Relating with Others

[RCharles]

Mistral! I'm in awe of your words! Thanks so much for giving us such a wonderful description of what we have gained through awareness. I know we say here that words are a pale reflection of reality, but your words sure nailed it for me!

RC

[sevenworlds]

What to me seems more horrifying, is ripe pre-ablazement

I don't know what you mean by "ripe pre-ablazement" because if something is actually happening you don't have a choice. I became 'ill' 3 months into my first job after leaving school. The first time it seemed like some weird flu thing - it totally floored me. I returned to work and then about a month later I was off again for about 2 weeks. The doctor said it was a 'virus'. This went on for another 8 months or so and the symptoms became very bizarre. I'd feel it creep on me - strangely enough it nearly always started after I'd been out drinking. I asked the doctor if maybe I was allergic to alcohol or something but he laughed at that. I'd force myself into work with it because I hated being off so much but I didn't know where I was, everyone's voices just sounded like noise, and I remember for a period finding it difficult to tell the time. Someone at work once asked me and I stared at my watch for a while and it read 3 o'clock but I couldn't seem to figure out whether it was that or 9 o'clock. I'd be doing the filing and I'd feel so dizzy and light-headed. One day I was really bad and had forced myself in but my mum was so worried she phoned in and told one of the bosses. He confronted me on the stairs and asked if I was alright, I could hardly get up the stairs. When it came on I could do nothing basically but lie in bed. I couldn't read the newspapers, watch tv or anything - it all seemed like too much noise for me. I'd get this tingly sensation in my scalp, real strong, like crawling under the skin. I mentioned it to the doctor once and he said it was "probably the virus rushing around in my head". I knew that was bollocks. I got all sorts of tests done, blood taken, brain scans, everything and as a last resort my work sent me to a private doctor at BUPA. None of them could find anything wrong. They kept talking about 'a virus'. I had to keep going in to work and telling them it was a mystery virus, which just felt stupid. Eventually I quit and my own doctor signed me off work for a while with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

After about 2 years I was able to work again but I never felt the same. It was during that time I suddenly got really into music. Before I was 17 I'd never been that interested in it. Within myself I never ever felt back to normal again but I just tried my best to get on with things. I think others noticed I'd become different before I did. It was during this 10 year period - between 17 and 27 - a sort of throwing out process began. I didn't see it like that as it was happening. I started doing a lot of things that went against the grain of society and which to people who knew me, seemed out of character. I think Mooji refers to this as a 'combing out'. It's like you're rejecting all you've been told but you don't consciously know you are doing that. There seems like a choice and a kind of courage at this stage because I could have quite easily fallen into line but then again maybe the drive was too strong because here I am now. I caused a lot of suffering in myself during that time because there was still very much a 'me' there who was losing his grip of control. Some force seemed to be steering me in a certain direction yet I was fighting it because I wanted to be normal, to be like everyone else. The last time I had a proper job was when I was 22. I left to go backpacking around Europe to "find out who I am" and when I came back I'd go for job interviews but something seemed determined for me not to work. So then I felt pressured to get something happening with my music, to earn money. I was so caught up in trying to be what I thought I should be, what society wanted, that I was blind to the fact something was looking after me, because financially I always got by one way or another. Different people at different times supported me but I felt so guilty because it wasn't how I'd planned my life to be. Then others were giving me a hard time - "when are you going to get a job? haven't you a job yet?". I was getting older too, especially for the music business, so I could feel my life slipping further out of my control. Then a few strange things started happening after I turned 27, and Eckhart came into my path, I heard him say something along the lines of "you are given a name, then you add this to it, that to it, and eventually hang everything on this false identity and that is what you call your life". That was it for me. Finished. Then the real business starts - the body erupts and starts throwing off all the crap in it, people around you leave or die, you suddenly see the past events of your life in a totally new way. I discovered it was some major shift in energy that took place when I was 17 and not a virus or CFS. All in the year 2007 I felt very strongly that I was saying goodbye to my old life and making space for something new. Now, it's amazing to me I can write all of that because I honestly can't remember who that person was. It's as if all the memories are still there somewhere and they come out in a certain situation but that person up until the age of 27 is like a stranger to me. A ghostly figure or something.

