Some questions about the search for answers

[WindInTheLeaf]

7 minutes ago, Jack River said:

I think the mystery was/is sensed but we hadn’t/don’t understood that thought was itself no means of exploring the mystery. The mystery is a mystery because it is whole. It would take somthing whole to explore that. But thought ain’t that. 

So wholeness, being complete mystery, is divided in the attempt to grasp/explore/know itself? And divided it attempts to become whole by letting go of itself? Like breathing in breathing out. 

[WaveInTheOcean]

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"I should perhaps have put it differently: is truth beyond thoughts-of-truth? Can truth be grasped by thought if thoughts arise as expressions of truth?"

It's not that Truth is 'beyond' thoughts. The Truth is here and now. Always have been. Always will be. You need nothing to grasp the Truth.

Thoughts and all other form of experience are of course expressions of the Truth (what else could they be?). 

But most experiences in life, most thoughts people have, they are mostly viewed by people as pointers to something else forward in time. 

"If I go to school, someday I will get a degree"
"Now I got my degree. now I will soon get a job, and when I get a job I will get succesful, and then happy".
"I will get enlightened if i do X"

Experiences and thoughts that point to themselves -- i.e. seem to be self-referring and paradoxical -- are IMO the best pointers to the Truth. 
I.e. they are not only expressions of Truth, but they also tries to express the Truth itself. 

I also think that's why koans are used so much by Zen Masters. By using koans, they try to get their students to see the paradoxical nature of everything.

Music is maybe the best example of an experience that obviously points to nothing but itself. Music has no meaning besides itself.

Of course, ultimately speaking, all experiences are the Truth and thus points to nothing else than the Truth. But relatively speaking, some experiences -- some kind of language -- "more obviously" point to the Truth than other experiences.

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But if theory is a layer through which the road is seen and traveled, would the closest approximations of 'truth' not be the hardest to get beyond?

Thoughts can never approximate the Truth. That's a trap. They can only point to it. And their ability to point or not depends as much on the lisenter as on what is being said.
 

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If someone reaches a conceptual understanding in which he is able to almost describe truth, will this theory become a great tool or a huge obstacle for realizing truth?

But you can't describe the Truth! In no way! ALL conceptual frameworks are equally infinitely close and infinitely far away from the Truth itself.

You can never understand the Truth/Absolute/God/Nothingness/Consciousness/God/Tao through language. 

Conceptual frameworks/teachings can only be tools ("maps") that can help you in getting you to realize what is and what has ALWAYS been the Truth. In that sense some conceptual frameworks can be useful in the quest for enlightenment, but they can also be traps. Depends on what you do with them. They can help you to start doing the actual 'work', i.e. meditation, self-inquiry, psychedelics, etc. They can help you to start looking at yourself and your attachments, and see what you're clinging to. They can maybe point out to you the massively illusionary nature of your ego, of your thoughts, of your life.

A hammer is usually best used to hammer a nail into something, not to look at and sanctify.

If you cling to your conceptual framework as something that is approximating the Truth, then naturally that's a great obstacle, but that's your own fault.

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how can you point at the truth by words to someone clinging to some thoughts about it?

koans. making them see the paradoxical nature of all their beliefs. making them see how their thoughts are very limited. art. music. poetry. dno.
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Some conceptual random words:

"If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality.
If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both."

- This is a great quote by the Zen Master, Bodhidharma.

Thoughts come & go, you stay.
Emotions come & go, you stay.
Sensations come & go, you stay.
Image of ’you’ come & go, you stay.
Story of ’you’ come & go, you stay.

That which doesn't come and go is you.
It is really that simple.
Awareness naturally gives attention to the comings and goings. Pull identity back from these comings and goings.
That which you are trying to look for is that which you are already looking from.
Truth is so simple - so effortless.

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“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion.”

"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."

"If you ask me, then, why am I talking? Well, I could say I’m making a living this way, or I have a message that I want to get across to you. But that is not the reason. I’m talking for the same reason that birds sing and for the same reason that the stars shine. I dig it. Why do you dig it? Well, I could go on answering all sorts of questions about human motivation and psychology, but they wouldn’t explain a thing because explaining things by the past is really a refusal to explain them at all. All you’re doing is postponing the explanation. You’re putting it back, and back, and back, and back, and that explains nothing."  The present needs no explanation.

[WindInTheLeaf]

1 hour ago, WindInTheLeaf said:

So wholeness, being complete mystery, is divided in the attempt to grasp/explore/know itself? And divided it attempts to become whole by letting go of itself? Like breathing in breathing out. 

If this is the case there is no problem inherent in searching for answers. It is merely the expansion before and after any contraction. But perhaps the process can become optimized if we stop searching for answers to questions without answers and stop seeking security in answers without questions. I don't know, interesting to contemplate. 

Thanks everyone so far for contributing to this thought-stream, love you even when I don't. 

[Flammable]

Mu!

