain the actual light, warmth, and life of the sun, but merely the desire to acquire these attributes will project you to celestial realms where you will accomplish wonders. Your desire to give light, warmth, and life to others will render you more luminous, warmer and more alive.

Light thinks, speaks, sings and creates. To the extent that light is able to make its way into the human soul, it is reflected in the form of intelligence, love, beauty, nobility and strength.

You must seek light, concentrate on it, drink it, eat it and value it above all treasures on earth. Whenever you have a spare moment, close your eyes and concentrate on the image of this light that penetrates everything and brings all blessings."

Aivanhov

http://omraam-words-of-light.org/inspiration-you-are-a-blessing/