I’ve talked here before about the curiosity of the path. A blog like this talks about the process of awakening. As words are symbols for concepts, any such discussion or writing is inherently mental. While it may “resonate” on a deeper level with some, for many it is an exercise in comparing “best concepts”.
As concepts are a barrier to awakening, why is there a calling to present ideas at all? Why not just talk like Nisgardatta or Ramana Maharishi?
The subject came up in a discussion in comments over on Takuin’s blog on Are You More than Experience? As there are many comments, I’ve excerpted the key exchange.
…Any words I come up with seem to do with clever distinctions of experience versus experiencer versus experiencee and getting into the jabber of spirituality or non-duality–both of which are becoming tiresomely trite and repetitive.
We don’t remember good experiences and forget the bad–in fact the reverse. We can’t let go of many experiences. As Davidya points, we remember what fits the ego’s stories, good or bad.
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Takuin:
Thanks Kaushik,
So in other words, these stories help to solidify ourselves further. It brings more weight to the belief in our own existence, and we can look in the mirror and say, “YES, I am a real person experiencing this or that.”
I can feel some sympathy for those seeking. They hope to see beyond the self, through manipulation of the self.
Hopeless.
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You make an important point.
When we are unconscious, we live by stories. When we come to awakening, we live by stories–the stories change to the beautiful concepts of spirituality and clever and pithy sayings and levels of consciousness–essentially it’s the story of how the ‘me’ is advancing spiritually. It’s an obstacle of course.
But what’s the choice. In the absence of a ’spontaneous’ awakening, when we have the insight that we are not me, what choice is there but to use techniques and pointers to help us see.
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Davidya:
Thanks for your thoughts, Kaushik.
It’s the debate that exists behind blogging about awakening. You saw my article on the benefits of “Concept Fatigue“. (laughs)
If we consider some teachers of yore, they used things like parables and stories to explain. While these built stories, they were better stories, closer to truth.
I suppose that’s where the idea of Maya evolving into a ladder comes to. The stories, experiences, and visions are not the truth but can take us closer, to a place where we can shed them and step into it.
It is the play in its essence.
The ideas we have and the story we tell ourselves about the world are both the barrier to being and the means of our being to discover itself. The barrier and the ladder. The obstacle and the means. It is all in our relationship to it. Is it a prison or a play, a trap or an escape.
It’s certainly a fascinating process.
Davidya
I’ve actually been reading alot about this. (although reading is realized to eventually become a distraction.) But from what it should come down to is that the talk should be like you’ve said a pointer. The talks are meant to extinguish the ignorance or pre conceived ideas that we had before about who we were… the weak ideas that we have about ourselves with stronger ideas of our true nature, and then eventually those too must be transcended.
It is best to observe the moon then to worship the finger pointing at it.
Osho points this out that in his whole teaching, that one would not go into it to look for a belief system, that he would go in as a skeptic, even being a skeptic of skepticism. Not going into something to believe or not to believe but to just look and let it resonate within the heart. To drop all concept of what you are but to feel from the heart, to experience it. To become a mystic (which im humoring the word mystic… :P) but to live with the question without looking for the conclusion.
Looking at the unknowable and being content with knowing that you do not know what you are and can’t possibly know what you are. You are what you are and it goes beyond anything that any word can describe, the best way to put it and as Nisgardatta, “I’m nothing in particular, but I am.”
To me it always was like, getting rid of the ignorance within to be receptive to the “Light” that we are. To find out what you are not, so that you are receptive to all that is.
Well – hopefully not “stronger” ideas as those would be harder to transcend. (laughs)
Yes, doubt the doubt. Question every notion.
(laughs) Yeah, not knowing was a hard one for me…
In a sense we get rid of the ignorance but in a deeper way we simply stop believing it. It does not have to go anywhere as it doesn’t exist in the first place. We let it go, then the light can shine that is already there.
Thanks for your thoughts, LS.
Haha, stronger, well not in its traditional sense i suppose, I had no other word to describe the shift in mind. I guess i was looking more of a shift of thought for the mind to focus on rather than its ideas that it had been programmed into believing in the first place hehe.
I’m still in not-knowing…haha, i don’t know where I’ll come out, but i suppose it doesn’t really matter at this point lol.
No problems Davidya, Blessings to you. 🙂
Yes, the semantics can be amusing.
The trick is you won’t come out. (laughs)
When it really doesn’t matter, the Self will.
😉
Hopefully soon, i have dinner plans tonight! I kid i kid. 😉
And i think that is the key, where the mind gets to that point of not mattering, giving up, to surrender. I think that the concept fatigue comes in, the exhaustion from all concept, so the mind finally said, “I have had enough, whatever happens happens, I can’t take this anymore, it is too exhausting to believe this way or that way.”
That is exactly what happened to the Buddha under the Bodhi Tree.
Yes. This can take many forms. Giving up. Devotional surrender. Seeing clearly enough. Simple, unexpected grace.
But if mind is dominant, then it is quite commonly the giving up of mind or surrender of control.
Great discussion and all part of the continuing illusion.
There is apparently a blogger here who is writing about her story and getting caught up in all kinds of word games too!
aint it fun?
x
Hi Lune
There is a blogger here who is sharing his journey and ways to express it. And the challenges of semantics and variable understanding. Where is the value in clarifying vs confusing.
You may want to follow the link about Maya evolving into a ladder. One of the things I talk about on this blog a lot is the evolution of perspective. There is the perspective that the world is real. There is the perspective that the world is an illusion and only Self is real. There is the perspective that the world arises in the mind of God. And there is the perspective that the world is none other than Self, playing within Itself. In other words, it is real but a very different real than we started with.
Of course there is other perspectives we could explore, but that is the relevant progression. Maya as illusion is only the beginning.
Fun, and then some…
I love the vibe of this connection point…
Just like particles bumping in to each other, sharing information and transformation… The universal awakening is happening at a amazing pace and even still… The acceleration is accelerating… I can see it all around me. Mostly In the development on how people interact ever more self aware and the drama loosing it´s steam…
haha, agreed, I’m the same LS as the one on Takuins board lune 🙂
The journey has been quite enjoyable whether it has been arduous or not, it has all been to the ripening of True Nature. I’m sure that what I am, is taking part because it is absolutely necessary to see itself in as many lights as possible to get a better idea.
It seems kind of like a detective, using his observing glass to find the clues in which to solve the crime, except instead of a crime, he is examining himself. But as many sages have probably said in the past,
“Can a Knife Cut itself”
Can one know itself? Can we truly say, I am this, or is it that just by being, that we come to know oneself, not in a personality sense but in the deep knowing sense, in which cannot be explained, that which is unknowable.
Hi Raz
Thanks for dropping a note and offering feedback. I love how people of diverse paths are now communicating and sharing the journey. Old boundaries are falling away.
Hi LS
Yes – can an eye see itself? Curiously, in this case it can. But can the observer of the seeing see itself? (laughs)
So true, and I agree, its very enjoyable seeing different aspects of True Nature interacting with itself out of love of wanting to know what it is.
How extra-ordinary it is, There is joy present.