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Can you be more specific about what you personally are being forced to give up?

I often hear people say that change is unavoidable and that we much change in order to grow, Now only do I not like that, It scares the hell out of me
There are things that are very important to me to think that I will lose interest in the things I love makes me very sad and depressed, I have not interest in changing who and what I am for that is what makes up who and what we are, Why should anyone be forced to give up what is important to then and be forced to become something that have no desire to become I know I will fight that tooth and nail, What is your opinion on being forced to changed?

I personally don't think change is primarily necessitated by a need to grow but rather it will happen irrespective of this because the nature of all experience is to constantly morph and change. Change is something that is not forced but rather the natural flow of experiencing.  Even the things we think are reasonably static or permanent (like my body) are ultimately changing in every moment. Cells dying and being reborn and all the other millions of different physiological functions changing. Thoughts always drift and never stay still. Sensations are indefinable due to their transient nature. Nothing is ultimately definable or permanent due to ever transient nature of experience.

Nothing holds still.

I think the sooner we see this the easier it is to let go of such attachment to form. How can can you hold onto something that is always morphing? Like trying to hold a river in place.

No two moments are the same therefore every single moment is born and then instantly dies. That is a defining feature of experience.

Life can be so much more enjoyable when you let go of resistance to what is

Interesting conversation! 

When I began creating my wire wrap Bonsai trees that I call "Crystal Amplifiers", I read a lot of material on the meaning of word "Bonsai" and how it plays such a big role in the Japanese culture. That soon led to the term "Wabi-Sabi". Wabi-Sabi is the Art of finding "perfection in the imperfect", the "elusive beauty of imperfection". That led me further to finding this fantastic article that talked about Wabi-Sabi as a way of living. It all made so much sense. I think you guys will enjoy it as well. Taking what you read about it and applying this to your lives makes life a lot less stressful! 
https://japanobjects.com/features/wabi-sabi

Yeah thats a good read. Very much rooted in the Zen tradition and also Atiyoga and the 'great perfection' in all appearances.

Thank you, Nameless, for your kind words.

The Field of Experience is a reflection of who we are as current physical characters. If we don't like what we see in the mirror, then we don't like some aspects of our character. But we as characters not always recognize that WE create the Field of Experience. This is one of the big lessons that were set up in these types of realities.

While I agree I think this line of thought also perpetuates the notion of duality. I prefer to think of it as not just 'we create the field of experience' but rather 'we are the field of experience'. This feels more complete to me.

While I appreciate my original post was written in a dualistic way it was the only way to get my point across and have it still make sense.

Also, can you elaborate on your last sentence? e.g. what are these big lessons and who are they set up by?

The Field of Experience is everything that appears to me in this moment as the simple presence of being...

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Remember. We are always working on ourself. <---focus
Not working on ourself is the only potential danger.

Interesting. I work on the opposite principle. Well, unless you consider 'non-doing' as working on yourself.

I think we are already doing too much to unenlighten ourselves. I'm more for shedding rather than acquiring more.

I have and I have never been so scared in my life my spirit guides are everything to me without them I nothing I have  been so very tired lately and my sex drive is so low I tried to go to a new age store to find out what was going on with me but that person was just a joke all she did was give me a crappy taro car reading and crappy pendent reading and said I had nothing wrong with me and sent me on my way has anyone else  had a similar experience like this ?

You seem to have an unhealthy dependence on your your spirit guides if you think you are nothing without them.

Your post was short but in the space of a few lines you relate how you give your power away to your guides and when they aren't available you give your power away to a stranger in metaphysical store.

As alluded to in other posts, it sounds like it's time to stand on your own two feet and reclaim your power. If your sense of self is utterly dependent upon non physical being interaction (i.e. that which is beyond your control) then you are on shaky ground. Perhaps time to loosen your grip on them. If you truly trust they have your best interests at heart then letting go of them (at least for now) should be effortless.

I cannot exit consciously yet, but i do get a hell of of a whole lot of visions/flashes whenever i relax. Recently a piece of knowledge came to me that made me doubt the white light. When i go deep after relaxing, and after the flashes-phase, i manage to ignite my 'crown'.

I was meditating, suddenly the darkness became 'hollow' or '3D' and a ring of blue light appeared (a gate of some sort into the darkness).

