Petals

@Pernani not explicitly I think. the other Krishnamurti - UG says: "If the idea of the 'meaningful' is dropped, then you will see meaning in whatever you are doing in daily life." I like that. maybe it helps you.

I read it quite a long time ago, but there is one sentence that I remember: "The ambitious man is the most frightened of man because he is afraid to be what he is." It's a great book. I would recommend it to those who want to read something 'spiritual' but at the same time something grounded and not 'far out'.

@Alex bliss I read it somewhere and I could also recognize in one of his answers that he was already highly advanced before he met his guru. So he was very advanced and he met a genuine guru who knew exactly what Nisargadatta had to hear. That's a great recipe for awakening. So try not to compare yourself with him and, as Nisargadatta would say, 'earnestness' will get you there too.

William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops especially 'dlp 1.1' it's 'impermanence' in a track. read about how he did it.

@Zigzag Idiot thank you very much for this link! did you get the collection for a reasonable price?

@Synchronicity thank you for making the video! I haven't read through the whole thread yet, but have you thought about somehow getting a brain scan or some interested psychologist to do an fMRI (which is probably hard to get). I am not saying that the brain is producing your experience. I think there can never be proof for us unless we ourselves have the direct experience. Until then the only hint can be a 2nd-person-perspective of your 1st-person-perspective, which is the brain. If there is some anomaly found, we would then at least have a basis for believing in what you are saying. I'm not saying that there has to be an anomaly, but maybe there is.

@Synchronicity thank you for sharing! a while back I read a book by Gardner Eeden called 'Lucid'. He explains that he lives simultaneously in the everyday world and the dream-world. So he is constantly dreaming while also being conscious of the regular world - 24/7. He calls it being 'bi-conscious'. This is probably different from what you are experiencing, but maybe you are interested in it.

@Consilience You are right in that he emphasizes the role of the body in and after awakening (which I think is very important), I guess that's why it seems materialistic.

@Commodent thank you for sharing! the introduction alone is already fascinating. I never knew he met Ramana Maharshi.

@Mulky thanks for reporting your experience. I would also describe it as a pleasant feeling, although it's of course quite surprising the first time. @cetus56 Thanks. I will see if it gets deeper with time and what happens then.

I am working with a quite powerful brainwave entrainment program. After some minutes I feel my head tilting to the right sight in the direction of my shoulder although in reality my head stays straight. I want to ask whether anyone of you has had the same sensation in your meditation practice. Do you know what is going on or what the explanation behind it is?

@Swagala we're probably talking about different things. interesting nonetheless. no, can't imagine that.

@Swagala thank you for the reply. I don't think that I have any control over it in order to increase it, I just try to not resist it. what do you mean by 'senses tilting'?

@Leo Gura thank you for sharing this. That was quite a 'Conversations with God' by Neale Donald Walsch flashback. I read it a few years ago. you two should have a conversation. do you think you could answer yourself questions that do not pertain to the highest non-dual level, e.g. about 'reincarnation'?

@Zigzag Idiot thanks so much for the detailed answer!

@Zigzag Idiot this Forth Way 'system' seems so hard to pin down. Is there something that you've taken away from it which really has changed something in your daily life? many of the concepts seem to be rather arcane, that's why I always get the sense that there is something here that other systems don't have. but is there really?

@Yonkon I can add two more techniques. The first is called LAX VOX. You can google it or watch some videos on youtube. There should be some resources in English, too. It's a simple technique and seems to help a lot of people. I have quite a severe dysphonia and had a lot of speech/voice therapy but the only thing that helps me a bit is screaming into a pillow as loud as I can. But please be careful not to overdo it!! This brings some movement into this whole tense system for me. Don't wait for a magic pill. It's very good that you see progress, so just keep going! I guess voice/expression problems seem like a minor thing from the outside but it's hard to overstate how much it is affecting one's whole being. so I can really empathize with you.

and two more. MAURICE NICOLL. I think he was a disciple of Carl Jung at some point and he looked at the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky teachings from a Christian perspective. THE PATHWORK LECTURES by EVA PIERRAKOS/THE GUIDE. Don't really know what to make of it yet. It's channeled material and very Christian.

I just want to add two names. I haven't read anything of them yet. I just stumbled upon them when looking into Christianity. Maybe it is worthwhile doing some research on them. The first ist THOMAS MERTON. The second is ABHISHIKTANANDA. He was a French monk who moved to India. Maybe he has an interesting Christian perspective on Advaita and the East.

@Leo Gura this may sound like a silly question, but what do you mean by 'ego' and what do you mean by 'self'? do you use them interchangeably? a book that I am reading right now states that a clear distinction between the two is needed. according to it, in the absence of ego there is still the self (the self-reflexive mechanism of the mind) and all experiences of the divine are self-based and not the divine itself.

I think that a very important indicator of whether one is spiritual bypassing or not is the presence of fear. I think that all bypassing/avoidance is based in fear. So for example, if there is a lack of genuine effort to achieve something you believe in, ask yourself - 'is this so because I am afraid of failure or have I already transcended the fear of failure?'. Probably in the early stages everything can turn into spiritual bypassing if one is not vigilant because one is far away from a stage where one has transcended fear. I would recommend not attaching any morality to 'spiritual bypassing'. I don't know how it is with you but when I think of 'spiritual bypassing' there immediately comes in a feeling that it is 'bad'. Remind yourself that you are never 'out of bounds' so to speak and things are so arranged that 'spiritual bypassing' will lead to suffering and suffering will lead you back on track. So SB is not 'bad' but a natural part of the journey and a sign that there is still fear to dissolve.

with 'understood' here I mean 'intellectually understood'. I hope that this can now set the foundation for the real practice of self-inquiry. and I am sharing this so that it may help you in this way too. I am not sure if this is the most obvious triviality that everybody here already knows, at least for me it is a next level of understanding and maybe it is for you as well. Please do really contemplate these sentences. That is what I wrote down as it came into my mind: since the question is 'who am(!) I?', I can only be(!) the answer, but never know it. because I cannot be something that I know. and I cannot know what I am. when there is being, there is no knowing/'not-knowing' and vice versa. that is because 'am' means oneness, and 'know' means separation (of subject and object). since 'am' allows only for oneness, I 'am' absolutely one with (all) 'am-ness' / being. 'am' is oneness. 'am' is absolute identity. I 'am' oneness (because I 'am'). I 'am' absolute identity (because I 'am'). I am not a thing that is one or identical (with sth), but I 'am' actual oneness/identity itself. 'am' not only denotes existence but also oneness. since 'am' means/is oneness, and since as a consequence there can only be one 'am-ness'/being, I 'am' that.

@kev014 there are exoteric and there are esoteric teachings. if you are interested in christianity you could read Bernadette Roberts.

@ActualizedDavid maybe it's just best to leave them alone. they seem to be real, as not only the above video by Bache shows. so if they exist but you don't experience/remember them now, there is probably a good reason for it.

@The Don and don't forget 'thank you!'. that's a good prayer. maybe even the most important one.