winterknight

Yes, less fear generally. Less reactivity.

Yes. And in fact in the end there is no screen, and no "all this" and no "playing out." All those are concepts, all connected to some notion of "I" which is itself a concept...

Yes, well, that's the million-dollar unanswerable question. Maya means a distortion in thought. What is that distortion? It is the illusion that "I" exist, and with the I the conceptual framework. But if the I and the conceptual framework are kicked out, one has no words... so one can no longer say that "there is an experience." Nor can one say "there is not an experience." So it is not the case that the Absolute is "unmanifest" or "manifest." It is nameless; it is beyond categories; it is not even that. One answer: maya means the felt belief that there is such a thing as maya.

Certainly a freedom arises, but siddhis are somewhat different. Vedanta at least is quite firm that enlightenment has no necessary connection with siddhis. Siddhis are really just like any other power in the world. Learning is a siddhi. Wealth is a siddhi. And so on. They're all acquired by effort in a certain direction. Where they happen, it's because the effort has been put in -- if not in this life, then in a past one. So it would be like asking -- couldn't enlightenment make me better as an entrepreneur, a better doctor, a more creative writer, etc.? Well, yes, potentially the quieter mind could be channeled that way, but there's certainly no guarantee. It really depends on the channels carved "pre"-enlightenment by one's prior effort. The water will flow down those channels even as they are slowly dissolved, as the tendencies and karma accumulated is burned away (if we are talking of karma... of course really there is no such thing).

Thanks! Technically this very post is the 2000th in the series, counting the post that started it as the first...

Not particularly. Those are all siddhis. Enlightenment has little to do with them. Perhaps the quieter mind might very slightly help, but it's at best a very indirect connection. And frankly enlightenment is likely if anything to lead to a disinterest in such things. As Ramana Maharshi says in Guru Vachaka Kovai: "One who longs for siddhis after arriving in the world of Atma-Siddhas, the unlimited Space of Self-Consciousness, is just like the one who wants sour and stale gruel after reaching Heaven, which provides divine elixir, the food of immortality."

Not all therapists or therapies are the same. Google "psychoanalytic institute <your city>", call them, and ask for a referral. That is the most powerful kind of therapist & therapy. Be prepared to spend a lot of time and effort before you "find out your Problem" -- a year or more. That's how long real insight takes.

Well, it sounds like a glimpse or glimpses of the Truth, for sure. But there is still a lot of "I am" in them, and there's still a lot of concept. The Truth is simpler than that. It is quiet and beyond concept. So keep going. What's the unchanging constant beneath these realizations? If those states give you peace, try going there again and staying there, but while you are awake and doing other things...

Psychoanalysis is a very special therapy (not all psychotherapy is the same) that is not about you analyzing, but about you feeling and expressing it in the context of a deep and special sort of relationship. You've already talked about how you're having trouble in your social life. That sort of relationship can help you understand what's going on. Just more solo stuff isn’t going to cut it.

You're very welcome.

Go get some psychoanalytic therapy...very useful for seekers in your position to have that kind of insightful, supportive figure. Google "psychoanalytic institute <your city>" and see if there are any institutes in your city. Call them and ask for a referral. They often have low-fee options available if that is an issue.

Yes, that's why eyes-open is recommended, and then your practice has to go into daily life, constantly. If you can feel peace while doing your other activities, that is not dullness.

Yes, with a caveat. Sometimes a mind can seem quiet when it is actually dull -- lacking energy and focus. That apathy is also not-quietness. And of course doing things according to your desire definitely quiets the mind... that's why I have such an emphasis on being honest about what you want. So that you can do it!

No, the psychological work is not unnecessary. Identification with the doer is ignorance, but you can't get rid of ignorance just by saying "It's ignorance!" You have to do the work of transforming your perspective. To do that, you have to engage in this psychological work. Why? Well, because in order for the self-inquiry to proceed effectively, it has to be done in a quiet mind... that quiet mind can only be obtained when it is relatively "unified," as you put it. It doesn't have to be perfectly quiet, only quiet enough... And then, when you apply self-inquiry to that quiet enough mind, doership will eventually be recognized to be non-existent. But until then, as the seeker, you have to treat psychological work as very necessary.

No, I haven't read it. But that makes sense, at least on the face of it... I don't think it's necessary or even most efficient to do that unification solely through meditation (though that may have been the way that monks did it in the old days... though they also had their "therapist" in the form of their guru, and also were living in a monastery with tons of disciplines to simplify life)...

Yes, this psychological approach is the coherent approach to the practicalities of life... for as long as you need that. But while you do them you should try to practice self-inquiry, and eventually you will see that there is no need for a coherent approach to the practicalities of life. This is all due to the identification with the doer. You're like the person sitting in a theater afraid that if you don't duck, the hero in the movie won't dodge the bullet... but until you experience that for yourself, keep doing in the world. Actually this is the egoic thought! Who says what it is that you should or shouldn't do? Who is calling yourself lazy? Who is refusing to accept what you actually want? That's the ego!

