Path of Becoming Nothing

[Rain95]

Originally Posted by sky123

Emptiness ( Sunyata ) is what I was referring to, rather than something is missing.

''Letting go of your opinions, beliefs, and expectations changes what you are'

You are not them anyway so what does it change..... the way you look at things I suppose.

Ah changes what you are as Expression. Changes your experience. See that's the thing, and are you sure it doesn't change you? And when you say we are not those things, are you sure? I know in what sense you mean that, and that's true in that sense and all... we are something separate and will at some point leave all of this or that, but when we are "in" it, merged with it, identified with it, paying attention to it...we do in a sense become it for all practical purpose. If I interact with you, I don't interact with you, I interact with the stuff you are paying attention to and identified with. So see, here on earth in these bodies it is you in every sense of that word. That's what I am interacting with. It's what creates your experience. A child believing a monster is under their bed experiences real fear. Their fear is their reality. Something doesn't have to be real to create what you experience and I do as far as reality.

But yea in some intellectual conceptual sense I can say, no none of that is me, but that's not really accurate in this context we live within and interact in.

What is basically happening is consciousness places it's attention on things and identifies with them. It creates reality. Being nothing is just not placing the attention on these things. It turns into practice I think because the default is to be paying attention to it. That is what automatically happens. You don't consciously do it. It takes no awareness or effort at all. The mind puts the movie up there in your mind, and it becomes you like acting out a part in a play. So you think this or that, feel this or that, get offended, get angry, laugh, cry, all based on this play you are identified with. This created person. To be free of it, takes energy and paying attention to what you are doing. Being "awake" is sometimes how it is described. Not doing the other.

Being nothing the mind (not reality) presents whatever and you don't care. (One does care about reality!) It has no interest for you. You are content being empty and nothing and quiet. Our vehicle is this body, we are stuck in it until it wears out. So we have all these needs and relationships. We have to eat and have shelter, so we need an income. or job We have parents, maybe children, pets we all care for so all of that takes maintenance and energy. We have to care for our bodies eat right exercise and all of that. So we are quite busy doing all this stuff, we are fully in this earth story but the movie will end at some point and we will be done with it. Parents, children, male, female, old, young, all these roles will be done. They are temporary. Like a play ending and walking out of the theatre. One can be fully in a play and not attached to it.

Letting go of all beliefs, opinions, expectations changes what others experience me as being. It changes my experience. Say somebody says green is the best color. Say I tell them they are wrong as I have a belief about it. Now I'm arguing with them. They experience me as a opinioned disagreeable person and I experience conflict anger and all of that to varying degrees. Or say my response to them saying green is the best color is, ok great! That's it. I not only have no opinions, I have no opinions about having no opinions. They may say, hey you're dumb to not have a favorite color, and my response is, ok great! I don't have an opinion about anything, about myself, about what you think or say. Thoughts, mine or yours, are just like clouds in the sky. I don't need an opinion about the clouds. I can observe them, be aware of them, as they come and go. Fully understand and experience them, but in the reality of now, and not in an idea, belief, or opinion. That's what emptiness is. Being that emptiness space filled "person" so projecting that, and experiencing that.

One response here is no no no..... what if somebody tries to hurt your child? etc....no opinion means you do nothing... no an opinion is not needed to act. Just because you drop opinions does not mean your intelligence, awareness, understanding is still not operating fully and there to react, even in conflict creating ways if necessary.

For some reason the mind likes to debate this whole idea of having no opinions and being nothing. It tries to come up with logical arguments how it will lead to bad, or worthless, or immoral behavior. It's true action can be influenced by what we think, but action is also influenced by what we are. Our base is not a void. This "consciousness," the one that is identifying with all this human and animal stuff, and so projecting that as self and experiencing all that comes from this identification, this is the only consciousness that exists in us. This consciousness has inherent traits, unconditional love, compassion etc. So from this base, we act and react. Opinion and belief is like a filter we see things though that influences our actions, but drop this filter and we are still fully there and can act and will act. We are not our opinions and beliefs and thoughts and they are not the only source for morality and love. Consciousness itself is love. It is connected to the source of love.

