Messages

I would say it also makes sense in a relative way and not just in a grander, more absolute way because otherwise non duality remains a concept. It has to be embodied and applied to the everyday.

Individuality is just as much a part of non duality as the absolute perspective and the idea of no self. They are inseparable. In saying it doesn't apply to our everyday life you have made it out of reach when in truth it is staring you in the face.

It is only in our concepts about it we have made it out to be some deeply spiritual and unattainable plateau. The truth is its not even vaguely spiritual...and there's nothing to reach.

It can be reconciled very simply as with good and evil in general.

Good and evil happens for an individual because they are conceptual overlays onto the simplicity of experience constructed out of the arising thoughts that decide that good and bad are happening for a 'me'.

If experience is just occurring without a me at the centre then it is not occurring for anyone but just what is arising and therefore it is neither good or bad but rather just what is.

Prior to your thoughts labelling an experience as bad - what is it?

Nice.

The only truth there really is, that really matters, is where each of us IS in our unfolding, in the evolution of our own experience.

There is one critical element that tends to get by most of us, for as long as it does, and this is that WE ourselves are the reality we are experiencing. It is not some world out there --> it is ourself <--. We come to know this in quiet moments, when we silence the mind, in meditation. What is experienced in meditation/meditative states becomes increasingly more profound as we practice. As the practice becomes our natural, effortless way of being.

Self is the source of all. This is why Union/Oneness is true.

There is no real other. All is concentric. Spheres within spheres within spheres.

It is up to us the extent to which we reach in to the interstices and out into the cosmos.

Each is in command of their own ship.

Interesting. I would venture a different experience on oneness and growth. I think having an individual at the center of the experience striving for oneness is still dualistic. It implies a subject and an object especially in reference to growth and evolution - a subject moving towards a desired object born out of a sense of lack and incompleteness in the subject.

Now it's not to deny individuality because for sure this individual is occurring right now but the assumption here is we are an individual in search of oneness but this can never occur because individuality is the very antithesis of oneness. It would require the end of individuality for that.

But of course oneness can be experienced and therefore this indicates you are not an individual on a path of seeking oneness but rather simply you are oneness experiencing a secondary value called individuality. So as long as you resonate first and foremost with being an individual then you will always be seeking growth and evolution because the sense of separation or incompleteness runs so strong within us.

When an arising thought identifies with another thought they binds together. A bunch of these form a cohesive whole called a me. That's all the individual is. Prior to the identification of thoughts, oneness is already observed. No path. No obstacles. And for the ideas that have been talked about on this thread such as, 'the illusion', 'the trap', 'the matrix' - These are all expressions of oneness. To say you must be wary of these on your path to oneness is to deny aspects of that very oneness. By its very nature everything is included and so the obstacles you work so hard to avoid are in fact also the very thing you are seeking. Oneness has no issue with 'the illusion'. Only an arising thought does.

This is why I keep asking people on this forum about growth and evolution. What are you growing towards? If it's oneness then you, the individual will never attain it. It occurs in the absence of an individual and not in the accumulation of knowledge and experiences for a subject. Because all that does is reinforce the notion that you are an individual who is lacking something - Not already whole.

And to throw a wrench/spanner in the works, individuality is also just another expression of oneness as is seeking growth so paradoxically it's all good - because that's just another thought.

Didn't realize all this had been happening until I got an email notification. Good job, Xanth. Looking all shiny new.

[Question]

p.s  Question:  Did I taint my results for the EBT by listening to it in my garden? I listened to it because I tried many times to get through it and kept falling asleep. Did that effect my results in your opinion?  

I personally would not worry about that. Gateway, for me, has a bunch of filler tracks that we don't revisit or often use the tools of. TMI certainly don't use some of them in programs beyond Gateway). The most important thing here is identifying for yourself how you experience each focus level so that you can move between them simply by reexpreiencing that felt sense of it. And this plays into our expectations, which have been brought up a few times on the thread. Yes, it's good to not have expectations and it's one thing to say it but identifying the subtle ways we expect are important as well. For example, you may be subtly expecting your experiences in the exercise to be presented to you primarily in a visual format as that is the predominant way you experience as your human self. As a result of such an expectation you maybe blocking other sense which perhaps may be stronger for you.


And so coming back to identifying focus levels more easily, depending on what your stronger senses are,  you may identify focus states by maybe a sensorial experience, maybe you have visual markers, or perhaps some sound identifiers.  It's good to remember that visuals might not be your primary mode of experiencing. For me it was always sound coupled with a felt sense of knowing. I tried very hard for years for it to be visuals becaaue of it being an overriding human sense but it was an uphill battle becasue apparently its just not how I'm built non physically.

