Practice

[Moondance]

As far as I can see, everybody is practicing (in the full sense of the word.) Most are practicing, rehearsing, reinforcing the normalised, accepted version of separation - emergent in early childhood and reinforced by society at every turn. Habits of mind work very hard to keep this particular misapprehension in place. We could call this ‘default practice’.

In the spiritual context, the practice that interests me is non-practice. By this I mean the act of disrupting or halting this default practice in its tracks.

There are various means by which this can come about. Meditation, self-inquiry, illumination, koan, a shock to the system, meetings etc. Sometimes it occurs when the mind is at the end of its tether and it just gives up. Sometimes it can happen in the presence of those who are free of default reinforcement.

Of course it’s all Oneness at play - whether it be the default practice of reinforcing the delusion of separation or the practice that cuts through that. Neither one can be considered preferable - unless there is an interest in or impulse towards liberation from the false (the default delusion of separation.)

[Shivani Devi]

It all depends on the seeker and the efficiency of means.

In your context and example, meditation and self-inquiry can be seen as a practice provided they are practiced regularly, until practice becomes doing without any thought of 'having to do it'.

Also, as an example, those who follow any path, have certain practices relating to it, so they will keep moving along that path and not just sitting down on that path thinking they have already 'got there' when the road ahead stretches out for miles before them.

I know myself, if I wish to have the experience of darshan (presence) of Shiva, I must work at it and not just do 'whatever I like' with only the knowledge that Shiva/Oneness is always there regardless of what I do, even though I know this is the case, and yet I cannot feel/experience it.

It's like I need to at least make some kind of effort and Shiva always meets me 'half way'....but if I get into bad habits, neglect my Sadhana (spiritual practice) and just do what I feel like when I feel like it...neglecting my meditation, yoga, diet, sleep hygiene and become lazy and stuck with just 'knowing' Shiva is there without any movement in regards, I always get the message "Yeah, you do that! come find me again when you're gonna take this whole thing seriously and stop goofing off...I'll still be here".

Practice is meant to turn our minds and hearts towards the goal...to turn the mind inwards or to the purpose, realisation of that goal we set for ourselves. Do you think a soccer player will just stand there, staring at the ball when the goal is in sight? yeah, everybody around will go "you idiot! what are you waiting for? kick the bloody thing already!" and 'coach God' will say "you're outta there!"

It's one thing to become complacent within a realisation...yeah, I know and you know it's all "Oneness at play" but to actually go behind, beyond the Oneness itself...that takes practice!

There's a favourite saying of mine:

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

It all depends on the seeker and the efficiency of means.

Yes. The practice that I’m advocating here involves a disruption or cutting through of the root delusion of separation - which I’m positing as a form of practice in itself (as in, a habitual or customary procedure.)
However this disruption can be brought about is valid - but it will most often only occur in those who are ripe.

[Iamit]

Originally Posted by Moondance

Yes. The practice that I’m advocating here involves a disruption or cutting through of the root delusion of separation - which I’m positing as a form of practice in itself (as in, a habitual or customary procedure.)
However this disruption can be brought about is valid - but it will most often only occur in those who are ripe.

That ripeness, or what I would call mind being on the same wavelenth as the concept all is one, may be for all sorts of reasons to do with where the seeker is at depending on the nature and experience of the character. Practise might be one of the reasons for some seekers, but not the only one.

[Shivani Devi]

The weirdest thing?

After I just typed that up, I felt like a cuppa Joe....but not any old cup...it had to be one from the 7/11 store around the corner.

Now, I am one who is totally in tune with the whole 'synchronicity' bit...right down to everything that happens externally as an internalisation.

Mindfulness is a constant 'practice' for me and so now it is second nature.

So, guess what was playing on the store radio as I walked through the door to grab my coffee?

https://genius.com/Ricky-martin-the-...version-lyrics

[Intro]
Do you really want it ... (Yeah!)
Do you really want it ... (Yeah!)
Do you really want it ... (Yeah!)

Go, go, go! (Go, go, go!)
Ale, Ale, Ale! (Ale, Ale, Ale!)
Go! (Go!)
Go! (Go!)
Go! (Go!) Go! (Go!)
Here we go! Yeah!

[Verse 1]
The Cup of Life
This is the one
Now is the time
Don't ever stop
Push it along
Gotta be strong
Push it along
Right to the top

The feelin' in your soul
Is gonna take control
Nothing can hold you back
If you really want it
I see it in your eyes
You want the cup of life
Now that the day is here
Gotta go and get it
Do you really want it ... (Yeah!)
Do you really want it ... (Yeah!)

Here we go! Ale, Ale, Ale!
Go, go, go! Ale, Ale, Ale!
Tonight's the night we're gonna celebrate
The cup of life... Ale, Ale, Ale!

