awaking to the universal self

[donkeybals]

*Puts philosophy goggles on*

Powerful and enlightening experience. Realize nothing is broken, universe is living harmoniously, gives a sense of certainty and peace. Realization occurs, you gel the I, with the we, with the one. Everything and everyone is one. With the universe. We are the universe.

That said, I got to go to the dmv. Hate waiting in line, everyone there has a stick up their as*, so god damn rude, bastards..

 

[Morgain]

I'm really not sure if I understood the one you said like you meant it but I felt this like last year and continuously. I don't think anymore it's like I can't focus and concentrate. I have to try reeeeallllyyy hard to remember things. Whenever someone says something, I don't think about it and I don't process it in my head but I know how it feels, I know what it's about. I just know without processing. BUT I really think I was getting dumb.... I thought I was too stressed because I just can't process well and I really need to THINK A LOT in school especially when writing essays or doing poem analysis.

so I started trying hard to process things again and it slowly came back. :

that is indeed how it feels to me. when I'm like this it is hard to focus on things that are said. It is like my mind is in standby modus. I can use this state of mind for relaxing, for creative work and for shiatsu. When I stop thinking I have more intuition and can see better the whole picture. At work I need to be the opposite, completely present, alert, problem solving. I like that state of mind too because then I'm very efficient and smart and I feel like I have had to many coffee

I think those two mindsets are the two sides of a coin, both necessary and useful and they balanse eachother out. I want to learn better how to switch from one to the other. The problem now is that the longer I'm in the "thinking modus" the harder it is to get to the "fuzzy modus". If I learned better how I can switch from one to the other I could turn on the modus that I need at each moment

 

[DrShephard]

Saw this a few days ago - and thought I'd take a stab at it.

If the universe came into being and contained a chaos of nitrogen and phosphorus and all other manner of elements, and for some reason several exceedingly simple amoeba came into being... formed out of incidental occurrences in the chaos, then some of them formed another amoeba by having the nature of replicating themselves, then some of those diverged into different types of amoeba and eventually (as the amoeba died and replicated) evolved into other things - one of which was a plant, and then a plant sprouted, and then eventually that became a tree, and the tree produced oranges... could the oranges be said to exist as separate entitites outside of the universe? If one of the oranges looked at another and said "You know, we were created in this world and we are apart from it" and all of the other oranges agreed - would it change the fact that they were part of the world itself? Aren't they a particular part of the universe just as everything else is? Not a separate being thrown into a world, but a part of the world - just as a lemon seed inside of a lemon is not a creation thrown into the world of fibers and juice that a lemon is composed of - but it is a part of the lemon itself, which is part of the world, and of the cosmos. It was formed from it.

Just as that lemon seed is part of the lemon and the tree that it grew from, we are part of the world, and of the universe. We're just more conscious and (arguably) complex than the lemon seed, but we are just as much a part of the cosmos as it is. We all came from it. As Alan Watts said (paraphrasing) "As an apple tree produces apples, the earth produces people. The apple tree apples, and the earth peoples."

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyF1iQ0-dM"]YouTube - Alan Watts "the Earth is People-ing" Animation[/ame]

When I hear about zen and other forms of belief, I dislike the terminology. It's esoteric and doesn't matter nearly as much as the concept it is describing. If I were to call the realization of reality "Brahman" or "Ishkabibble" it wouldn't matter - it's the concept that matters. Knowing a name is one thing, but knowing the concept that underlies that name is another. So many times, though, people are discounted for not being able to define the "atman" or "non-dualism" or "authenticity", but the terms are known. Christians scoff at other christians when one doesn't know the proper translation of a hebrew text. The text is meaningless, it's the matter that counts. I might as well ask a solely english speaking person "Donde es la luna?" at night and, when he shrugs because he doesn't understand me, laugh at him because I assume he doesn't know that the moon exists. Or laugh at a man when he shrugs after I ask him "Could you point at your pollical" and he fails to point at his thumb. Tao, zen, non-dual self, zazen, satsang, ego, acute coryza, etc etc. All the same. So often, though, we get attached to the name and not the understanding of the concept.

In the words of Alan Watts - "The sound of rain needs no name."

This, of course, leads onto things that uproot some of the societal beliefs that many of us take as simply granted and not needing a foundation...