I don't know if this will be of any use to anyone because I know each individual's experience will be unique but essentially the same process must happen. I'm not trying to frighten anyone when I talk of abandonment and rejecting society but I write this just to show you I'm not bullshitting. Everything I speak comes directly from what I've been through. You too will have to go through it in your own way if you are to ever be what you actually are. Not that you can ever understand. I'm just trying to emphasise that you can't be interested in it, or want it at all. It would upset too much of what you know of as your life now. So when I came to read the accounts of J. and U.G. Krishnamurti and all the struggle and turmoil they went through I understood. Same with Eckhart. I know that feeling of wanting to totally annihilate yourself. I'm not saying everyone has to get to that point but humans being what they are, they just won't listen until they have no other option.

[shappy]

Hi sevenworlds,

I want to thank you for pointing all this out. It has all been very helpful.

Much of what you have written has also been my experience. For some reason, it's very difficult for me to try to write about it. As soon as I start writing or thinking about what to write, it becomes irrelevant. So I'll leave out the details and simply say that I walked a very similar path. I'll just add that it's certainly not something I particularly wanted to go through. It is just the way life has unfolded.

I'm at a very strange place right now because I feel as though I'm finished but things are just sort of puttering along. I can say that things really progressed when I started reading your posts here on this forum. You mentioned this split-second "lightning strike" or whatever several times and I knew exactly what you were talking about. However, I didn't recognize the implications of it until you started to point it out. After this split-second moment, I really didn't think about it much at all (although I tried to express it in a thread here on this forum). I didn't notice any instant change or anything so I continued to shape the concepts of enlightenment into my reality. I had some profound moments here and there but there was always a sense of effort involved in it. The concept of oneness sounded so good to me and so I soon found my way to an experience that satisfied me. The thing is, it is all just "higher" aspects of the person. It has nothing to do with you. If you can somehow get at it, then it is not "it". These concepts of oneness, love, compassion are nothing more than an attempt at conformity. They are no different than an attempt at success (with money, women/men, career, etc). And the courage that is involved in all this has to do with being open to the possibility that it is all false.

[randomguy]

And the courage that is involved in all this has to do with being open to the possibility that it is all false.

Nice message, shappy.

There is housecleaning to determine and discard the false. Explore and question with our entire being any concept that forms an habitual viewpoint. Investigate and dissipate through inquiry all centers of belief that may reassemble from residual patterns of illusion until an undefined, centerless, clearly experienced awareness endures.

Do I accept the flower touched by a sunbeam more than the dead dog's body covered in flies? Does one resonate with the word love over the other? Is love a word that closely describes what is experienced in surrendered awareness, or is it a thing that the world could use more of, to make the world more perfect?

I copied the Majaraj quote below from one of HL's recent posts in another thread:

"Discard all you are not and go ever deeper. Just as a man digging a well discards what is not water, until he reaches the water-bearing strata, so must you discard what is not your own, till nothing is left which you can disown. You will find that what is left is nothing which the mind can hook on to. You are not even a human being. You just are - a point of awareness, co-extensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me "Who are you?", my answer would be: "Nothing in particular. Yet, I am." (318)" - Majaraj

I also thank sevenworlds for clearly sharing his experiences on this forum.

[lucy]

Yes, once it has been seen that you are nothing through neti, neti, than it can also be seen that you are everything.

[shappy]

Actually, you have no choice in any of it. Any attempt made at staying open to see the falsity of anything is too much. You are not discerning anything or discarding anything. "You" are false and any movement from there is also false. I'm sorry to have implied otherwise...

[lucy]

Actually, you have no choice in any of it. Any attempt made at staying open to see the falsity of anything is too much. You are not discerning anything or discarding anything. "You" are false and any movement from there is also false. I'm sorry to have implied otherwise...

