Can consciousness be nondual?

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by Maisy

I posted about...
...stops making thoughts.

How do I become free from identification?!
This is ALL I want right now, after reading all that you wrote.

[movingalways]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

How do I become free from identification?!

Be aware of your breath (breathe naturally) and if a thought arises let it come and let it go, don't grab hold of it, don't make a story of it. . Grabbing hold of a thought is how identification happens.

Most likely, at first, you will grab hold of thoughts, no big deal, conditioning to identification runs deep. When this happens, allow the grabbing to naturally dissolve into your breath. Eventually, you will notice that thoughts come and thoughts go but you are no longer turning them into a story about "me."

[Maisy]

I think in a way you have to throw everything away, even spirituality, to find it. You have to start brand new as an empty cup. Return to a beginning where you know nothing. Like how we were as a young child. Throwing away all judgement and fear. Have no authorities, masters, guru's, Gods, religions, beliefs.

What is the basic thing we want? That's another thing. Anyone can have amazing experiences from trances, meditation techniques, and stuff like that. But is that really what we want? To have some great spacy experience where we forget time and space and come out of that at some point as we have to to live and be the same as we were before?

Or you follow some strict set of practices and live confined to routines like a prisoner. I have to meditate 5 hours a day, only eat once a day, live alone in a cave. That is not what we want either.

I think the basic thing is we want to have inner and outer peace and contentment. No conflict in our lives within or without. Being ourselves peace and love. The only way to have that as we can't control fully what happens to us, we can't control others, we can't fully control what happens to our body, our circumstances, our destiny, as most of that is karmic and pre-destined, so we have to accept without resistance what is.

How does one do that? What is not accepting it? What is resisting it? The talking in our heads. The mentally interpreting. So the question is can I let go of that? Keep my attention fully on everything else, but not on one thing, the "voice" in my head that resists and wants something to not be there or to be different. The "voice" that wants something else. The voice that judges the now. The voice that judges myself and others.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by movingalways

Be aware of your....
... story about "me."

Thank you so much. I can and definitely will do this.

[Maisy]

Is one willing to do whatever is necessary to find peace? To drop the ego. To give up wanting to have something? To give up wanting to be something? To just be here in this now doing whatever we do, hearing whatever we hear, experiencing whatever we are experiencing without listening or paying attention to any thought or idea "about it" in our minds or thought stream?

That is the only practice I think.

It's not something one has to try to do. You just are doing it or not doing it. It's just the way we are and now is before we entertain ideas of trying or resisting or wanting. The soul or true self is naturally good, naturally perfect, naturally at peace within and without, full of empathy and compassion, unselfish, not self centered. We are not experiencing or manifesting these things because we have associated ourselves with the "person" or ego that has been created over time through experience.

There is no higher or lower, no guru/master or student, no one enlightened and somebody else not enlightened. All souls or conscious awareness are exactly the same. The only difference is what we are associating with. If we become intimately involved with our ego or person that has been conditioned and created over time, subject to what happened to us, good or bad, that is what we manifest and experience. We experience the world through that. If we let go of all of that, we manifest and experience something different.

This was found written on the walls of a concentration camp wall in world war 2.

I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining.
I believe in love even when I feel it not
I believe in God even when he is silent.

Even in the worse circumstances, we can have faith and hope and keep our attention on the light and peace within. Then there is that Zen story of the monk who is chased off a cliff by a tiger and he is then hanging there holding onto a small root that is breaking...certain death above and below, and the monk notices a small wild strawberry there near him and he picks it and eats it saying, "oh this is delicious!" We often have no control over our circumstances, what others are doing or saying, our destiny, but we can accept it and make the best of it. The things we cannot change. Be in the moment, internally free of demands and desires, at peace. Without conflict within or without.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by Maisy

Is one willing....
...within or without.

thanks.I just had time to read all you wrote. And it's hard to stay in the present moment without any thought. Even in meditation I find it hard to focus and be without thought. But atleast in meditation it is possible.

being simply present, my body does feel very uncomfortable. There is a difficulty accepting it. I feel like I have to constantly do something to change the way I feel. Excersize or something. I have to try something to make the pain of discomfort go away.

But nothing helps. but I cannot stop trying. It is too uncomfortable to give up. And surrender to the pain. And accept it without judgement.

Sometimes in meditation I feel free from all of it. Tho it requires such tremendous focus to get there. It's the only thing left worth living for. To think that I can feel free from all of it, if just for a brief moment in meditation.

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by Maisy

That is the only practice I think.

i've been through this enough to sense, the way you go about the practice does make a difference... there was a saying 'you are what you eat'... and even so I sense that when i get where I'm going I'll keep doing the things I was doing all along to get there... and if I don't like those things I will eventually grow tired of the whole affair, making the whole effort worthless.

it isn't like, I can just turn off years of the behavior that got me somewhere, when I get there.