 

[bickelz]

I do think elimination of awareness of personal Self, or individuated

 

[Morgain]

When I hear about zen and other forms of belief, I dislike the terminology. It's esoteric and doesn't matter nearly as much as the concept it is describing. If I were to call the realization of reality "Brahman" or "Ishkabibble" it wouldn't matter - it's the concept that matters. Knowing a name is one thing, but knowing the concept that underlies that name is another. So many times, though, people are discounted for not being able to define the "atman" or "non-dualism" or "authenticity", but the terms are known. Christians scoff at other christians when one doesn't know the proper translation of a hebrew text. The text is meaningless, it's the matter that counts. I might as well ask a solely english speaking person "Donde es la luna?" at night and, when he shrugs because he doesn't understand me, laugh at him because I assume he doesn't know that the moon exists. Or laugh at a man when he shrugs after I ask him "Could you point at your pollical" and he fails to point at his thumb. Tao, zen, non-dual self, zazen, satsang, ego, acute coryza, etc etc. All the same. So often, though, we get attached to the name and not the understanding of the concept.

i agree, it is not about the names. Tao, zen, boedhism, satsang, ... they are all the same, or better they point to the same thing. A thing that can not be described by words. that is the reason why zen and taoism is full of paradoxes. In fact it teach you to look behind the word, to stop trying to explain, stop thinking and be.

this reminds me of a story. I don't know exactly how it went but it was about a road with signs to awareness. Some people followed the signs but most people stopped at a sign and started worshiping the sign itself. Everybody who says the sign is more important than what it is pointing to is wrong, imo.

 

[DrShephard]

Yep - do not mistake the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself! Do not expect the writings to be true... But only to point toward truth.

 

[Spiritual Leo]

I really enjoyed reading this! Well... where to begin?! Uhmm,ok... When he speaks of the 'Formless self,' I am pretty sure that he is trying to inform us of 'oneness.' If one is 'Formless' then there would be no distiction between self and others. Without distinctions in life, one couldn't seperate or categorize things into categories, so everything one just be 'One.'

How can you tell what's being and what's non-being, if you are one with all? --you can't because your a 'formless self'

Interesting post, you should post some more--- good topic

 

[Untitled]

The story is about this boy Kvothe that is studying magic in a University. While most of the things he learns fall more under the name of science than magic. But there is this one teacher who is trying to learn him the art of "naming". When you know the true name of something (for example the wind) you will have full mastership over it.
I think the "naming of things" is the same as searching enlightement, awakeness. I think when you are awake you see things as they are, you see the connection between things. You see the "wind", you know the wind, you are the wind. That is to me knowing the true name of wind

I see this as awareness. You use your mental faculty to examine the nature of a phenomena from as many vantage points as you can. Let's say you always respond with in a negative self undermining way in certain scenarios, what you do is approach it from different angles and layer by layer peel towards the essence of it so you could grow in understanding. When you the more you examine something the more you understand it and are not ignorant of it. You in fact are "naming" it because you are becoming aware of what it is. You have power over it because you understand it's true nature. The buddhists who have been mentioned often focus the investigation on the ego self and are encouraged to examine phenomena to find inherent emptiness in both.
Many spiritual practices also examine external phenomena in their respective ways. Occultists name things differently using tarot archetypes, pondering planetary forces which are signifiers of certain type of phenomenal happenings.
Science is doing the same in some respect , but it's called search of knowledge and reality.

Anyway. The teacher says that finding the name of the wind is not something you can learn with your brain. He says that in each of us there is a mind we use for all our waking deeds. But there is another mind as well, a sleeping mind. (This is nothing new. Medicine knows that we have an central nerve system and an autonome nerve system. The autonome nerve system is in charge of everything we do unconsciously.)The teacher says: "the sleeping mind is wide and wild enough to hold the names of things. This I know because sometimes this knowledge bubbles to the surface.

I'm currently reading a tibetan buddhist book and a book by a medieval christian mystic and they both speak of the unmovable universal ground, or ground of the soul respectively which one should rest on. Both books speak of remarkably similiar things but with different words. What about Plato's world of ideas, or Jungs collective subconscious...both storehouses that contain all images. ;D

further in the book Kvothe experiences a switch in his 'state of mind'. He describes it as followed: "Over the next couple of days I came to think of that odd mental state as Spinning Leaf. It seemed like a distant cousin To Heart of Stone, the mental exercise I'd learned so long ago. That said, there was little similarity between the two. Heart of Stone was practival: it stripped away emotion and focused my mind and concentrate on a task. On the other hand, Spinning Leaf Seemed largely useless. It was relaxing to let my mind grow clear and empty, then float and tumble lightly from one thing to the next. But aside from helping me draw answers to Tempi's Questions out of thin air, it seemed to have no practical value. It was the mental equivalent of a card trick

All great spiritual traditions contain techniques which allow you to train yourself to grow in awareness (and ideally also in kindness and empathy...). The goal is to go beyond concepts. Or to know god...be the Daoist Master. ;D To take a peak at God's book, as the atheist mathematician Paul Erdos put it.