Yes, words falsify the truth.

[randomguy]

Actually, you have no choice in any of it. Any attempt made at staying open to see the falsity of anything is too much. You are not discerning anything or discarding anything.

What is the action of letting everything be as it is? What is acceptance? Does it matter whether what it is that those two questions point to falls into the definition of an "attempt"? Too much in what way? I don't quite follow.

Perhaps "false" the word is itself too gross an inaccuracy. How about, what is steeped in imagination and coincides with a feeling of tension that is not characteristic of the experience of accepting everything? Is there really no resolution to delusion?

"You" are false and any movement from there is also false. I'm sorry to have implied otherwise...

Is there no way out of falsehood?

[shappy]

What is the action of letting everything be as it is? What is acceptance? Does it matter whether what it is that those two questions point to falls into the definition of an "attempt"? Too much in what way? I don't quite follow.

What I mean is, you can't force acceptance. You have an idea of what acceptance is and you have heard and read about the need for acceptance as a spiritual practice. Following through on this idea when you feel that an applicable situation arises, you may conclude that you have accepted something. All of this is too much in the sense that it is all completely unnecessary and false from the outset.

Is there really no resolution to delusion?

How are you going to resolve something that doesn't exist? You have manufactured this delusion; you believe that you are deluded and so you feel the need to resolve it. I'm not trying to be difficult, but where is the delusion? It is a falsity from the get-go. So any attempt at resolution is driving the delusion. This keeps you going and you have no way out of it. The idea of delusion is followed by an idea to counter this delusion. And on it goes. Somehow you have to be catapulted outside of it to see it for what it really is. But you don't have a say in that... because if you did, then you would have caused it.

Is there no way out of falsehood?

Perhaps it's as simple as living your life from one moment to the next doing whatever comes naturally to you. How could there be any falsehood in that? But chances are you will take that on as just another idea. You will move in and proclaim yourself over the top of it. You'll become the owner of it and try to steer it somewhere. There is so much desperation in all of it. I see that just from reading the posts on this forum. I don't mean to instigate anything, but it's what I see. It's a constant push for something. Can you be/exist without the concept of "pure awareness", for example? Of course you can, but you can't stand the simplicity. An "I" can never stand the simplicity.

[mikel]

There is nothing to do but there is everything to see! and all we have is this experience in which to look, clear and simple.

It is the reality of you which exposes and clears away over time the belief that I exist as an independant thought based entity.
What becomes apparant is the core of our existence is a mystery beyound explanation or any framework we or anyone else could apply.

You can see that you are this living mystery, always have been and this mystery is appearing as everything.
This Mystery is coherent and is it's own continuity, eventually the mind realises this and that is the recognition of true stability.

That which we are has no objective qualities, is seamless and the undivided ground of all experience.

So thoughts go crazy! madness is in thinking and emotional response, depression is there too, elation, speculation, conclusion, solution.. and ultimatly they are only made out of this mystery.

What you are is never affected or fundementally altered in any way.

So nothing to do, but everything to see, again and again.

[randomguy]

When I am flossing my teeth, the floss may not go between the teeth the first time. What happens next may be described as me trying and attempting to get the floss through. I accept my trying as a part of living life. It is part of what happens.

When I play a D chord on the guitar, it may not sound like what I recognize as a D chord. I try to tune the guitar. I play it again. It may or may not sound like what I recognize as a D chord. There may be a string out of tune. Again, again, again I attempt to use the tuning techniques I have found to work in tuning a guitar. It can be described as trying and attempting. I'm OK with that. It is what it is, and it happens like that.

