winterknight

Neither. When you’re not paying attention to something, what happens? It might as well not exist. Similarly, when the mind pays attention only to knowledge, nothing can be said to exist.

Activity is not the measure of a sense of doership, though. Whether one is sitting in one place or traveling around the world, one can either feel oneself to be a doer, or not. And this is of course not a choice. Either the fruits of inquiry have wiped away that sense or not. And as I showed earlier with Gandhi, one can be very active in the world, yet be so without thinking. To the mind turned firmly inward, thought and world disappear. But this does not mean that, from the standpoint of outsiders, that enlightened one sits and does nothing.

Well, great then. It's just that in my experience & in at least Hindu scriptures, enlightenment is associated with total loss of the sense of doership. There is possibly a surreptitious "I" that is staying in the picture and associating itself with the one whose wishes the universe fulfills, etc. But that's just my opinion. You have to follow your own internal compass, obviously. It's not about rejecting the world, but about rejecting the mind. And I'm suggesting that it happens automatically, over time... while it is true that the Self can never be left, the surface of the mind can be more or less blissful. When there is no "I" there is an automatic dropping of the mind and its thoughts over time, as these are basically motivated by desire, and desire is based on the self-conception of oneself as doer & enjoyer.

Well, all I can say is just be careful that this is not self-deception. When something really "bad" comes your way will you feel that you've intended it? Self-inquiry is not about just attaining a quiet mind, though. It's literally called inquiry, after all. It's trying to see clearly what is. It's not really a "danger." The truth of Self is unaffected either way, but it's simply that the mind may be more or less turbulent, more or less blissful. As Ramana Maharshi says, "The bliss of peace is too good to be disturbed. A man fast asleep hates to be awakened and ordered to mind his business. The bliss of sleep is too enthralling to be sacrificed to the work born of thoughts. The thought-free state is one’s primal state and full of bliss. Is it not miserable to leave such a state for the thought-ridden and unhappy one?"

Well, there's a few issues in phrasing it this way. First, I've never loved self-referential as the designating term. It's both too broad and not broad enough. It's not thinking the word "I" that is problematic, it is the underlying interlaced structure of egoic thought. One could think "I" without it playing much into that structure, or one could think something seemingly not related to the I at all that nevertheless is deeply influenced by that underlying mental structure. How to tell which is which? Well, one can probably only tell after the fact -- by the way in which the mind has been drawn out and it causes un-peace. Second, once one has seen one's true nature firmly, there is really no question of 'allowing' or 'not allowing.' Those very ways of looking at things play into ignorance. So one must "not allow" that way of thinking to spring up . It's more like this happens automatically as a result of knowledge. Third, thoughts can't really cause ignorance. It's not really about whether they cause ignorance or not but simply what the state of the mind is -- more or less peaceful, that is. Finally, at the extreme end, it may well be the case (I don't have a firm position on this, but i lean this way) that literally all thought somehow or the other plays into the egoic structure. So that in the end, thought itself disappears, or very close to it, because not motivated by desire.

Thoughts are not antithetical to self-realization, but self-realization is not the same as a mind in perfect calmness. The latter requires the former, however. The latter suggests thoughts occur but very rarely if at all. By thoughts I mean any mental arising related to the idea of "what should I do and how should I do it."

I didn't speak merely of exposure but of the deeply quiet, fear- and desire-free mind. That is the key. There are plenty who have been exposed but whose minds are still noisy and unstable.

Actually, only they are really beneficial to a society that operates on the egoic level -- the ones who operate on a non-egoic level, who operate without pre-meditation, neither out of fear nor desire -- the ones who see no world, and whose minds are as if asleep even while waking. Take it from Gandhi, quoted by Ramana Maharshi: "How mysterious are the ways of God! This journey to Rajkot is a wonder even to me. Why am I going, whither am I going? What for? I have thought nothing about these things. And if God guides me, what should I think, why should I think? Even thought may be an obstacle in the way of His guidance. The fact is, it takes no effort to stop thinking. The thoughts do not come. Indeed there is no vacuum - but I mean to say that there is no thought about the mission.” He wrote that at the height of his activism. The movement that happens spontaneously when the mind is in silent peace is the movement that is correct.

I think the real answer is that to the pure, silent mind, the world effectively ceases to exist. The mind and body of such a one -- if they are hypothesized to exist -- then work in a completely different way, totally creatively and mysteriously. And in so doing they help the world in a way that cannot be conceptualized. I mean, people might try to interpret the actions of such a one, but such an interpretation -- with goals, ideas, values, etc. -- is not what actually drives that mind/body.

The 'problem' is not at its core in any new steps or values we could come up with (though those can be interesting). The problem at its core is in the psyche. And how to change that? If it can be changed, it can happen only by the light of the Self. Spiritual freedom must spread. And it can only be spread by those whose minds are immersed in deep and total silence.

