Meditation, some answers

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

We surrender everything to God, the Creator, right from sex to cappuccino.
By surrendering, the ego disappears. By celebration, we meld with the omnipresent, all pervading current of God-energy. .

Awe, Surrender to the Omnipresent All pervading current of God-Energy!!!!
Once again, I appreciate your use of words.

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Who's 'we'? I'm not always, that's for sure!

Hello Miss Hepburn,
Asking who is we, is it not like asking who is I?
Simply thinking here.
A merry Christmas!
Antoine

[Gem]

MC

The purification enabled by meditation doesn't get rid of what you don't want or get what you want. If people want to cure their cancer or ataxia, for example, there is usually a great deal of aversion in the mix, which is perfectly understandable, but I'm not misleading you into believing the meditation will cure it. It proceeds in its own way.

[Gem]

I do my research. )

I think you're experiencing a great deal of confirmation bias and Ramana's disciples would almost certainly glorify everything, but in context of what I'm talking about it isn't relevant. I wasn't the one who made pain or pleasure relevant in the first place. I talk about it only because it pertains directly to aversion/desire. What we feel has become a big deal on the thread precisely because of the aversion we typically have toward those sorts of sensations - along with craving for 'something else'. The awesome stories merely appeal to the craving and have nothing to do with attention now.

If we think the purpose of it to not feel this and feel that instead, then we'll get involved with 112 things as we try to avoid what we don't like and get what we want. But I come back to one thing: Stop doing that and accept, 'this is how it is'.

[Unseeking Seeker]

Actually if I may say so, the spiritual quest is not about craving, as in a mind-body desire. Let me elaborate:

In early days, with senses externalised as a default setting, conditioned to pursue objects of desire, the game of materiality continued. However, upon reaching point of exhaustion, recognising that the external is ephemeral, feeling incomplete and discontent with oscillating pain and pleasure, we chose to shift attention inwards. Voluntarily.

It hardly matters whether the ‘path’ is this or that. The key point is we aspire for some sort of inner integration. It doesn’t even matter if we’ve read any scripture or not … although it helps to quieten lower mind.

Now, we may call this seeking a path of cessation (negating lower impulses) or of yearning (not same as mind-body desire) for rekindling our divinity within or of Bhakti (prayer) … ultimately we are surrendering our doership.

About the God-energy … when we become empty, bliss fills us. There is no reason to negate it. Why should we? Do we stop breathing? The magnetic current becomes a permanent embodiment of our aliveness. Yes, correspondent to ‘that which doesn’t come and go’.

We feel and so know this clear shift, as it is embodied within. We accept and continue our witness-awareness in the continuum. There is no seeking but yet there is a blossoming. We are gripped in wonderment, as magnetic bliss electricity fills us!

Each soul journey is unique. My own view is that all paths converge onto the singular reality, which we each must ‘see mirrorlessly’. Whatever the ‘method’ employed, the idea is to end our resistance to receiving the energy in simplistic childlike trust and gratitude into a pure heart. For the heart is where impulses arise (we can call it desire) and where it is finally fulfilled. Head melds with heart in resonance with God-energy, which is unconditional, all-encompassing love, as an unceasing outpouring.

Of course, as we have all noticed over time, the way we mostly proceed in these matters is ‘my mind is made up, so don’t confuse me with the facts’, which is why we each must navigate the path in a manner optimised for our soul growth. However, when the sun rises, it needs no introduction and all doubts are dispelled forever.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Gem

If we think the purpose of it to not feel this and feel that instead, then we'll get involved with 112 things as we try to avoid what we don't like and get what we want. But I come back to one thing: Stop doing that and accept, 'this is how it is'.

And if ' this is how it is ' is unwholesome ' shouldn't you avoid/change it rather than accepting......

[sky]

Originally Posted by Gem

MC
The purification enabled by meditation doesn't get rid of what you don't want or get what you want

But it may help some deal with what they have to endure like 'Pain'....

[Gem]

Originally Posted by sky

And if ' this is how it is ' is unwholesome ' shouldn't you avoid/change it rather than accepting......

The impurities are generated by reactions which indicate said person has limitations in their ability to accept that it's true that things are this way, and not some other way. The reactions we call aversions entail avoidance and resistance etc, which apply to physical discomfort and the emotional content that people have difficulty resolving. In this sense, to suggest one should meditate to relieve pain is the same as saying one should meditate to avoid difficult emotional storms, and indeed, other difficulties associated with energy flows or other intensified experiences that are hard to bear.

If on the other hand your ability to be ok with this as it is is pretty good, your tendency to react will be far less, and therefore you generate less imputity. It's easy to notice in yourself when some sort of discomfort come up, 'I don't like it' is the motive to alleviate such displeasure, and that negativity is precisely you generating impurity. Hence, It's only through the ability to not react, i.e. equanimity, that tendencies of generating impurity can be resolved.

Furthermore, when you cease doing that, being adverse toward your discomforts and other sorts of unpleasentry, as well as not craving 'what I like', and are able to pay attention with pure awareness, not only do you not generate impurity, but the old impurities that were generated from the volitions of the past are loosened from their ties and come to light in conscious awareness. Due your ability to maintain your poise, these can blow up a storm as fully felt emotion because your old strategy of avoiding unpleasentry by pursuing pleasurable distractions has ceased to function. Thus, not generating impurity through ceasing reactivity, is what enables the purification of one's entire past.

The discomforts are hard, and the emotional storms are hard, then it gets harder. But since the mind has been established in its equanimity due to proper training, there is no acrimony toward any difficulty of the process. One works gladly knowing this purification is beneficial.

Of course there are a lot of pleasures involved, which present their own difficulties, but after a long time, you've seen discomfort come and go, pleasure come and go, the old emotional contents arise and pass away - and the sense of impermanence is deeply embedded in your insight into the underlying nature of things. By this time you can withstand a hell of a lot - and will need that level of resilience to endure what comes next.

However, it is around this time when the cobwebs have cleared out enough that the big love starts coming through. There are also problems with that because it feels really good and desire flares up as the person wants more, and more... and there is always an aversion side to craving... so you end up back in the same reaction cycle. it's a very tricky time. One has to remember that this is not about chasing pleasure - This is about being self-aware enough to maintain stable balance of equanimity of mind.

Just that one thing. Not 112.

It can be formalised in the different ways I mentioned, breathe awareness, body awareness, inner ear sound, self inquiry and the rest, they are all reasonable methods to see it 'as it is' without reacting to anything. Since Buddha taught how cravings come from sensation, I mainly advocate sensation based meditations, but what it really comes down to is, persistent practice of conscious awareness with equanimity of mind will resolve issues with impurity. Ultimately, balance of mind is the only way.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by sky

But it may help some deal with what they have to endure like 'Pain'....

If you want to endure pain without being miserable, good, because there will be pain. People want to argue because it's real but we don't want it in our lives. It's not a shower of rose petals floating through incense smoke. Even if it was, it won't last. Neither will pain. Nothing is going to last. The feeling is momentary and doesn't actually have any endurance whatsoever. But it takes a pretty sensitive mind to perceive the subtle levels of what we can feel. When we do, we can see that what feels like a hard, solid, long lasting area of pain consists a whole myriad of tiny subtler feelings that don't even last a millisecond. Meditation can make the mind sensitive and thereby bring about the insight, but if the motive is aversion to what you feel, that's not going to happen.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by A human Being

typo

I'm happy you appreciated my post.