A final goodbye and thank you note

[ak33]

I deleted my earlier post due to harshness. Doesn't so called "enlightenment" result in gradual detachment from identification and a growing love for others? Yet you sit here boasting about your accomplishments. There is a fine line between sharing and bragging.

 

quote:On the forum I see philosophical discussions and debates, and NOBODY is getting any further or any wiser. It seems that we do not want to discover the 'truth'. It seems that we want to fly and change iron into gold and glass into diamonds

I don't know what kind of light this was said in, sounds pretty condescending though.

[Etherfish]

The whole world is colored by what is inside ourselves.
So if we see a problem that "everybody" seems to have, it's time to look inside ourselves to see where that comes from.
Not that what others do is our fault, but the way we perceive what they do is our world view which we create.
And the world view we create echoes what is inside us.

[Giacomo]

quote:Originally posted by Etherfish

The whole world is colored by what is inside ourselves.
So if we see a problem that "everybody" seems to have, it's time to look inside ourselves to see where that comes from.
Not that what others do is our fault, but the way we perceive what they do is our world view which we create.
And the world view we create echoes what is inside us.

True, ying & yang. Without the word 'good', there wouldn't be the word 'bad'. Humans have a need to evaluate the 'good' against the 'bad'

We need a spectrum of positive and negative numbers. Without positive, there wouldn't be the negative and vice versa.

Male - female, fat - thin, beautiful - ugly, and so on..

Meditation and reflection thaught me this. You'll find everything within yourself, as you said, but you choose according your own inclination.

The reality is: this world will NEVER be completely peaceful. It will never be 'heaven on earth', because when we have only the word peace, we wouldn't need the word 'war'. What would we weigh 'peace' against, to really know 'peace'?

How would we define the word peace and what would be on the other end of the spectrum?

There is no peace without war, there is no reality without fantasy and creativity, there is no thin girl without a measurement of what a fat girl would be.

Meditation is about becoming a realist instead of an idealist

Hope this clarifies some thaughts

[karl]

Ah well so much for the termination of philosophical debate and sentiment

End the war inside and there is no more war. end the judgement and nothing can ever be judged. Can that be doubted ?

Who is judging for realism and idealism ? Find that one

The mind is very much alive in the interplay. Like the smoker giving up by sheer effort but continues craving a cigarette has not yet ceased to be a smoker. That is abstention. A trick the mind plays.

Always at the point when you are convinced of mastery does the mind show its hand. Like the lion tamer who believes his infallibility, turns his back and shortly finds himself minus a head.

Just when you accept the world for what it is and how it works and all is good and well, then comes the crash to prove how fragile that abstention really is. The smoker grabs a cigarette and inhales in utter relief followed by a sense of guilt and self defeat. He might pat himself on the back at his long abstention. The Lion tamer goes home without a limb if he is lucky or minus his life if not. A man can only hold his breath for just so long.

 

[parvati9]

quote:Originally posted by karl

Always at the point when you are convinced of mastery does the mind show its hand.

Well said Karl.  It is a subtle trap because the mind may well be right.  Nevertheless we reach the stage where we usually want the mind to remain silent, as opposed to offering up its conclusions.  

There will of course be times when the mind acknowledges:  This is it, this is what you've been longing for.  And at those times it can be very difficult to maintain inner silence.  The mind may be correct ... however the conclusion itself is a separation from the experience.  Which invalidates the experience the mind is trying to raise up, in order for us to take notice of it ...  This is the mind trying to be helpful.

And it is helpful up to a point:  Recognition is an important milestone.  Yet not the endpoint.  There may not be an endpoint.  For me it will be when quietly being present is more or less stabilized.  The efforting stops.  I think that's what Giacomo is saying.  He may have realized that the path, for him, is one of effortlessness.  In other words - no practices, no striving, not even any longing.  The longing is replaced by authentic living.  Living a life for which we previously longed.

This is a wonderful place to be.    


love
parvati
     

[Dogboy]

Others here have reached the same conclusion: Carson? Anthem?

[Dogboy]

Missing it, wanting it back?
Or missing it and grateful for that?  

[CarsonZi]

quote:Originally posted by Dogboy

Others here have reached the same conclusion: Carson? Anthem?

Hi Dogboy,

Sorry, a bit late to the party here... just saw this.

I'm not entirely sure what the "conclusion" was that was reached here so I'm unsure if I can concur or not.  

What I can say is that there is no longer much "seeking" happening here.  The seeking for "enlightenment" is certainly gone.  I do notice the mind still having thoughts about striving for things like happiness for my kids etc, but that is just the mind's natural tendency to evaluate how things are going (within an 'in-time perspective') and project whether or not adjustments would improve the state of things.  The mind's play is usually immediately noticed for what it is (play) but there are still occasional times where the mind's spinnings go unnoticed for a short while before I "snap out of it."  There is always a great lesson to learn in those moments if one is willing to get over themselves and sit in self-honesty.

