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  #1  
Old 07-03-2018, 12:41 PM
Moondance Moondance is offline
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The Natural State

It will be clear to most seekers (especially those who have tried meditation) that the mind operates in two significant modes.

The first is how we normally go about much of our day where our minds are occupied with things that have nothing to do with the task in hand. For instance we can sit in the car for hours and have no recollection of approaching junctions, joining main roads, parking up etc. We are (as the phrase goes) lost in our heads - involved in some kind of narrative, planning, remembering, ruminating, holding conversations with ourselves.

The second mode* is that where we are attentive to what is actually going on in the moment. We are not lost to past or future narratives - we experience existence directly as it unfolds in real time (so to speak.) A state of immediacy that is sometimes referred to as presence.

For this post I’ll refer to the two modes as cogitation mode and experiential mode. It’s my experience that one mode doesn’t cancel out the other (although in extreme cases it seems to), rather, one mode becomes dominant and the other takes a back seat. And this happens to varying degrees along a spectrum. In a heightened sense of the experiential mode, cogitation is almost absent (though mentation is still present and names and places are still recognised etc.)

A heightened and ongoing sense of the experiential mode - in which there is the sense of life simply presenting as it is without a sense of separation or fragmentation - is what is sometimes known as the natural state. This natural state** is a felt-sense or (and I’m using this word with caution due to its dualistic connotations***) experiential gnosis - as opposed to an intellectual understanding (although an intellectual understanding often accompanies it.)

In my experience of spiritual/nondual teachings there are two fundamental ways in which this this heightened mode/natural state is revealed (it’s already the case but is obscured by the dominance of the cogitation mode and its distorted perceptions.)

The first could be thought of as a kind of top-down approach. This involves the direct realisation/recognition that Life - as it is - THIS… is inescapably already the case. Without efforting, struggling, modifying or obsessing, Life or Wholeness or _____________ is already and always presenting itself. As mentioned, this is an experiential realisation/recognition - a kind of felt sense. It’s no use looking to mind for it - that will only push back to the cogitation mode (this is the reason that stories of ‘I had it then I lost it…’ are so prevalent.) For many this approach (which is essentially a form of direct inquiry) will seem elusive, perplexing, incomplete or unstable.

The other approach is that of mindfulness/meditation. This could be said to be a bottom-up approach where moment-by-moment attention is kept on the actuality of what presents itself. In this approach there is the dissolving of internal dialogue/narrative resulting in a reduction of 'me making' and delusion forming. In this absence of delusion forming there arises the apprehension of life simply happening exactly as it is happening in which narratives of a past, future and a sense of an abiding separate entity are not upheld in mind.




* From a neuroscientific point of view these modes roughly correlate with brain circuitry known as the default network and the direct experience network. This is not to say that the states are merely brain states.

** By this do I mean enlightenment? Well I don’t really know what enlightenment is - everybody seems to have a different take on it. But what I can say is that in this immediate state of wholeness, concepts like enlightenment become utterly irrelevant, even slightly laughable - so it could be said to be a cure for the sickness of enlightenment.

*** I wouldn’t get too hung up on the word ‘experiential’ despite its dualistic connotations. There’s nothing really wrong with the word itself, the issue is with the assumption that there is a separate inherently existing experiencer.
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  #2  
Old 07-03-2018, 09:42 PM
Iamit Iamit is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moondance
It will be clear to most seekers (especially those who have tried meditation) that the mind operates in two significant modes.

The first is how we normally go about much of our day where our minds are occupied with things that have nothing to do with the task in hand. For instance we can sit in the car for hours and have no recollection of approaching junctions, joining main roads, parking up etc. We are (as the phrase goes) lost in our heads - involved in some kind of narrative, planning, remembering, ruminating, holding conversations with ourselves.

The second mode* is that where we are attentive to what is actually going on in the moment. We are not lost to past or future narratives - we experience existence directly as it unfolds in real time (so to speak.) A state of immediacy that is sometimes referred to as presence.

For this post I’ll refer to the two modes as cogitation mode and experiential mode. It’s my experience that one mode doesn’t cancel out the other (although in extreme cases it seems to), rather, one mode becomes dominant and the other takes a back seat. And this happens to varying degrees along a spectrum. In a heightened sense of the experiential mode, cogitation is almost absent (though mentation is still present and names and places are still recognised etc.)

A heightened and ongoing sense of the experiential mode - in which there is the sense of life simply presenting as it is without a sense of separation or fragmentation - is what is sometimes known as the natural state. This natural state** is a felt-sense or (and I’m using this word with caution due to its dualistic connotations***) experiential gnosis - as opposed to an intellectual understanding (although an intellectual understanding often accompanies it.)