I still don't know what to make of this. There's some fear.

Perhaps the fabled blue pearl thay Muktananda used to talk about.

You might enjoy Zen Buddhism as well. it helped me see that beyond all the Spirit's manifestations is an ordering Silence. It's empty and it's full. It helped me reach my center of quietness.

You may also feel this silence in the midst of all Spirit's manifestations. That everpresent felt sense of Being experienced as every moment.

I have to agree with what you said floriferous, the brain, body is not 'us'.  Although I do not subscribe to the idea that we are all one consciousness. I feel on a deep level that there are many different types or types 'of' consciousness of which humanity interacts with but one.

Your disagreeing with my one point and my disagreeing with one of Lumazas points in itself raises an interesting point of discussion...

Ultimately, regardless of the question being asked, we don't truly know the answer. Through the lens of the mind we can only speculate. You might say experience is an unfathomable mystery with more depth to it than our simple labels and descriptions could ever hope to convey.

Therefore, to label experience as a mystery allows you to let go of old beliefs and not form new ones which is infact a far greater position to be in than swapping old beliefs for new ones in the hope the new ones are better beliefs - they are still just beliefs and not reality.

In allowing the mystery of what is to encompass you, you can completely surrender old beliefs and not be weighed down with new (seemingly better) ones.

After all, the belief that I now have a better answer to a question than I did before is really just an act of appeasing a mind desperately in search of itself.

How are we going to see ourselves if we just bury ourselves in new beliefs? In a way this dillusional trap is worse becasue we now think we are spiritually more evolved with these seemingly better beliefs so we hold onto them even tighter. I used to be a Christian but now I believe in Buddhism or Sufism...it doesn't matter what we exchange our beliefs for - they are still beliefs and only ever will be no matter how much we search because the searching is only ever happening through the interpretive lens of the mind which can never know reality as it is.

It is something we all do but perhaps should investigate more.

I have always seen it in these simple terms. It's all a perfect system. That is, when all "cogs" are in sync with each other.
The Body is the mechanics. (Body)
The Brain is the Interface. (Mind)
Consciousness is the "Orchestrator".  (Spirit)

Each one of these has it's own degree or level of awareness. The Body being the "Puppet" doesn't think. The Brain is the User Interface, so it can only use or utilize the level of "programming " it was given.  Consciousness would then be the "Puppeteer" and would control the show. It's message or direction would still have to passed and given through the Interface and as we see, this is where things can go awry. As the "go between", the Interface also receives input/signals from it's conditioning, teachings, and sometimes "brainwashing" of the physical side or physical ruleset as well.

Does that answer your question? Probably not, lol? But that was the only thought I was aware of after reading your post above!  

You're right - that wasn't where I was heading with it but you still bring up interesting points. I agree with everything  you say apart from I would say consciousness runs the show but doesn't control it. I feel it allows all experience to be exactly as it is without bias or preference. I don't think it needs to direct experience a particular way because only thought sees problems in experience and therefore a need to control and resist what is.

In my contemplations this came to me on the subject...

Are you aware of your thoughts?

What is this 'you' that is aware of the thoughts?

Science would say the 'brain'. The science community tells us that the brain is the source of awareness/consciousness. This unfounded principle is often the starting point for many forays into trying to understand awareness.

However, this presumption can be swept away as illogical in one very simple exploration.

Whatever is the source of awareness can not also be dependent upon awareness first for its own existence.

To explain - the scent of a flower requires the presence of awareness first to render its smell knowable in your experience.

The sight of a sunset requires the presence of awareness first to render the sight knowable.

And, the human body/mind/brain also requires the presence of awareness first to render it knowable in your experience.

So, if the existence of the brain (that which is supposedly the source of awareness) also requires the presence of awareness first to render it knowable it can not also be the source of awareness.

It can not be the source and simultaneously be entirely dependent upon that which it creates for its own sense of existence.

Therefore, the source of awareness can only be something that has no objective (object-like) qualities (because all objects require awareness first and foremost). Only awareness itself fits this criteria.

So, with this simple understanding in mind...

No human being has awareness because objects don't have awareness. Only awareness has awareness. We are all that same one awareness (people often present this last sentiment a lot but without explanation of why this is so).