Pretty sure I've seen this video posted here before, but I'm posting it again anyway as it seems relevant.

Spoiler

For those too lazy or busy to watch it, it's basically about how the lady in the video (a neuroanatomist) suffered a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain, and how during the stroke (when she was almost completely reliant on her still-functioning right hemisphere) she experienced feelings of 'Nirvana' and a 'oneness with everything' and stuff like that.

I've absentmindedly skimmed through some info about a link between seizures in the frontal lobe and spiritual experiences. Of course there's no convincing an ardent spiritualist because all these things are material phenomena, the functions of a mechanism. It doesn't prove that it's not "God's will"/ Happenings in God/ Samsara. ;D

When I hear about zen and other forms of belief, I dislike the terminology. It's esoteric and doesn't matter nearly as much as the concept it is describing. If I were to call the realization of reality "Brahman" or "Ishkabibble" it wouldn't matter - it's the concept that matters. Knowing a name is one thing, but knowing the concept that underlies that name is another. So many times, though, people are discounted for not being able to define the "atman" or "non-dualism" or "authenticity", but the terms are known. Christians scoff at other christians when one doesn't know the proper translation of a hebrew text. The text is meaningless, it's the matter that counts. I might as well ask a solely english speaking person "Donde es la luna?" at night and, when he shrugs because he doesn't understand me, laugh at him because I assume he doesn't know that the moon exists. Or laugh at a man when he shrugs after I ask him "Could you point at your pollical" and he fails to point at his thumb. Tao, zen, non-dual self, zazen, satsang, ego, acute coryza, etc etc. All the same. So often, though, we get attached to the name and not the understanding of the concept.

In the words of Alan Watts - "The sound of rain needs no name."

The problem is conceptualizing something that cannot be conceptualized because it is beyond concepts. I am fond of buddhism, it being the first discipline to speak to me in a language I COULD relate to and understand... There's a song that goes "Speak to me in a language I can understand" my personal stance which I believe to be true is that there is a multiplicity of languages for a multiplicity of ears so they can latch on the the one they can understand and learn from. The buddhists say mind precedes all phenomena. Our cultural identity, personal emotional makeup, genetic disposition, life experiences... what have you... they make us not hear the other words spoken about that One. The ones we like and are willing to accept we hear and often label as the one and only right way, because it's right for our ears and minds. We flock together with others who relate to similiar words and congratulate ourselves that we are the only ones who hear the message being delivered... ;D
It's like when a bunch of people draw a flowerpot. They all look different because they actually see the pot differently. Then they reproduce images of what they see according to ability in the likeness of the flowerpot never really capturing the actual pot. Just their vision of it... ;D But there is a flowerpot, I'm pretty sure.

All these disciplines are ladders that we climb to reach the Alpha or emptiness or what ever name speaks to you. They're just ladders though...and no spiritual discipline is ever 100% guaranteed help for anyone, because there are actually as many spiritual disciplines as there are people. We make ours as we go along picking usable bits, wether from an ancient meditation practice, Star Wars, psychotherapy or from feeding ducks in the park.

 

[Matt3737]

what are your thoughts on this:

Zen Buddhist teaching is often full of paradox, in order to loosen the grip of the ego and to facilitate the penetration into the realm of the True Self or Formless Self, which is equated with the Buddha himself.[102] According to Zen master, Kosho Uchiyama, when thoughts and fixation on the little 'I' are transcended, an Awakening to a universal, non-dual Self occurs: ' When we let go of thoughts and wake up to the reality of life that is working beyond them, we discover the Self that is living universal non-dual life (before the separation into two) that pervades all living creatures and all existence.'.[103] Thinking and thought must therefore not be allowed to confine and bind one. Nevertheless, Zen does not neglect the scriptures

does anyone has had experienced this (bold lines)? Do you believe that stoping the fixation on the "I" will help to awake to a universal self? And have you experienced this shift in awareness?

(please only reply when you are serious and have an open mind)

I am a strict adherent to the belief in the ubiquity of paradox in every philosophical endeavor. That the mind is structured by paradox at the boundaries/limits of its knowledge.

The Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea is best known for his paradoxes, which Betrand Russell described as profound before introducing his own famous paradox (Russell's paradox) after the development of set theory in mathematics, and are still relevant even today in mathematics, logic, and physics.

Niels Bohr, a famous physicist, designed his own coat of arms with the daoist taijitu to represent his complementarity principle in quantum mechanics after being knighted by the Danish government which can be best understood by the wave-particle duality of light photons and even Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (a distant descendent of Zeno's paradoxes against motion).

Kurt G