In my experience of spiritual/nondual teachings there are two fundamental ways in which this this heightened mode/natural state is revealed (it’s already the case but is obscured by the dominance of the cogitation mode and its distorted perceptions.)

The first could be thought of as a kind of top-down approach. This involves the direct realisation/recognition that Life - as it is - THIS… is inescapably already the case. Without efforting, struggling, modifying or obsessing, Life or Wholeness or _____________ is already and always presenting itself. As mentioned, this is an experiential realisation/recognition - a kind of felt sense. It’s no use looking to mind for it - that will only push back to the cogitation mode (this is the reason that stories of ‘I had it then I lost it…’ are so prevalent.) For many this approach (which is essentially a form of direct inquiry) will seem elusive, perplexing, incomplete or unstable.

The other approach is that of mindfulness/meditation. This could be said to be a bottom-up approach where moment-by-moment attention is kept on the actuality of what presents itself. In this approach there is the dissolving of internal dialogue/narrative resulting in a reduction of 'me making' and delusion forming. In this absence of delusion forming there arises the apprehension of life simply happening exactly as it is happening in which narratives of a past, future and a sense of an abiding separate entity are not upheld in mind.




* From a neuroscientific point of view these modes roughly correlate with brain circuitry known as the default network and the direct experience network. This is not to say that the states are merely brain states.

** By this do I mean enlightenment? Well I don’t really know what enlightenment is - everybody seems to have a different take on it. But what I can say is that in this immediate state of wholeness, concepts like enlightenment become utterly irrelevant, even slightly laughable - so it could be said to be a cure for the sickness of enlightenment.

*** I wouldn’t get too hung up on the word ‘experiential’ despite its dualistic connotations. There’s nothing really wrong with the word itself, the issue is with the assumption that there is a separate inherently existing experiencer.

Hi Moondance,

What ends the search?. I suggest its a frequency match between the mind and the concept All is One resulting in a resonance that persists. Could the mind have the capacity to do that either as an aspect of the modes you mention or in addition to them? If not what else could be the mechanism and process?
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  #3  
Old 08-03-2018, 03:35 AM
iamthat iamthat is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iamit
Hi Moondance,

What ends the search?. I suggest its a frequency match between the mind and the concept All is One resulting in a resonance that persists. Could the mind have the capacity to do that either as an aspect of the modes you mention or in addition to them? If not what else could be the mechanism and process?

The end of the search is nothing to do with the mind or any concepts. The end of the search is the letting go of the mind and all its concepts. Then we rest free in what we are.

Peace.
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  #4  
Old 08-03-2018, 08:24 AM
Iamit Iamit is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by iamthat
The end of the search is nothing to do with the mind or any concepts. The end of the search is the letting go of the mind and all its concepts. Then we rest free in what we are.

Peace.

What lets go?

I'm trying to talk about the process and what conducts it.

If it is not the mind, what is it that carries out the enquiry to solve the search for connection? Once the solution is located, what is it that resonates with it, if it is not the mind?

It is often said that it has nothing to do with the mind without knowing what it is to do with! The mind is underestimated. It has been demonised for very suspect reasons which when challenged are found wanting. Mind maybe what manifests the whole of magnificent duality, and in that sense it could even be that Mind=Oneness!!!
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Old 08-03-2018, 11:43 AM
Moondance Moondance is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iamit
Hi Moondance,

What ends the search?. I suggest its a frequency match between the mind and the concept All is One resulting in a resonance that persists. Could the mind have the capacity to do that either as an aspect of the modes you mention or in addition to them? If not what else could be the mechanism and process?

Hello Iamit (and iamthat)

I think that what you are describing here could loosely fit with what I’ve referred to as the ’top-down’ approach. Mind is one of those words which can mean different things in different contexts. Often people use it as a synonym for the brain or the intellect - yet sometimes it is used as another name for consciousness (for instance Dzogchen talks of ‘the nature of mind’ etc.) When I say don’t look to mind I mean (and I suspect that iamthat means the same) don’t look to the analytic, abstracting, aspect of mind/the intellect since this is not (certainly, not just) about an intellectual understanding or an application of knowledge/information. But of course in its broader sense mind is involved in aspects of cognition and perception.
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Old 08-03-2018, 04:27 PM
davidsun davidsun is offline
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The 'thing' of it is is that 'mind' (or 'consciousness' or 'perception') is mobile -- like an 'eye', or for that matter, an 'I' -- in the sense that it can 'look' and 'make sense of' what it 'sees' in any chosen 'direction', on any focused 'in' level, or plane, and, in each case, using a wider or narrower 'aperture' to 'take' things 'in'.

You might as well try to 'pin down' a 'river' - its all a part of THE FLOW of LIFE - the more important question, IMO, is how well one comprehends what's apparent in then how adeptly (for want of a better word, I could have also said 'art'istically) one lives on the basis of all of your various/varied kinds of 'seeings' and 'making sense of things'.