The mind is presenting to us the illusion of separate awarenesses within all these human body's but the mind is really more like a small magnifying glass placed on the dimensionless field of awareness giving the impression of a small contracted individual person living with its own personal consciousness. Peel back the layers of thought that create the fiction and only one thing remains.

Now ask yourself again...

Are you aware of your thoughts?

What is this 'you' that is aware of the thoughts?

I am currently going through a situation where I am about to physically lose my wife as well. She has suffered for way too long and now it's time for that come to an end.

Sorry to hear that. Wishing her the best.

What comes through your posts for me which I think is the biggest hindrance is the desperation and sheer forcing nature to 'get there'.

It sounds like the reason and need for attaining the goal has perhaps got out of hand to the level that it is affecting your ability to get there. And that's to be expected with a goal such as finding a recently deceased individual (on a side note - is this for your benefit or theres? I think perhaps discussing your intent might be useful here). Having such a big goal as a beginner could be crippling your chances. So much is apparently riding on it.

The likely reason the first time using a technique works and follow up attempts dont is because every subsequent attempt is an attempt to recreate what worked. That's involves added pressure whereas that first time you were just exploring something new.

So I suppose ultimately what I'm saying is you should slow down and try to relax a little more. What's the rush? They're not going anywhere. The more you try to force it the less progress you will make. You probably identified this issues of forcing at the vibration stage - it won't work that way. You have to relax through it not force through it. I think the same approach needs to be taken with the whole process.

A forceful approach will also impinge upon your experience once out as well. Most likely it will end your experience abruptly.

I personally would focus less on tweaking your specific techniques or jumping around between them and work on relaxing your effort and investigating your true goals around this and perhaps easing them a little A calculated and scientific metronomic approach will only take you so far.

Even though I didn't want to discuss technique I'm curious about you going to bed at 6pm and waking up after four and half hours technique. I am familiar with this approach from the perspective of going to bed at a regular time and waking up a few hours early. I question the irregular hours you do this at. Isn't this messing with your natural rhythms? In general are you well rested and feel you have adequate sleep on a daily basis? This OBE approach, for me, is highly dependent upon having balanced sleep patterns and duration. Being out of balance even slightly makes it tip one way or the other. During your shift attempts you will either just fall asleep or and never go deep enough if out of balance.

Then combine this irregular schedule with pills (melatonin and galantamine) to artificially stimulate certain conditions feels off. It just all feels forced in my opinion.

It may be all very well and good having these extra things to stimulate an OBE but if the core of your approach is improperly structured you are going to struggle and this should be effortless.

If you have the money I highly recommend Rupert Spira's meditation series, The Light of Pure Knowing.

They are beautiful contemplations on being and get you experientially exploring your direct experience of awareness

https://rupertspira.com/store/the-light-of-pure-knowing-thirty-meditations-on-the-essence-of-non-duality


Unrelated comment - small world. I live in Georgia as well.

Apparently you have a next obvious question in mind but I dare say I don't know what it it. Enlighten me as my batteries seem to be getting low.

But moving on in my mind once that realization is made the next thing is a choice. Do you immerse yourself in the dream, stay out of the dream with the exception being your current reality (dream) OR do you plant one foot in each?

I would say you don't disengage from anything. That would be an act of resistance. A little like how some people have OBEs to escape their life (I raise my hand to this early on in life). That's not this - this is about ways of perceiving. It's not about avoidance but rather seeing through the unreality of it. I think a good initial step is to just passively observe then contemplate your interactions with the world...Notice where you contract into a body and mind...Are you moving towards happiness or coming from it?...Are you seeking a better moment in an imaginary future? What are you resisting in this moment? The moment itself is perfect. Only a thought super-imposed onto direct experience tells you anything different...I feel anxiety in my body. What is this really? Thought would tell you that's exactly what it is but direct experience shows you a different picture. Perhaps it's just the raw activity of sensing which thought has super-imposed the labels 'anxiety' and 'my body' on to...Perhaps I'm not composed of thoughts of a mind and sensations of a body experiencing perceptions of a world. Pare back before thought qualifies my experience and perhaps I'm just the activity of thinking, sensing, and perceiving. No body, mind, or world before thought tells me so.