So in summation, two things, I would place more emphasis on identifying your unique way that you experience the focus levels (and also deepness is not necessarily a level of success. Varying levels of deepness can occur with any focus level. The shallow experiences can yield good stuff too. There is a misconception that the further the focus level, the deeper it gets - not necessarily true. You can be in focus 34 and be journalling your experience as it's happening. This is another choice of example of our subtle expectations and beliefs - on some level we might be assuming the higher the focus number the better and more deep it is. But its not true. FYI, Bob had all his experiences from the equivalent of a focus 10 state). And this leads to my second point of pay closer attention to the subtle ways you are placing expectations upon your experiences.

p.s.  One last thing.  I also have read about so many peoples body lifting out and being in their house or their room or flying.  That has never happened to me.  I have never been in this reality if that makes sense.  I either click to some entirely different reality/place OR I am sucked through what feels like a tiny straw and end up in the clouds bouncing and jumping and laughing with many others doing the same. There is nothing like feeling your entire person being compressed and moving through "a straw" and then popping out the other end.

This video of Skip Atwater might interest you especially the experience starting around 4:30


https://youtu.be/ehtZCemim0w

A lot of talk about lessons and growth. What are you growing towards and why?

I you wanna go a bit in depth on the subject there's some good info here:
https://mindalive.com/pages/entraining-tones-and-binaural-beats

From personal experience 4 Hz is to low and puts me to sleep so I use 5+ Hz (but ofc that could just be me). I've been making my own binaural/monaural beats with Audacity for the last ~1½ years, and tried lots of different frequencies, with and without background noise, ramp up and down in frequency, pure binaural and with panning for some monaural effect and they have all worked, so I don't think it matters that much. Right now my go to is one with 7.83 Hz x 33 in one channel and 7.83 Hz x 32 in the other with panning, so 7.83 Hz beat puts in right between theta and alpha.

It can be helpful to blend different frequencies if you are fall asleep. For example, a low theta mixed with an alpha might work for you as the alpha prevents you from slipping into sleep. And the theta takes you deep enough to experience stuff. All about straddling that threshhold.

Thank you Floriferous

In the opening of my eyes, in the awe of that fleeting instant, was This. When the thought "wow" came to mind, the instant had gone. The magic of the moment.

The learning is that the mind is still too cluttered to be still to what is.

Mike

I agree but would also add that 'what is' is present right in the midst of a busy mind. In fact, 'what is' is the busy mind just as much as it is the still mind. If we talk in Absolute terms then the busy mind is also This. It is only when we identify with the busy mind being a problem and therefore something to resist that it appears to become a problem. A busy mind roughly translates as 'lots of thoughts' and therefore what we are essentially saying in 'a busy mind is a problem'  is that thought has a problem with itself and tries to get rid of itself through things like meditation. The idea that thought has an issue with itself and sets about trying to eliminate itself is curious and yet millions of people sit down on a meditation cushion every day to attempt that very thing.

I would venture that you are both the relative and the absolute (although to use 'you are' and 'absolute' in the same sentence is rather contradictory but language fails at times). I would say on the one hand you are the individuated unit of consciousness because of the persistence of thought identifying with itself. But before thought arises to create individualism then there is just This. Unknowable and unnamable This. Not you are This but rather just This. That is consciousness in the absolute sense.

As soon as thought arises then so does the identification with separation which creaties a world of objects appearing to a me, the subject. And the identification is the same whether it is the physical world or the infinite non physical worlds. Both are creations of thought which is not good or bad but rather just an expression of This. It's all exquisite.

You're welcome. This is also available in paperback and ebook format if that is easier to navigate...

https://www.amazon.com/Biology-Kundalini-Jana-Dixon/dp/143571167X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?qid=1677438475&refinements=p_27%3AJana+Dixon&s=books&sr=1-3&text=Jana+Dixon

Not seeing the ebook version anymore but I bought it as that.

If you are starting your Kundalini journey I think this is a good resource for support if you require it. Copious amounts of info here:

https://biologyofkundalini.com/

If you have a spare $45 you could buy the companion mp3s from his website...

https://afterlife-knowledge.com/store/?product=afterlife-knowledge-guidebook-exercises-mp3-set

I think a big part of the issue here is in how we define consciousness because everyone has a slightly different take on it. Is intelligence or thought needed to display consciousness?Is awareness the same thing? Depends on who you speak to.