Yes it is in a sense "unifying the subminds," except that I don't think you can just do it by paying attention to the breath. I think you do it by becoming increasingly aware of your feelings/desire, articulating them, trying different actions and seeing how you feel and then adjusting your understanding of yourself, therapy (particularly helpful because we are often hiding things from ourselves, so it's often not as easy as simply saying "I want to unify myself"), etc. Note of course the mind is in a sense always clear: it is clear sometimes that it wants to be conflicted about a particular decision. That is its decision!

Yes, on both counts. Look, if your desire were clear, you would be either acting -- or not acting -- but you wouldn't be worried or making a big deal about it. Think about how many things you do (or don't do) each day without thinking about them. Your desire in those cases is very clear. The problem comes up when there is a conflict of desires. Then there's that start-stop, push-pull. So in that case, you have to put forth special efforts to feel all the different desires in you, to articulate and specify them to see what they are really getting at, to trace their historical context (when did you start feeling them), metaphorize/express them, experiment with them... etc. -- so that you can listen to them all, understand what they're really getting at (which may not be what they initially seem to be about) and hopefully bring them to a higher reconciliation in which all of them are respected. That's where therapy & symbolic/artistic expression of your feelings comes in. You really don't need to worry much about action. Once you're reconciled that conflict, action will seem natural and will just happen. You can analyze it and then allow what happens to happen -- either action or not, without standing in the way of what happens naturally.

Yes, well, the problem is that you are attached to your goals, attaching to negatively judging yourself, attached to the ideas of things like "weight loss" and "normal work habits" and much more. So, of course, it is not as simple as saying "be unattached" -- you can't get rid of those attachments that easily. But this is exactly why my philosophy is and always has been to be honest about your desire. Maybe you don't want to lose weight. Maybe you don't want to do better at work. Stop lying to yourself and telling yourself that you do. That's one thing. But if you are nagged by these "shoulds," what you need to do is to start going deep into those shoulds, and also into your own desires to resist doing what you "should" do -- and examine their meanings. How to do that? Well, this is why I have always recommended psychoanalysis and related therapies (which you're trying to get, right?). That's one way of skinning that cat. Another is metaphorization: that is, symbolic expression -- artistic expression -- of your feelings in great detail. Try to communicate them so that someone else could feel them, could understand them. Compare your feelings to other things. What are they like or unlike? And watch how you feel as you do various things, so you can start to see where you are lying to yourself. "I want to lose weight." You say that, but how do you actually feel when you say that? Do you actually feel any enthusiasm, or only a negative judgment self-directed at yourself, that probably comes from your family, from society, or other loved ones? Time to start noticing these things, and being increasingly honest about what you actually feel, not what you "should" feel, "think you feel," "want to feel," etc. -- and aligning your actions accordingly. Ideally you'd be able to say "You know what? I don't want to lose weight. So I am proudly going to not lose weight." All this talk about laziness is a load of dishonest bullshit -- "lazy" is a nonsense term. There is only honest and dishonest. Anyway, this is off the top of my head. These motivational resistances and self-judgments are the heart of the Search. No, no affirmation, only negation. The opposite of negation is not affirmation but a profound mental silence. If that happens, the thought will not even occur to you as to whether you should "affirm" that or not... as soon as you say "Gee whiz, I am Peace" -- boom, you've already left that Silence.

Basically this is a long-standing argument. Hindus by and large are happy to say that Buddhism is pointing to the same truth that Hinduism is. Many immature Buddhists hate this idea... it's like the rebellious teenage kid who's like "I am not like my father in any way..." (since Buddhism has its roots in Hinduism). Often these are the Buddhist fundamentalists, too, who claim that only Buddhism has the truth. But the wiser, more mature Buddhists understand that the non-dual truth goes beyond words and can be formulated in many different ways. Hinduism has certainly learned and benefitted a great deal from Buddhism over the centuries.

Liberation is enlightenment. It might help you to read some introductory texts on Vedanta to help you see the big picture. Try the Bhagavad Gita or Tattva Bodha.

Not exactly like this, but fears about doership are quite common. My advice might in this case be not to ignore or condemn the fear, but to listen to it. What is it really saying? What is it rooted in? Express and metaphorize the fear. Really try to parse it out. Why would you fear not recognizing your parents' faces? Where did that idea even come from? Was there any kind of memory loss in your family or your life to date? Any recurring fear is trying to communicate a message. Never steamroll a fear of that kind. Listen to it, try to understand what it is saying, and, if possible, attempt to respond to that fear -- it has an insight for you, and see if you can integrate that into your perspective and your actions. That is the real and best way to make it further your practice instead of act as an obstacle.

Best not to have those kinds of expectations about it.

No, neither has anything to do with how active you can be in the world. They are both just concepts, and both are true from different perspectives.

It sounds like for you there is psychological work to be done. That is, anyhow, most of the path. I'd recommend a combination of psychoanalytic therapy and Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry, not body awareness. What do you mean by radical?