Pare it back even further and thinking,, sensing,, and perceiving becomes the simple experience of knowing. So then the next question arises (which Casey refers to) What is it that knows experience? To quote Rupert Spira, 'knowing knows only itself.'  Really explore your direct experience of reality before thought warps it. We take so much as given but when we really look beneath the surface we literally find nothing there (and everything!).

Once it has seeped through on the intellectual level it has to seep through to the feeling level. This is the largest part. It's very easy for me to say I believe in Oneness but if I am constantly resisting life then this immediately betrays this belief.

If I am One then there is nothing to resist and everything to love. This doesn't mean it's okay to allow bad things to occur because it's all me. It just means see through duality. Meditating for an hour a day and feeling the bliss of oneness in Samadhi then spending the next 23 hours acting like a contracted body mind is not ideal for progress. Life can be your 24 hour a day meditation (Culturing samadhi would also be beneficial in addition of course but not necessarily in isolation). And it doesn't matter if it's the waking dream, actual dreams, astral or whatever.

It's all the content of consciousness in an eternal dance with itself. Embrace it but see and feel it for what it truly is.

I don't really understand. I can only work with more simplistic concepts. Too advanced for me. Maybe someone else can help you. Best of luck.

Excellent except for one problem, where did the thought come from? Which thought you say? The thought to take the picture so that you could capture the moment you wished for later, and thus capture nostalgia in new form and forms? How much of this is learned and thus introduced behaviour that we could teach other presentient biological beings here on this planet? A base code that is the dawn and reason behind art and expression.
I create to remember, and destroy to forget?

I can only comment on your first paragraph. The rest, although very poetic, is a little too abstract for my brain.

Why does the source of the thought present a problem and what is this problem? I'm not quite seeing the issue. Can you elaborate clearly?

I will stop time to take a photo so that later I can stop time again to relive that previous moment even though I was potentially not present when the photo was taken and sure as excrement am not present now as I try and relive it. Where am I in time at each of these moments, and was I ever present in the now? This can create a reenforced loop of self belief, of self delusion and lead on to non subjective endings that lack morality and ethics.

I would venture that you are in the now when you relive the photo in memory but you are not knowingly aware of the now. You have become unknowingly aware. I don't think it is possible to leave the now but your attention through thoughts that arise make you absent minded to the now which remains everpresent. It has shifted to the background of experience as you have become distracted by thought but it still remains there, unchanging.

I would say the now and awareness are synonymous. Everpresent and unchanging. It's everything else around it that changes. The limitation always seems to be with the mind which conceives it.

The rest of your post is very interesting but I have no thoughts on it currently. Somebody else can comment.

Lets say the reals soul is you, and the temporary form is a robot that someone made to look like you and can make it move and talk via remote control. Are there differences between the two 'you"

Okay that helps. Can you further clarify what 'you' is made of if the other is made of only thought?

I think peoples definition of 'you' might vary so I want understand within this context

I think that we interact with real souls most of the time. Of course there could be temporary energy forms molded by our thoughts.

So I understand your post properly, can you clarify your terms, 'real soul', and 'temporary energy form molded by...thought'? How they are different etc... Thanks

I dont fully comprehend Casey's posts. Beyond me for sure so I can't really comment specifically but definitely interesting.

I personally think as long as your mind is engaged then there will always be some semblance of time. I think defining time would go some way to help explaining it (my definition but let's run with it)

Time is the minds way of organizing/linearizing events within experience for its own understanding.

The mind likes to organize. It organizes experience into the 3 dimensions of space by labeling what it perceives into many objects. It further labels the changing nature of these objects into 1 dimension of time.

So if the mind is perceiving content in its experience (thoughts, sensations, and perceptions) it will then experience the concept of time because the need will arise to logically organize this experience for itself.

In the absence of this content, time collapses in on itself. This is evident in deep sleep. No time and no memory. Nothing to organize or store.

Time is not a tangible thing. It is a concept. An imposition of a mind desperate to understand the indescribable nature of experience. It is just the mind putting the various events it perceives in a coherent order.

I personally would say in out of body experiences that time is present because there is content that the mind is organizing but I think time is far more malleable just like space is in the out of body state. Traveling instantaneously, warping and disappearing objects etc... therefore time can also appear dilated or contracted. I remember exploring this phenomena on a TMI course years ago.