Thought is not conscious. Beliefs, opinions are not conscious. All of this stuff is like a pile of books sitting alone on the top of a mountain with nobody around. It is nothing if no human is there to read the words and bring them to life. To give them meaning and importance. That's what we do, give meaning and importance to the words being written in our brains. We bring them to life and we don't have to. On the top of that mountain we can ignore the books and watch the clouds instead. But I can still act and react, I just do it based on what I am and not what I believe or think. I don't need those "books" to act. If I see a child being hurt, I act out of compassion! I try to stop it. I am fully myself. One could argue you are more yourself, not less, when you let go of all your (the bodies) opinions and beliefs.

This brings up opinions about opinions, beliefs abut beliefs. Somebody can say, don't you believe and have the opinion you should drop opinions and beliefs? Yes I do, but at some point these so called "beliefs" and "opinions" go to a different level which is knowledge and experience related. We know things by memory and thought. There is no way around this. Knowledge and understanding is an inherent part of consciousness. Like I said before, consciousness is not a void. It is you, a being. So in some way, yes consciousness itself has "beliefs" and "opinions." My theories when I try to figure this stuff out get pretty complex but my current guess is this human body and it's mind is a kind of mirror image of consciousness itself. That's a whole other topic but basically, consciousness also carries a form of opinion and belief, but it is of a different nature than the ones that the conditioned human mind pumps out and carries. They are more based on experience and intelligence and understanding and awareness and the current now moment. More based on truth and reality. Seems like understanding may look like opinion and belief in every way, but really it is of a different nature.

Like say I am arguing about if green is the best color with somebody, then a master walks up to me and says, you can choose to not have an opinion about this and thus, have no need to argue. Now I can say that's just his belief or opinion, when really it is neither. It's truth. So yea somebody can say I am opinionated for saying one should be nothing and have no beliefs. It really does get subtle and hard to explain because now this leads to .... well what do you mean by belief? What is belief? Belief can be based on blind faith, superstition, or experience. All very different things. So now it gets complicated because I need to be saying to drop a certain kind of belief, not all belief, as some belief is actually truth.... the root of the problem is the English language. I say something like, drop all opinion and belief and assume those words are clear when they are not. They way over simplify what is being talked about. Even the action word" drop is unclear as there is nothing to drop, just something to take the attention off of. But then this is unclear because to take the attention off of it only requires a realization of the difference or separateness between me and it....

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Rain95

I myself feel this is what all paths are really about it's just all this other human ego stuff gets wrapped up in it all.

Easy to do, impossible to explain.

It's form is kind of in Lennon's song imagine.....

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

Then this little story kind of hints at it....

Once a boy missed church to watch the sunrise. Afterwards he prayed to God for forgiveness. God answered him saying, "It's ok it was I that made the sunrise, I don't know who built that church."

There's nothing to become, only something to be. Or in Yoda's Zen words,

Luke: All right, I'll give it a try.
Yoda: No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.

I'd take out the , "do or do not part" There literally is no trying on this path, no doing as that requires a doer. Just be, don't project a self..be selfless.

Giving up becoming changes what you are. The ending of effort changes what you are. Letting go of your opinions, beliefs, and expectations, changes what you are.

Letting go of everything-scares some people. Yet we are letting go in everyway of ourselves anyway each and every day in some form. For those of us, who make it a more conscious practice to release the binds (transform them) do become aware of a process that normal everyday people might just notice as life passing by as they know and only know to be.

The thought of nothing scares some people, it did me for a while. There is perception, that your might lose yourself, which could well relate to fear of change and death, fear of losing parts of themselves they do not want to lose. Yet as I learned, letting go of everything I believed I was. (consciously releasing the binds in myself and still consciously do so) Did reach a point of nothing in myself. There were points of resistance to not lose aspects in fear of the unknown but in the end the unknown is part of understanding nothing too. That was scary, so people are onto it in their perceived preparation stages. When I entered that space in myself more clear as nothing, I realized I was something beyond all that. So understanding the nothing perception, was really to open without all those things you mention. Open heart, Open minded, non attachment, no expectations, it gets rather effortless in this way of being.
Live and let die as the Paul and Wings, once told us.

Only the lyrics were pointing to something else.