I recognize the space in which thought occurs, the present moment. When I am identified with thought, I recognize thought identification because it feels different than the state of complete acceptance. It is similar to plucking two strings on a guitar and listening for the discordance. If I hear the oscillation, wa wa wa wa, it is not tuned. If I feel the tension that is not acceptance, I notice the discordance in being. What comes next may be described as attempting to recognize the origin of the tension, trying to identify the thought at the core that has been believed, utilizing techniques that have worked in resolving delusion (surrender and inquiry). Again, again, and again. Anybody can call it what they wish, and claim futility in effort or whatever idea they wish to express in our living together. I am completely OK with that. I accept that as what is. What my experience is, that thoughts can be recognized as not true. All thoughts are not true. This recognition happens in living life. The concepts of 'choice', 'free will', 'things just happening', and acting to categorize the observable world into these concepts are part of life, they are part of what is, but they are in the world of thought and I have found that they have nothing to do with the tuning process that brings the clarity of complete acceptance.

Can you be/exist without the concept of "pure awareness", for example?

Of course, and a great question.

When I recognized what I was without thought, it was like the start of water spiraling down a drain. Live life, accept what is, question thought, live life, accept what is, question thought, etc.

Concluding that any attempt to recognize present awareness as futility reminds me of the old Greek philosopher, Zeno. He concluded that in order for an object to reach another object, it must first go half way there. Then it must go half way again, then again, then again, and again. Therefore, he concluded it can never reach the other object because it always must go half way. That is what we can do with the mind. I can show myself that I can strike a nail with a hammer. I can show myself that I can resolve thought identification. Zeno can enjoy his thoughts as he wishes.

[lucy]

Somehow you have to be catapulted outside of it to see it for what it really is. But you don't have a say in that... because if you did, then you would have caused it.

Nice.
It's like the sun never actually sets. You can see this from outer space, but when on Earth, it feels like it does. Once it has been seen, you can never be fooled again, even if it continues to seem so.

[shappy]

randomguy,

If I feel the tension that is not acceptance, I notice the discordance in being. What comes next may be described as attempting to recognize the origin of the tension, trying to identify the thought at the core that has been believed, utilizing techniques that have worked in resolving delusion (surrender and inquiry). Again, again, and again. Anybody can call it what they wish, and claim futility in effort or whatever idea they wish to express in our living together. I am completely OK with that. I accept that as what is. What my experience is, that thoughts can be recognized as not true. All thoughts are not true. This recognition happens in living life. The concepts of 'choice', 'free will', 'things just happening', and acting to categorize the observable world into these concepts are part of life, they are part of what is, but they are in the world of thought and I have found that they have nothing to do with the tuning process that brings the clarity of complete acceptance.

If you feel this is working for you, then wonderful. I'm not here to tell you otherwise. All you can ever do is follow through on whatever comes naturally to you. However, I feel compelled to point out that acceptance (or nonacceptance) is only an idea that you have taken on as truth. You have assumed its validity and from that one false assumption, you have created a so-called reality for yourself. A miserable one, of course, filled with the need to practice techniques to resolve delusion. If that doesn't make you stop and take a good look at it, then good luck to you. To say that all thoughts are not true is one thing, to actually see it is another. All this stuff has been shoved down your throat. After all, can you be/exist without "acceptance"? Of course you can. You don't need any such thing.

Concluding that any attempt to recognize present awareness as futility...

But who is making the attempt? That what you are has no need to make any attempts at anything... including "present awareness". It doesn't even know what that is.

[James]

I agree with Shappy on this idea of acceptance. Acceptance requires effort just as rejecting does, and reinforces the notion of a separate me that can accept or reject.

Yet the practice of acceptance has value, it is like a simulated pointer, we could compare it to training wheels on a bike, eventually we get a feel for what it is like to ride a bike and the training wheels come off. So too in the beginning the practice of acceptance gives a simulated sense of being in the flow of life. So we ride around the block for a while, practicing accepting what is; until it dawns on us and we get the joke, and see that "I" and "Me" don't really exist as a separate entity. There's no one here to accept or reject, just Life living itself, unimpeded, without stories and interpretations.

It's always been this way, it's just overlooked and veiled by thought. Thought made the game of separation possible; now thought is rediscovering that separation was never true. Thought can stop pretending now. That is freedom.

james

[HermitLoon]