So it is important to me, to find something about here, now, that is worthwhile of my attention, rather than banking on some 'better' version of the future... even if it means I can't attain whatever future I've decided will suit my fancy... that seems to work better anyway, if the future you want is to be more associated with the now...

What I'm saying is, I firmly believe, the journey is as important as the destination. Just saying I wanna go somewhere and then saying to myself 'by any means necessary' sometimes feels like I'm just asking for pain any more...

and i'll tell you what, if all I'm going to ask for is pain I can that for free, no need to work so hard for it. Millions of people just willing to dish it out on a whim.

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

How do I become free from identification?!
This is ALL I want right now, after reading all that you wrote.

People may tell you to do things eh. Do this and do that. I say ignore that. Do nothing at all. Nothing needs to be done. The one that is seeking to be free is no different from the thing that is the problem. They are both the same. The one who wants to change something, that sees a thing they want changed is no different than the thing they want to get rid of. The one that wants to be free from identification is no different from the identification.

It's like a riddle we all must solve. The key that opens the secret door. It was never hard or a problem at all. It's as simple as turning on a light. It seems difficult because the jailer thinks he is the prisoner. There is no identification! There is no duality. These are all ideas we 100% accept as truth and ideas have no truth. They are manufactured reality. We create a problem (identification in this example) then ask how to be free of it. How do you gain freedom from an idea you created and believe to be true?

The room you are in right now is empty. Imagine you were not in the room. Where would the identification be in the room? We create it and carry it around with us. It does not exist. It is only an idea. But if we believe ideas to be true, for us, they are.

There is nothing to do or find or seek or get. Experience the room as it is, when you are not there and when you are. What is lacking or missing or needing to be found? Without an idea to create such a thing, not one thing!

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

it's hard to stay in the present moment without any thought

I'd say don't care what is in thought. Have nothing to do with it. Doesn't matter if a million thoughts are there or none. Makes no difference. Don't concern yourself with thought at all.

A little clue I guess is any interpretation is thought. Like thinking you are thinking or not thinking. That duality is not real. Like say you want to be without thought. You concentrate and focus on your breath or a lamp or a candle.... seeking to be without thought. "Being without thought" is a thought, an idea, it has no objective reality. The attention is absorbed in thought, in mind. Thought wants to experience no thought. That's the basic thing. You want to tell yourself someday, "hey look I am free of thought" which is a thought. There is no future and no past, the only thing that is real is now and now is the only place it can be found.

When we imagine things, we do it with thought. That's what the imagination is. Imagined stuff in our minds. How can we imagine or find no thought when imagining is thought? There is no way to do it. It's like a horse trying to get in his own saddle.

The starting place is I want to be something different, experience something different. That is great. But the step after that is usually wrong. The thing that is the "I" we want to change seeks to be the agent of change. It asks "ok what do I do?" That makes change impossible. The one asking the question is the one we want to completely change or get rid of or drop. (Change, get rid of, drop are ALL actions words implying one to do such things.... there is no one to do anything. All of that doing takes place in thought as imagined activity)

Just be with whatever is with no mental judging or interpretation or any idea or doing at all. In this now I am sad and crying. In this now I am happy and laughing. Just be with whatever is. Empty like every room is. But this emptiness is full. Now is always full of something. Also emptiness is a thought so out with that idea too. Just be present with whatever is, without this "I" that wants it to be something different or more. That's the thing though, just being present, without any idea or interpretation, is a change. Instantly we are different. Maybe we are different for one second. Maybe 5 minutes. Maybe an hour. Then we somehow forget and our attention is lost in ideas and thoughts again.

I think it takes time or practice to shift from "duality" (consciousness and thought all wrapped up together) and just being free from conflict within and without. Not paying attention to mind unless we need it for basic life and things. So it becomes our thing, until it is not. Maybe we get free maybe we don't. Doesn't matter it's just the now as it is.

[FallingLeaves]

a less noted perspective on thought, out of the poem 'if':

if you can think but not make thoughts your aim

which basically says to me, one is allowed to think if one wants, so maybe one should concentrate on removing the 'trying' from 'how to be thinking' rather than throwing out the baby with the bathwater and removing the 'thinking' altogether. But I would concede that part of educating oneself about that might be a walk through not thinking..

Edit: of course that is oversimplified since part of what we currently do with thought is focus on it so much we don't see the world around us... but at the same time thought is itself part of that world and if we are sure we want to experience what is in front of us rather than something we are just making up in our mind, why would it be so necessary that we ban it entirely?