When you were young and your heart
Was an open book
You used to say live and let live

Open state became the path from nothing. From that point, it is just me being myself, sometimes passing through the patterns of old, (especially of others, to build deeper the realization and get more clear) but more often than not now, not getting trapped in them, which is a good sign my nothing point of realization, is now able to be in and feel everything more clear and more often than not, feel groovy. (another song?)


Feeling centred and connected as yourself as nothing, is more about feeling your essence more true to you aware of yourself more clear. (what I call my true self)
From that point you become everything your potential holds as you beyond all old ideas of yourself and others.
I am not the person I was back before nothing settled in me. The change is that I see the world with new eyes and feelings, more awareness and clarity of what is more directly ongoing. The turnaround points or major shifts in myself, showing these realizations through process.
In the essence of nothing, everything continues to show more of life and more deepening and awareness, it doesn't end, more your content to live your life aware of what is, not what you perceived previously. Your more awake to the direct nature of yourself and life around you.

[Ariaecheflame]

I seem to be finding myself on 'a path' to nothingness as well - or rather to explore the rawest- form that is my nothing state.

Life as my experience has been - is a continuous process of letting go of beliefs and lately I find myself with few beliefs at all and even those seem to have become more fluid.

It is part of the journey of being truthful to myself and living a life which is not so influenced by other beliefs.

I know entertaining my own nothingness was scary at first - but intuitively it was a step in the right direction as it meant that I might have a chance of conciously aligning with somethings which are authentic to me at the innermost level - the inner level before outside influence and fear gets involved.

Though at this time I am finding nothingness both a restless and also somewhat of a comforting space to be.
There is a part of me which would like to tap into a purpose or a mission of some sort but then another part which is relieved by the nothingness - and my place within it... and also another part of me which is coming to terms with the fact that even the sense of 'purpose' is something, a belief created by me.

Actions then taken from a place of nothingness of being are taken for no other reason than for joy... or experience... because nothingness seems to be unbothered by belief, purpose, ect... it is just there for the ride... the experience.

This is strangely freeing - as I am quite aware that the purpose is just one of experience... and so I am freed up to just play with the elements of my own life.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Rain95

I myself feel this is what all paths are really about it's just all this other human ego stuff gets wrapped up in it all.

Easy to do, impossible to explain.

It's form is kind of in Lennon's song imagine.....

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

Then this little story kind of hints at it....

Once a boy missed church to watch the sunrise. Afterwards he prayed to God for forgiveness. God answered him saying, "It's ok it was I that made the sunrise, I don't know who built that church."

There's nothing to become, only something to be. Or in Yoda's Zen words,

Luke: All right, I'll give it a try.
Yoda: No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.

I'd take out the , "do or do not part" There literally is no trying on this path, no doing as that requires a doer. Just be, don't project a self..be selfless.

Giving up becoming changes what you are. The ending of effort changes what you are. Letting go of your opinions, beliefs, and expectations, changes what you are.

I have oft wondered, what would I be if I were nothing? Would there even be an existence beyond the existential? Surely nothing must contain something in order for one to experience nothing-ness as itself - I mean, you would think so right? but what use is thinking or thoughts anyway where Nirvana is concerned?

I don't think I'd really like be-ing 'nothing'...I mean, I'd soon get really bored of nothing and even bliss wouldn't keep me stuck there as I would have 'nothing' to love and be blissful about would I? and I guess this is why I subscribe to the notion of a 'God' of sorts...because for there to be 'nothing' then there must be 'something' even by comparison...for to transcend that duality, just leads me straight back into Bliss again and I need something to unleash it all on....so a conditioned Divinity will do.

[God-Like]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

I have oft wondered, what would I be if I were nothing? Would there even be an existence beyond the existential? Surely nothing must contain something in order for one to experience nothing-ness as itself - I mean, you would think so right? but what use is thinking or thoughts anyway where Nirvana is concerned?

I don't think I'd really like be-ing 'nothing'...I mean, I'd soon get really bored of nothing and even bliss wouldn't keep me stuck there as I would have 'nothing' to love and be blissful about would I? and I guess this is why I subscribe to the notion of a 'God' of sorts...because for there to be 'nothing' then there must be 'something' even by comparison...for to transcend that duality, just leads me straight back into Bliss again and I need something to unleash it all on....so a conditioned Divinity will do.