[blossomingtree]

Originally Posted by Moondance

Of course it’s all Oneness at play

So is murder then. This lack of differentiation is problematic in spiritual matters. Just because everything is God, it doesn't mean that we should maim or that a beginner is an adapt. The shortcut of it's all Oneness is ironically for the more advanced of practitioners, but of course with the advent of the internet, everyone wants to believe it is applicable.

“Those who do not understand the division of these two realities (Absolute and Relative) do not understand the profound true reality of the Buddha’s teaching. Without reliance on conventions, the ultimate cannot be taught. Without realization of the ultimate, Nirvana will not be attained.”'

Nagarjuna

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by blossomingtree

Just because everything is God, it doesn't mean that we should maim or that a beginner is an adapt. The shortcut of it's all Oneness is ironically for the more advanced of practitioners, but of course with the advent of the internet, everyone wants to believe it is applicable.

Quite true.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Moondance

Quite true.

I think the notions of beginners and adepts is all imaginary in terms of the truth of yourself, and we have stories about being ripe as well, which are reasonable only in their metaphorical sense, but the central theme of these is story about self. BUT you are just as you are - not the memory of you nor the imagined future you - and the way you are now is 'the true state of consciousness'.

[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by Gem

I think the notions of beginners and adepts is all imaginary in terms of the truth of yourself, and we have stories about being ripe as well, which are reasonable only in their metaphorical sense, but the central theme of these is story about self. BUT you are just as you are - not the memory of you nor the imagined future you - and the way you are now is 'the true state of consciousness'.

Extracting and addressing this point:

…the way you are now is 'the true state of consciousness'.

Agreed, and so true Gem. How could it be otherwise?
And yet... at the same time, and by virtue of the same premise - that is rather the entire dilemma, the crux of the matter, the whole problem of human existence right there.

Who is this “you” so named?
By what means of cognition is this identity known?
Does this ‘you’ change, and if so, how so?
Can a human being seek to deliberately effect any concentration or acceleration of those means by an intelligent will intrinsic to human life toward that realization (i.e., devotion, discrimination, service, meditation, etc.)?

These questions, those that derive from them, and all their respective answers - are what each and every legitimate system of yoga (and even religion) - seeks, realizes, validates, and prescribes through both codified teaching, and importantly, its living teachers who do genuinely embody those principles.

Those various means, whether any teacher embodies them, and the methods by which they are effected, constitute the entire framework and purpose of 95% of discussion here.

Also, to add a 'wild card' into the mix, and to challenge any misguided crypto-dualists posing as NA proponents since this is the 'non-dual' forum...
Regarding this point which is quite significant:

I think the notions of beginners and adepts is all imaginary in terms of the truth of yourself, and we have stories about being ripe as well, which are reasonable only in their metaphorical sense, but the central theme of these is story about self.

It is both metaphorical as a general principle, but at the point of 'ripeness' for those specific cases of consequential preparedness, quite literal and inescapable as a possibility.

So the question of 'self' here is similar to the issue of 'you' in the above. Again, who is this 'self'?

Any human being so realized in that Oneness actually consciously embodies and has access to that oneness of Self, of all Being, who they are and know as a full subjective Identity, and therefore consciously and essentially are 'you' as well as a result. In that subjective Identity, but significantly within a mutually agreed teacher/student relationship, they are or represent both the realized 'you', may identify with the aspiring 'you' and importantly within in that context - they are the very means of that realization because in and through that oneness so consecrated, there is mutual free access to it - its purpose and means, one and the same in each - only in different forms.

This is the implication of Oneness in the dynamic physical multiplicity - but especially for those consciously seeking and practicing some form of yoga - and not simply dedicated to preserving a selectively speculative stillborn intellectual theory.


~ J

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

Extracting and addressing this point:

Agreed, and so true Gem. How could it be otherwise?
And yet... at the same time, and by virtue of the same premise - that is rather the entire dilemma, the crux of the matter, the whole problem of human existence right there.

Who is this “you” so named?
By what means of cognition is this identity known?
Does this ‘you’ change, and if so, how so?

The deeper sense of the reference 'you' can't be regarded as changing, progressing, developing and so forth. But this doesn't negate in the least the way insight is transformative of the mind, in which sense, not so much changes as it fundamentally transforms a person.

To me this has to do with the truthful expression of self, and now I'm referring to 'self' as the changeless, and this expression is metta as one is moved by the outpouring love which characterises the changeless.

It's just that the one we call Gem isn't an agent, who by any will of his own, determines such expression, but may be regarded as the vessel or channel through which 'self' can be expressed.