There must be more to this story. Debtor imprisonment is not a thing anymore outside specialized circumstances (usually poor people with court-related fines that they can't pay). Bankruptcy releases you from debt. (at least if we're talking about the US)

I don't really much answer questions about the enlightened experience because the answers are always misleading... best to get there and find out yourself. Why do you ask?

Search on Google: all pages with lsd lsd site:actualized.org if you want the threads with lsd in the title -- intitle:lsd site:actualized.org

That's a glimpse of it

Interesting. Well, these are cool ideas. I don't disagree with any of them per se, but they are all in the realm of relative rather than ultimate truth. I don't really comment on videos. The important question, though is: Who is it that wants to do this? Is it you? Until you look deeply yourself into this point, you won't get a resolution. Does the "pure awareness" want this? So the method is: inquire, inquire, inquire. For as long as it takes.

The very word "intention" is a concept; but reality is beyond concepts. God does not act via our mental ideas of intention; nor for that matter does God "act" using our human category of action. So how does God work? Well, the human mind can't figure it out, ever. And when the mind is turned firmly towards calmness, there is no one to ask the question.

Really, it simply cannot be described in words.

But my reply to that is: to whom is this how question occurring? All "how" questions are rooted in the idea that there is a doer & decider... someone who is dealing with this question, for example, of "how to allow fear to express itself..." That's why my reply to it is to look more deeply into the one who is concerned.

Am I conscious of that? The "I" is precisely what cannot be conscious of that.

Got it. Well, I was mentioning it in the context of the fear thing you brought up. I said: inquire into who is worried about this fear thing, not in that moment necessarily, but now. And you said you would. But then you made this comment about self-inquiry leading to a shapeless void, which I thought might indicate a hesitation about such inquiry. Actually self-inquiry & surrender are two sides of a coin. Who is surrendering, after all? That's the question surrender necessarily leads to.

No, not exactly. By suggestibility I actually meant something more like hypnotic suggestibility. This is not anything like gullibility. It means the ability of some people to (unconsciously) deeply change the way their brain functions based on an idea (suggestion). For example, a highly hypnotically suggestible person could be told -- under hypnosis (though meditation may resemble hypnosis in some ways!) -- that a rose looked green, and the visual cortex of their brains would be seen literally reacting as if the flower placed in front of them was green. It's actually a cool ability. Well, who is judging the self of inquiry to be confusing and shapeless while the self of surrender is merging? These are mental judgments. Who is there to make them? These are the feelings of various methods before you see through the fact that all these judgments are wrong.

Right, but I'm talking about right now -- this very issue of what-happens-when-fear-strikes-and-I-fail-to-surrender... this "issue" should also be surrendered. If the fear comes without your surrender in that moment, you can still surrender to that whole fact right now. Ok good. Well, it could be that you are really are remembering things from early in your life or past lives. Or it could be suggestibility, as I said. Anyway these things run together ultimately, since the world is not real. But if you're really interested in these phenomena, maybe they deserve some further investigation. Maybe you want to -- write them down, create art out of them, capture what they feel like as accurately and originally as you can. Or, alternatively, perhaps you want to investigate them. If there's a memory of a past life, perhaps you want to see if it is accurate. If there are verifiable facts in these memories, maybe you can investigate them. Or perhaps you simply surrender and allow whatever happens regarding these to happen, and you simply be, serene and unconcerned...

Ok, so if you're surrendering, then where is the problem anymore with the fear? That's dealt with, right? Ok, well, I haven't experienced anything like that, but it could be some kind of supernatural perception, or else it could simply be that your mind is highly suggestible (not necessarily a bad thing). I would not place any importance in visions of this kind, though. They have nothing to do with the Self. They are relative phenomena. I should ask -- is there any history of psychosis in your family, though? Or are you taking psychedelics regularly?

Well I'm suggesting doing the inquiry now (and continuously). The question is who is worried about it now. Who is there that is affected by this fear? Who is it that wants to be present during fear to be in control? Who is it that wants to notice the stillness then? Or, if you are surrendering, then surrender these desires too. Well, imagination doesn't have to only be closed-eyed. We can superimpose imaginary images on our vision. For example, I could look at a book in front of me and in imagination, with eyes open, "see" that it's levitating. But I can instantly return my attention to the 'actual' position of the book, and I know that it's not really ever levitating. Is this what you mean? Or do you mean something else?

Who is there to stay with their true nature? That's that the inquiry needs to be about. But yes, surrender works. Simply absolutely surrender all desire for the situation to be any different -- including the desire for there not to be any fear, or to be able to take any stances at that moment, etc. Are you speaking literally -- like a hallucination -- or more metaphorically, in your mind's eye?