But going along the thread of this discussion it seems to focus on consciousness in regard to independent thought, the mind, and the ability to make decisions as an individual and the transferable nature of this.

If we consider consciousness from the perspective of mind you find nothing there. A mind is a concept and not anything tangible which anyone has found. So what we are really talking about is a collection of thoughts and thoughts appear one at a time so I suppose the question then becomes, does a thought possess consciousness? For example, is the thought, 'I like chocolate', conscious? Or are you simply conscious of the thought, 'I like chocolate?'

In my direct experience it is the latter therefore we come back to the age old question of what is the I that is conscious of the thought? If it's not the the thought itself or the body then we as humans have no consciousness of our own. What we are is simply conscious of them. These days I'm more inclined to say what we are is just an unknowable mystery. That way we stay away from getting bogged down in more concepts and stories of I.

He can use that money spent as a "show of commitment". At least "mentally" that is. When I was new to this, I bought a $200.00 program on Astral Travel. The money spent meant more to me as a show of commitment than anything else. Almost everything in the program, I could find on this Forum here for free. The only thing I couldn't get here is the incredible Binaural Beat with Hypnosis in it. It really is fantastic. But that little "mental nudge" is still there today!

Yes, well said. You're not going to get good quality binaural beats with focus 27 sounds anywhere else.

In addition I see they added more NDE exercises to the series...

https://hemi-sync.com/product/into-the-light-exploring-the-tunnel-album/

Paid mediations but good quality:


https://hemi-sync.com/product/into-the-light-near-death-meditations-album/

That's why we keep him on the payroll. 

Paid in spiritual lollipops.

I agree with this. To explain further in a perspective I once heard that made a lot of sense to me and matched up with everything I've learned so far, The One (or God) is everything and nothing at the same time. The One is infinite potential energy, or The Void. And at one point, this infinite potential energy wanted to experience itself. To do this it split into infinite pieces (or points of consciousness) spreading far and wide trying to view every single point of itself. So with this splitting came concepts to experience itself through; Different concepts like time and space. With this splitting and these concepts or lenses, there is an underlying structure that exists which can be related to sacred geometry. And everything builds on top like a very complex structure.

Yes, I resonate with this view. I think the only way for One to know itself is to become more than one. I think this ties in with absolute purpose in that the very expression of One as the many is our purpose - to see itself. So the simple arising of objects within awareness is also the fulfilling of our purpose. I am of the view that reality is infact incredibly simple. Complexity arises with mind. Wants, desires, the need to evolve, all stem from a sense of lack and not enoughness - all of which are concepts of an ill at ease mind that believes it is something other than one. And while the needs of a mind have definite reality in a relative way they don't from an absolute perspective (which I figure is what we are discussing here).

So from the latter vantage point, wants and desires are a means of the Absolute expressing itself in a multitude of forms rather than coming from a place of something is missing in experience that I must seek out to be whole.

And the mattress idea sounds lovely

My question here is this; What about when there are no thoughts or previous concepts?What then is the puppeteer?

I think that, thought or no thought, the puppeteer remains the same. Thought was never running the show to begin with. There is an underlying value that is present in the absence of thought and that is presence itself (awareness/conscioussness).

You might be able to identify a number of times in your life when thought was absent. For example, deep sleep. As alluded to earlier, thought brings objects into existence by the way it defines them and therefore creates the world of separation. In the absence of thought there is no content. Deep sleep is consciousness without content. A similar example would be during Samadhi. Or another example would be for a new born baby having its first experience. It has no knowledge or frame of reference to draw upon to frame concepts about what is being experienced. At this point it is raw unvarnished sensing. You might say that Oneness is most apparent to a new born as concepts about me and not me are yet to form.

But in all these cases one thing remains and that is the knowing of experiencing. What is being experienced is somewhat unclear but the fact that something and not nothing is being experienced is perhaps the only absolute we can say about reality. And whether there is content or not there is still that felt sense of simple presence or experiencing taking place.

On the other hand, I think where people get caught up is in seeing experiences as bad or good or important/unimportant which I think is what you might be getting at here. It's okay to "fail" or to see dull colours as this is essentially You and what you are supposed to experience right now. It's a unique and important experience in itself and it isn't bad. It is still an equally important part or an aspect of ourself.

Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head. That is the crux of it for me. There really is no good or bad or right or right in experience. Problems aren't real until we bring them into existence by the way we define/resist experience. All experiences are born equal until we privilege them.

If we truly saw that all experience was just ourself flowing with itself would we see any situation as good/bad/desirable/dull/hyper real rather than just the flow of self expressing itself in infinitely new ways?

Some great experiences on this thread for sure.

But I will say that I think a measure of our reality or realness is in how we privilege certain experiences over other ones through our descriptions.

We will obviously favour an experience of hyper real vivid colors, deeply intimate sensations, and a rich tapestry of sounds compared with an experience of monotone colour values, muted sounds, and dull lethargic sensations. But actually these two hypothetical experiences are identical in terms of their level of reality. It is only how we privilege the first experience over the second one that defines it as more real.

If you consider your level of awareness in both experiences - that too is identical in both scenarios You are exquisitely aware of the vivid colors and bright sounds in experience 1 and you are equally exquisitely aware of experience 2s dull monotone colors and lethargic sensorial expression. If you weren't you wouldn't be able to describe it as such.

The only difference is a thought which chooses experience 1 which then elevates it in our experience and so we seek out more experience 1s.

I feel like infinity would also include "finity" & nothingness. Since infinity is "ALL". That is probably why we can exist here on earth with our limited perspective of all things & things like infinity.
So for infinity to exist. There must also be nothing. And if there is nothing. How can infinity exist?

I agree that infinity also includes nothingness. I think that's one of the paradoxes of reality. It depends from what vantage point you view it. From the perspective of mind, infinity has a reality to it. You will find infinity in every appearance. For example, a length of wood may measure 4 inches but this is a whole number which doesn't occur in nature. We often round up for convenience. So we only see irrational numbers in nature and they never resolve (eg like pi) and so go on forever. So, in reality the length of this hypothetical piece of wood is not 4inches but actually 4.765375 etc..for infinity. So while visually this piece of wood comes to an end, mathematically it's length goes on for infinity. So infinity is in every appearance.

From a broader vantage point beyond the mind, the dimension of space (that which infinity relates to) is merely a concept and has no basis in our lived experience. We only ever experience 'here'. 'There' is a concept which no one has ever experienced. All experience happens 'here'. For example, try to leave 'here'. You will find it is not possible. Therefore if all experience happens at the same distance (which is in fact no distance) then space only exists for the thought that thinks it. So you might say experience is dimensionless. We bring the dimension of space into existence by the way we define it. So from this perspective infinity is not a real thing. This would align with your comment of nothingness.

Now here is the big question. Can Adolf Hitler's actions be justified? Is he in enteral hell? I think he may have been for a period of time observing the essence of his destructive thoughts in the immediate NP environment. But each spirit eventually reunites with its larger part and realizes the game they had exited and the purpose of the events they were in.

I think from the perspective of, for want of a better phrase, 'the smaller self/soul', what you said makes sense. From a bigger perspective I think it changes. The concept of good & bad, and right & wrong are simply that. They are concepts which exist only in thought and not in direct experience. The moment itself places no expectations on what is arising within it. It does not favour one experience over another. Only thought does that. Every experience is totally accepted by virtue of its arising. We bring negative experiences into reality by how we define them.

So from the smaller self perspective there are tremendous negative experiences in the world but from a different perspective, at the same time right in the heart of those terrible experiences is a simple peace.

So I think the answer is paradoxical. It is both answers.

I seem to recall in Bruce Moens book, 'Voyages into the Unknown', he has a similar experience of communication with his guides at the end of a Gateway program at TMI.

Here is a passage from John Astin which I think is pertinent and full of wisdom...

One moment there is an experience of being at peace, happy, and centered. And then for whatever reason the experience fades. We sense that the peace we had a moment ago is now gone...So, we set out on a journey to try to recapture it  - we do spiritual practices, try to relax, go on retreat or vacation.

But to live this way is to live in bondage, for the truth is that all states and experiences, whether profoundly satisfying or horrifically painful, are transitory. Their nature is to not remain. And as long as we continue to seek our ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment through obtaining and holding on to particular experiences, we will forever live in a state of fear for we will know on a very deep level that we're standing on shaky ground.

We will be forever frustrated, attempting to hold onto what cannot be held, trying with all our might to keep the clouds from changing.

But there is a way out of this prison: Simply stop feeding the mind's habit of dividing the world up into "this is it" and "this isn't it", and accept the possibility that this is always it.

Too Intimate For Words

John Astin