Can a human being seek to deliberately effect any concentration or acceleration of those means by an intelligent will intrinsic to human life toward that realization (i.e., devotion, discrimination, service, meditation, etc.)?

The meditation is a very subtle subject, and the path of it is non-volitional. This makes the concept of 'right effort' an extraordinarily nuanced one, more to do with how difficult it is to not do anything. In the meditation halls, people sit to observe, with a kind of attention that watches without influence, but soon enough, the discomforts of the body elicit psychological reactivity, which we call the volitions, driven by aversions, impelling the activity to move somehow to alleviate discomfort and produce comfort. The 'effort' is in the immediate recognition of such reactivity, and thereby the cessation thereof. Perhaps after an hour of that sort of determination, the pains intensify and one becomes overwhelmed by their reactivity, and we learn where current limitation lies.

Of course they argue that there isn't a limitation, but then if we try it out ourselves, we find ourselves becoming agitated as our minds become more reactively compulsive. I'm not talking 'ultimate truth', just the truth of oneself, of ones own limitations, to recognise and know these motives that move the mind. That is insight, to know, to realise, as the way of meditation - and not use meditation for the sake of willfully producing experiential conditions one desires.

.

These questions, those that derive from them, and all their respective answers - are what each and every legitimate system of yoga (and even religion) - seeks, realizes, validates, and prescribes through both codified teaching, and importantly, its living teachers who do genuinely embody those principles.

Those various means, whether any teacher embodies them, and the methods by which they are effected, constitute the entire framework and purpose of 95% of discussion here.

Also, to add a 'wild card' into the mix, and to challenge any misguided crypto-dualists posing as NA proponents since this is the 'non-dual' forum...
Regarding this point which is quite significant: It is both metaphorical as a general principle, but at the point of 'ripeness' for those specific cases of consequential preparedness, quite literal and inescapable as a possibility.

So the question of 'self' here is similar to the issue of 'you' in the above. Again, who is this 'self'?

What I call self isn't an individual, and it's the same one aware as me, you, him, her, everyone according the their particular sensory perception. We think there is an individual we call Gem, and of course there an individuation in my experience, but that one named Gem only really exists psychologically. Not so imaginary as is a unicorn, but as a constructed subject of all past experience.

Like a ghost, it thinks it is alive and conscious, but one day after several days meditation, it separated from myself, and I could watch it in the minds eye like it was my ghost. It's a faker in pretense that it is me, and my noticing and observation of it caused it to panic, because all it lives on is the psychological energy of mental reactivity. In this watching of it it revealed how it operates to distract me so it can assume the position 'me' while I remain unaware. That's the egoic function, as reaction is distraction, and this false sense of self we call the ego can't continue as 'me' without all that psychological reactivity which is the distraction. And just as well, because it is not a pleasant characher in anyway.

Now I address you, I already know there isn't a Gem 'in real life', and all my impressions of self and your impressions of me and my impressions of you are basically fabrications or mentalities, and that one I've called 'self' is not 'other' as any distinctions between us.

That to me is the metta called loving kindness, not sentimental emotion or acts of kindness, but that deeper 'self' expression/knowing as 'us'.

Hence I don't advocate forcing ones self into service and trying to be kind, only looking deeply into these aspirations and the desire that pertains to the self reward, because the true wish entailed in metta isn't of the volitions, but the living expression of self. In that, everything is motivated toward the happiness of all beings.

Any human being so realized in that Oneness actually consciously embodies and has access to that oneness of Self, of all Being, who they are and know as a full subjective Identity, and therefore consciously and essentially are 'you' as well as a result. In that subjective Identity, but significantly within a mutually agreed teacher/student relationship, they are or represent both the realized 'you', may identify with the aspiring 'you' and importantly within in that context - they are the very means of that realization because in and through that oneness so consecrated, there is mutual free access to it - its purpose and means, one and the same in each - only in different forms.

That makes sense, but in all my spiritual life I have only once regarded someone as a sort of guruic figure, but they told to stop judging them as someone special and imagining them as something they are not. Since then I've held every person in equal high regard of a standard I would have regarded 'my guru'.

I think the lesson of the relation is this: if you hold a spiritual personality in particularly high regard, it only shows that you do not hold everyday people, or indeed yourself, in the highest regard possible. For some reason special high regard is conditional on imagining someone as highly spiritual, and I have had the opportunity to realise the judgements that entails.

This is the implication of Oneness in the dynamic physical multiplicity - but especially for those consciously seeking and practicing some form of yoga - and not simply dedicated to preserving a selectively speculative stillborn intellectual theory.


~ J

If we can discern between what is mentally fabricated and what is 'happening anyway', we may direct our interest from the mind's volitions to the spontaneously arising, and what could be 'surrender' other than the forsaking of our volition?