[WindInTheLeaf]

@WaveInTheOcean Quite a stream, some nice quotes too.

Thoughts are not problematic as thoughts but become problematic when we attempt to make them more than what they are. When they become tools in the search for what they arise as part of we embark on an endless search to find ourselves. I believe the quote about the teeth points in this direction. 

If truth is here and now, searching for truth is like fooling ourselves into believing we don't already have it, and that we have to find it somewhere out there. Searching may arise as truth but when it becomes a means to reach an end of truth we become truth chasing our own tail. 

[WaveInTheOcean]

1 hour ago, WindInTheLeaf said:

If truth is here and now, searching for truth is like fooling ourselves into believing we don't already have it, and that we have to find it somewhere out there.

Yeah, but that's how the ego works, I guess.

You gotta obey the ego's playbook to a certain degree. After all, it is through the dissolution of the ego that enlightenment comes. The ego has to dissolve, but you can't make that happen by just wanting it to happen. It has to happen spontaneously, as when you fall asleep lying in the sofa, tired. But how do you make it happen spontaneously? You cannot of course, because then it wouldn't be spontaneous  
The only way is to go on the road, try really hard. And then maybe, at some point the ego realizes the silliness of it all, the cosmic joke of it all, and then it happens, it surrenders.

The presence of the ego implies distinction; a division between subject and object. The ego works by mechanisms whereby it desires to get something it doesn't already have, let it be a girlfriend, money, success or, yes, enlightenment.

You have to play by the rules to a certain degree, because there is no alternative. Or that would maybe be a strong psychedelic experience (5-MeO) or just luck.

I guess, what I am trying to say, is that you have to search in order to find out that there is nothing to search for  Reality is so paradoxical.

Some snippets from Osho's own description of his enlightenment:

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... The very effort was the barrier, the very ladder was preventing it from happening -- the very urge to seek was the final obstacle. Not that one can reach enlightenment without seeking. Seeking and effort is needed, but there comes a point when seeking has to be dropped. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. 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.

And the day the search stopped, 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, the rocks, the sky, and in the sun and the air, it was everywhere. The day effort and desire stopped, I also ceased to exist. One cannot exist without desire.

The phenomenon of the ego, of the self, is not a thing. It is a process. You have to create it each moment. It is like pedaling bicycle; if you pedal, it goes on and on. If you don't pedal, it stops and eventually falls and collapses. The ego exists, because we go on pedaling desire, because we go on striving to get something. The ego is not in the present, it is in the future. 

You cannot stop desire; you can only understand it. But in the very understanding is the stopping of it. So the desire has to be understood. A direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration is needed. Look into desire, see what it is, and you will see the falsity of it. You will see it is non-existential. And the ego cannot exist without desire, just as the desire cannot exist without the ego. Desire is projected ego. Ego is introjected desire.

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by WaveInTheOcean

[Nahm]

On 10/24/2018 at 1:06 PM, WindInTheLeaf said:

Is truth beyond thoughts?

If truth is beyond thoughts, can it be described in words to someone having not realized truth?

If those realizing truth stops thinking and talking about it, does those still talking have a harder or easier time realizing truth? 

If someone reaches a conceptual understanding in which he is able to almost describe truth, will this theory become a great tool or a huge obstacle for realizing truth?

 

You are the Truth.  There is no one else. 

Truth is not some piece of info, or some thing you will find. 

It’s you. 

If you describe truth to someone else, you’re not, it’s still you, appearance of ‘someone else’.

[WindInTheLeaf]

@Nahm  Feels like we going in circles. See how difficult it is to tell anyone anything they dont already see? And if anyone is already 'there' as the truth, why do you even feel the need to? And by trying, you distance yourself from the bliss, the 'purer' form of truth(i don't know if we can make such a distinction, but pointing at the truth that rests completely in itself and as such is an expression of bliss), of there being absolutely no problem whatsoever, no need or want. How do you ever wish to help yourself if you constantly try? Leave yourself be, you are already it. 

@WaveInTheOcean How do you know that searching is a necessity to find enlightenment? Because Osho said so? Or your ego wants you to believe you have to keep it alive to kill it? Perhaps he is right. But he is saying that the obstacle is truly the search, right? And that the ego keeps itself alive, moment by moment, by desire, seeking, chasing? Perhaps the search that he points to as being necessary is the one leading you to realizing that searching is what keeps you from being where you wish to be? That you were there all along but just kept this idea alive that there was something more to it. I see you quote Alan Watts in the signature. In one of his talks, cannot remember which one doesnt really matter you probably know the one im talking about, he points towards how we are sort of standing in the way of the evolution of human consciousness by believing that enlightenment is something 'I' can bring about. Perhaps 'I' like to elevate the idea of enlightenment to being something hard to accomplish, such as to make me one hell of a guy for achieving it. Perhaps the idea having to do anything at all is what keeps us from realizing that nothing is really done by anything, that it just IS.