If the conclusion was that proclaiming a state of "arriving" is an indication of still being lost, I would concur with that.  

If I completely missed the conclusion that was drawn, I'm sorry... obviously I'm not enlightened.

Love,
Carson

[BlueRaincoat]

quote:Originally posted by CarsonZi
proclaiming a state of "arriving" is an indication of still being lost

Very well said Carson, I will remember that!  

[ak33]

Basically, if you think you're enlightened, you're not.

[Dogboy]

Carson,

I had to reread the thread to figure out this "conclusion".  I believe at the time you had mentioned discontinuing practices and this is the part of Parvati's post that made me think of you:

 

quote:He may have realized that the path, for him, is one of effortlessness. In other words - no practices, no striving, not even any longing. The longing is replaced by authentic living.

[CarsonZi]

Hi Dogboy,

quote:Originally posted by Dogboy

Carson,

I had to reread the thread to figure out this "conclusion".  I believe at the time you had mentioned discontinuing practices and this is the part of Parvati's post that made me think of you:

 

quote:He may have realized that the path, for him, is one of effortlessness. In other words - no practices, no striving, not even any longing. The longing is replaced by authentic living.

Yeah, "authentic living" feels like an accurate (albeit poetic) description of this current stage of the path for me.  

I can't say that there are "no practices."  Practices happen on occasion, it's just not a formal thing anymore and there is a very wide range of modalities/practices employed.  Just a few days ago I felt called to sit for pranayam and meditation, and so I did (see the bottom of this post for some interesting observances from this practice session).  Last time that happened was an hour before my Grandpa died back in March.  I have no idea why I was called to my cushion the other day (although my cousin did have a baby a few hours later), but I also don't feel any desire to find a reason.  This attitude I guess you could call "no striving."

But that said, I still have lots of emotions (like longing) and notice desires etc, but they don't in general have the kind of power they used to.  If there is some level of unconsciousness to the emotions and desires, then they will be acted out on, at least partially, on instinct.  But those moments are Life offering me a lesson and essentially that is the whole path at this point... learning to bring the unconscious into the light of awareness so that I can see clearly, and it's happening in every moment in one way or another, whether I like it or not.  

Love,
Carson



*** During my practice session I noticed an interesting "twist" on SBP happening (on it's own).  Be careful with this as it only took one breath for me to be so super charged that the energy field was radiating well outside of my fairly large house.  This is not an AYP practice but a modification that happened on it's own.

Here's what I noticed:
-the physical inhale was moderately quicker than a normal SBP breath so my lungs filled to capacity within about 5 seconds instead of maybe 15-20 like a normal SBP breath for me.
-the breath naturally held itself about 1' above the crown.
-the attention stayed with the energy as it rose up the spine at the same rate it normally would with a 15-20 second SBP breath
-when the energy passed through the crown and meshed with the breath a foot above the head there was a white light explosion that resulted in the energy field radiating extremely far outside of the body.  It was strong enough that I eventually had to "shield" a bit as it was causing distress for some others around me.

[BlueRaincoat]

quote:Originally posted by CarsonZi
the energy field radiating extremely far outside of the body.  It was strong enough that I eventually had to "shield" a bit as it was causing distress for some others around me.

I am rather confused about this idea that an advanced yogi's energy is uncomfortable to people around him. I always thought the energy of advanced spiritual beings is uplifting to other people.

I even had first hand experience of this and my perception was clearly not due to my expectations(I had none). Many years ago, when I was only 17 and totally, absolutely clueless about anything spiritual, I met a man on a train - the strangest encounter in my life ever. He was luminous. It was many years before I understood what was so fascinating about him - when I first heard the concept 'inner silence' I realised he was It. He could read my thoughts (or at least some of them). I feel blessed to this day that he condescended to talk to me. I worked it out later that he was practising either Taoism or Buddhism. We had this one hour and a half journey together in an eerily quite train coach (only the ticket inspector came once and it seemed to me even he took a humble expression as he stepped into our compartment). I didn't understand many of the things this man told me, but I remembered them - strange as they seemed at the time -  and years later they guided me towards my path.

Anyway, what I wanted to say was this: during that meeting, I must have absorbed some of his energy, because for two days afterwards I felt light as a feather and serenely happy without any clear reason. So this is how I picture the energy field of somebody very spiritual and the reason why I am confused about what you said above.

[BlueRaincoat]

Enlightenment or call it whatever you will, there is something all of us here, whether we are doing yoga practices or just living life and learning from it, are progressing towards.

It seems to me the majority here shares this view:
Believing you've arrived simply means you've fallen off the bandwagon i.e. no longer progressing.

So the question is this - Do you think you have arrived at your destination?

[ak33]

Yeah I agree with you BR, certainly though there are changes in perceptions and way of seeing things that are concrete enough to report as we progress. A funny thing I remembered. A few months ago someone asked how many people reached enlightenment with AYP. 3 pages of posts later he still did not have one answer that said yes or no.