If you look at your direct experience now you can see time is nothing more than a concept. Time requires two points of reference to be a thing. A 'from point' and a 'to point'. Has anyone ever experienced two points or do you only ever experience the now? When you experienced driving your car yesterday that happened in the now. Thought references it in the past but the direct experience was the now.. Every experience only happens in the now. The past and future only exist for thought.

Thought tells you time is real but direct experience tells us something else. The now is all that is experienced. And one point of reference is not enough to make time.

So actually right now you are experiencing the absence of time. Unfortunately for us the mind is a persistent companion and does its best to constantly take us out of the now. Of course it's not really taking us out of the now. That's an impossibility but rather it is distracting us from the now.

As for the rest of the conversation of NPR and PR it comes down to a chicken/egg scenario. What happened first, the thought of the reality or did the reality exist before the thought. I think this concept would be impossible to understand with our limited faculties because time is a limited dimension in this reality. If infinity exists, than these realities would exist before an individual thought them up, but yet they are made of thought essence as we all are in this structured reality. You see it is unimaginable in my opinion because Time is the limiting factor here. We all think in terms of linear time and duality which distorts pure truth.

I personally think it is helpful to simplify this by taking things in the opposite direction. With this notion of infinity and eternity we are simply adding to the number of possible dimensions and potentially over-complicating things. By saying infinite and eternal we aren't removing the sense of time and space. Eternity means forever in time. Infinity means forever in space. We haven't removed space and time. We've just made them unending in this scenario.

You might say true reality is dimensionless. This eradicates time and space. And it's not so much that every possibility exists happening right now but rather that it lies unmanifest potentially waiting to arise in awareness. Not every possible eventuality has to be simultaneously playing out for true reality to be One.

One interesting consideration of our nature is by asking 'can there be an end to reality?' An ending to such a thing would require awareness of it having ended. And if there is awareness then it hasn't ended. Similarly, 'did reality have a beginning?' Well there would have to be awareness before it began to say it began but if there was awareness then it wasn't the beginning. So not 'eternal' or  'infinite' but everpresent.

So I, awareness/true reality (or whatever you like to call it) is everpresent. Without birth or death or existing in space or time. Dimensionless being.

I think your question about what came first depends upon your definition of 'reality'. This current human experience is largely thought based but pare that back and you still have awareness so in this regard 'thought' comes after. And after all a thought does not exist without awareness of it so it could never come first.

These are my thoughts building on classic non-dual teachings of the Vedantic and Tantric traditions.

To me there is no failure of any kind the way characters perceive it. I "see" and "sense" at every waking moment the entire multiverse's living pulse, magnificence and power, and I see myself as a part of every point of consciousness there is. Of course as a character, I go through momentums of pain, disappointment, as this is natural while limited, but I bounce back very quickly and my default mode remains as incredible happiness and joy. I wish everyone can reach this realization.

That's a good read.

Yes agreed. With that absence of a sense of failure our resistance to what is drops away. The need to go towards experience switches to allowing experience to come to you.

I like your line about the 'living pulse'. That felt sense of awareness that is often in the background of experience can start to make its way to the foreground of experience so much so it becomes the dominant experience in a world of objects.

I think the human experiences you mention like pain or disappointment help cement the true reality by providing a contrasting backdrop. The subtlety of being can be overlooked without the presence of contrasting values.

Reframing thoughts can click in new ways, so...

In this moment you are witnessing the field of experience and this experience is made up of thinking, sensing, and perceiving. No objects. Just a simple flow of experiencing.

When mind arises it claims personal ownership of a small fraction of this experience and labels it me and labels everything else not me. In so doing it creates a subject/object relationship where there isn't one. The whole field of experience was only always ever you.

So instead of one seamless experience that you, the presence of awareness is witnessing, what we now have is awareness seemingly contracting down into a narrow focus and thinking itself to be a limited physical subject surrounded by a world of external objects.

And then we go - off into the world trying to find our self like a fish in the ocean in search of water.

Every appearance is an appearance of yourself. There is nothing new to find. It doesn't require any doing or going anywhere or finding anything.  It only requires you to see through the misperception by exploring your direct experience right now. As you do so, the walls of misperception slowly start to crumble. And in so doing happiness starts to arise. A happiness without cause. That's the best kind.

And that's all we ever truly desired in the first place.