If you came to the step of final surrender, and realized, that all your struggling, all your searching and fancy ideas, had been absolutely worthless, that you in fact know absolutely nothing and never had any control or any kind of insight to set you above anyone or anything else, what would you do? Would you allow yourself to die and let go of everything you hold, everything you believe to have achieved along the way? Or keep alive the idea that you have somehow found a higher truth that you must protect by keeping alive your tiring search. Any belief must go, or the ego keeps its hold.

Perhaps this is too much to swallow at once, and therefore the search(or kind of search in reverse actually, since enlightenment has nothing to do with knowledge but quite the opposite, the dissolution of knowledge/belief) acts as a parachute keeping you from burning up along your way down. Perhaps it is necessary as you believe it to be. I don't know. But since no one is right and no one is wrong, any question is without any specific answer, i could not say I am right and you are wrong that would be kind of against the point im trying to make. I do wish, however, that you ponder about these things, look at it dont just discard it because you believe to know. You dont know, neither do I.

For good measure, ill post this question once again, although it can be formulated in many ways, one of which you yourself posted (the quote with the teeth): Can truth be grasped by thought if thoughts arise as expressions of truth? Some of which could perhaps be: can a light shine upon itself? A hand grasp itself? Teeth bite themselves? Can I know myself? And so, If all is I, can I know anything at all?

Edited October 26, 2018 by WindInTheLeaf
one big chunk of text divided to make it less of a mess i guess

[Nahm]

@WindInTheLeaf ? Thanks

[WaveInTheOcean]

On 27/10/2018 at 0:31 AM, WindInTheLeaf said:

Perhaps the search that he points to as being necessary is the one leading you to realizing that searching is what keeps you from being where you wish to be? 

I think that's a brilliant way to put it, yes.

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Perhaps 'I' like to elevate the idea of enlightenment to being something hard to accomplish, such as to make me one hell of a guy for achieving it.

Yeah that's probably one of the most human thing about us. That we believe that we should always fight for something in order to get it. Suffer for it. Because then when I get it, I'll be one of hell of a guy, yeah - special.

The ego is so tricky.

In one of his talks, Alan says the following (a snippet from it):
 

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... Suppose that I say to you, "Each one of you is really the great Self—you know, the Brahman", and you then say, "Well, all you’ve said up until now makes me fairly sympathetic to this intellectually. But I don’t really feel it. What must I do to feel it really?"
My answer to you is this: You ask me that question because you don’t want to feel it, really. You’re frightened of it. And therefore, what you’re going to do is: you’re going to get a method of practice, so that you can put it off. So that you can say, "Well, I can be a long time on the way getting this thing, and then, maybe, I’ll be worthy of it. After I have suffered enough."

See? Because we are brought up in a social scheme whereby we have to deserve what we get. And the price that one pays for all good things is suffering. But all of that is precisely postponement, because one is afraid, here and now, to see it. If you have the nerve—you know, real nerve—you would see it right away. Only that would be—when one feels—you shouldn’t have nerve like that. Why, that would be awful, that would be—that wouldn’t do at all! Because, after all, I’m supposed to be poor little me. And I’m not really much of a muchness, and I’m playing the role of being poor little me. And therefore—in order to be something great like a Buddha, or a Jivamukta; one liberated in this life—I ought to suffer for it.

- https://www.organism.earth/library/document/25 

By the way, I listened to a talk by Adyashanti recently, which I found pretty illuminating. He's a brilliant and very clear conveyer of what spirituality is all about. Or actually, because I'm lazy, I only listened to like 5 minutes of it and then just read the transcript, because that's quicker, but none-the-less, a very good read at least then: https://www.organism.earth/library/document/101 (both transcript and audio-file is here). I can really recommend checking that one out. It's about -- among other things -- how it is really important not to view spiritual enlightenment as a goal, as an end-destination. It's also in general about truth and letting go -- at one point he uses kids as an example.

Adyashanti says that the only real 'thing' that can come to an end, is the ignorance about one's own nature:

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The only thing that comes to an end, really, is the end of ignorance about one’s own nature. That comes to an end. That is a great and wonderful ending, of not knowing who and what you are. That can come to an end. Thinking that you are simply the bodymind mechanism, that can come to an end. And the realization that within that and around that bodymind mechanism is presence, is space, is something that’s not conceivable—even to those who realize it, it’s still not conceivable. The most you can know is I am that. But the more you know that—if someone asks you, What is that that you are? You don’t know what that is. You can’t say what that is. You just know that it’s what you are. You can call it emptiness, or consciousness, or God, or spirit, but still there’s a certain mystery to it all.

What can you know about nothing? When you realize you’re the great emptiness, the great nothingness, the great pregnant nothingness from which everything comes and to which everything goes—what can you really know about nothing? We can only know something about something. Like, when nothing becomes a flower: now you can know something, or you can pretend like you know something.

 

Edited October 29, 2018 by WaveInTheOcean