I must say, your OP strikes me as being an exquisitely adept/artistic 'making sense of things', Moondance. I assume you are equally adept/artistic in what you think, feel, do and say in your other moment to moment (daily and nightly ) meanderings.

Ride 'em Cowboy! Yahoo!!
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Old 08-03-2018, 05:21 PM
Moondance Moondance is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davidsun
The 'thing' of it is is that 'mind' (or 'consciousness' or 'perception') is mobile -- like an 'eye', or for that matter, an 'I' -- in the sense that it can 'look' and 'make sense of' what it 'sees' in any chosen 'direction', on any focused 'in' level, or plane, and, in each case, using a wider or narrower 'aperture' to 'take' things 'in'.

You might as well try to 'pin down' a 'river' - its all a part of THE FLOW of LIFE - the more important question, IMO, is how well one comprehends what's apparent in then how adeptly (for want of a better word, I could have also said 'art'istically) one lives on the basis of all of your various/varied kinds of 'seeings' and 'making sense of things'.

I must say, your OP strikes me as being an exquisitely adept/artistic 'making sense of things', Moondance. I assume you are equally adept/artistic in what you think, feel, do and say in your other moment to moment (daily and nightly ) meanderings.

Ride 'em Cowboy! Yahoo!!

Hello David

Thanks for the comment.

If we are talking about Life or Source or Oneness or THIS… then yes, you’re right, we can’t pin IT down - calling _______ by those names is already saying too much.

But making sense of where and why we become stuck and how language and logic often deceives us - and calling out teachings that mislead us… can be constructive - and eye-opening (or as you might say, ‘I’ opening.) :)
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Old 08-03-2018, 06:19 PM
davidsun davidsun is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moondance
... making sense of where and why we become stuck and how language and logic often deceives us - and calling out teachings that mislead us… can be constructive - and eye-opening (or as you might say, ‘I’ opening.) :)
Yes, indeedy! Including 'callng out' the now-faddish (and consequently POOH-BAH of everything else) 'glorification' of seeing/ex-peer-iencing what is 'happening' in some narrow-focused 'Here and Now', since everything that 'happened' (in one's 'past') and everything that will 'happen' (in one's 'future') are part and parcel of one's 'journey' to - or should I say in - 'Kingdom Come!" LOL

I am with iamit's saying "It is often said that it has nothing to do with the mind without knowing what it is to do with! The mind is underestimated. It has been demonised for very suspect reasons which when challenged are found wanting. Mind maybe what manifests the whole of magnificent duality, and in that sense it could even be that Mind=Oneness!!" on this score.
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Old 08-03-2018, 11:47 PM
Iamit Iamit is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Moondance
Hello Iamit (and iamthat)

I think that what you are describing here could loosely fit with what I’ve referred to as the ’top-down’ approach. Mind is one of those words which can mean different things in different contexts. Often people use it as a synonym for the brain or the intellect - yet sometimes it is used as another name for consciousness (for instance Dzogchen talks of ‘the nature of mind’ etc.) When I say don’t look to mind I mean (and I suspect that iamthat means the same) don’t look to the analytic, abstracting, aspect of mind/the intellect since this is not (certainly, not just) about an intellectual understanding or an application of knowledge/information. But of course in its broader sense mind is involved in aspects of cognition and perception.

Is resonance an interllectual understanding? I suggest not but rather it is a matter of frequency/vibration, in this context a frequency/vibration match between mind and the concept All is One to end the search. If I am reading you right, your answer is mind in what you call top down mode. Or if not, what else is it that resonates with that concept?
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Old 09-03-2018, 11:51 AM
Moondance Moondance is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iamit
Is resonance an interllectual understanding? I suggest not but rather it is a matter of frequency/vibration, in this context a frequency/vibration match between mind and the concept All is One to end the search. If I am reading you right, your answer is mind in what you call top down mode. Or if not, what else is it that resonates with that concept?

I wouldn’t call resonance an intellectual understanding. Intellectual understanding could be said to be where we merely have an idea about something from reasoning or hearsay. Here’s a poor example, imagine that you’ve never tasted a lemon but you know it to be sour - that’s a conceptual idea or understanding. One day you place a slice of lemon in your mouth and right there you have the felt-sense recognition that it is sour. It’s of a different order.

I have no interest in demonising the mind, the mind is a necessary and useful biological instrument. It’s just that a dominance of unnecessary (largely unconscious) cogitation distorts our perceptions and veils us from the ineffable obviousness of Life presenting as it is without a sense of separation or fragmentation… of THIS - which is not a thought or idea or concept (though we can talk about it conceptually to a certain extent.)
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