What you are is here, there and beyond .

Beyond the duality there is no I AM bored or I don't like this or that .

How can transcending duality which leads you back to into bliss require anything to unleash it on?

Perhaps I don't follow what you mean ..

What is present beyond duality?

Are you saying bliss is beyond duality? or the bliss attained through transcending duality once returned to duality requires something to unleash it all upon?


x daz x

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by God-Like

What you are is here, there and beyond .

Beyond the duality there is no I AM bored or I don't like this or that .

How can transcending duality which leads you back to into bliss require anything to unleash it on?

Perhaps I don't follow what you mean ..

What is present beyond duality?

Are you saying bliss is beyond duality? or the bliss attained through transcending duality once returned to duality requires something to unleash it all upon?


x daz x

It was Jesus, I believe, who once stated "Faith without works is dead".

Other than this, it's going to be difficult to explain.

Beyond duality, there is Bliss of all that transcends and incorporates duality into a duality of its own....which, of course is like Light...which can travel as either a particle and/or a wave depending upon whether one is actually looking or not.

Bliss is amazing...beautiful...ecstatic...rapturous... but one needs to eat, sleep, go shopping, visit friends....sometimes conscious effort is needed to 'remain' in that blessed state when one has 'other things to do' and thus, it is boring....and besides that, I felt all my Love being returned and justified - increasing the experience...just when I thought it couldn't be...but just dropped that thought as well.

[God-Like]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

It was Jesus, I believe, who once stated "Faith without works is dead".

Other than this, it's going to be difficult to explain...

Beyond duality, there is Bliss of all that transcends and incorporates duality into a duality of its own....which, of course is like Light...which can travel as either a particle and/or a wave depending upon whether one is actually looking or not...

Bliss is amazing...beautiful...ecstatic...rapturous... but one needs to eat, sleep, go shopping, visit friends....sometimes conscious effort is needed to 'remain' in that blessed state when one has 'other things to do' and thus, it is boring....and besides that, I felt all my Love being returned and justified - increasing the experience...just when I thought it couldn't be...but just dropped that thought as well.

What puzzles me is that eating and going shopping and having the need to visit friends is all ego based . So we have blissful ego in effect . :)

There are many states of entertaining this world blissful .

'Running' a poster on the forums appears to carry out his normal duties driving his truck feeling blissful where as there can be a blissful state where one cannot function, let alone drive a truck.

So we have to determine to some extent the nature of ourselves that needs friendships compared to not . A peep that could live blissfully isolated may feel no need for another's company .

What would be lacking within the bliss? New shoes? A nice juicy steak?

So this is where there are levels of blissful states within duality depending on one's needs ... desires ...

I think it can become tricky when there is the desire to help others through ego even when it is a selfless act or an act that can be of a higher will ..

It's all interesting stuff ..


x daz x

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by God-Like

What puzzles me is that eating and going shopping and having the need to visit friends is all ego based . So we have blissful ego in effect . :)

There are many states of entertaining this world blissful .

'Running' a poster on the forums appears to carry out his normal duties driving his truck feeling blissful where as there can be a blissful state where one cannot function, let alone drive a truck.

So we have to determine to some extent the nature of ourselves that needs friendships compared to not . A peep that could live blissfully isolated may feel no need for another's company .

What would be lacking within the bliss? New shoes? A nice juicy steak?

So this is where there are levels of blissful states within duality depending on one's needs ... desires ...

I think it can become tricky when there is the desire to help others through ego even when it is a selfless act or an act that can be of a higher will ..

It's all interesting stuff ..


x daz x

Yes, very interesting indeed. What would be lacking within the bliss would be keeping an individual identity of wanting to be 'incorporated' into it would be way up there...and I don't mean 'individual identity' as in an 'ego-self' (which is perhaps the very definition OF it), but having a relationship of mutual unconditional love with Source and not becoming the Source so you don't take it all for granted over time and thus get bored with it...even though it's great and all. That has been my experience.

[Rain95]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

I have oft wondered, what would I be if I were nothing?

Free from the burden of others thoughts, free from your own.

Nothing to be or become - a light unto the world.

Ultimately, union with the source or divine.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Rain95

Free from the burden of others thoughts, free from your own.

Nothing to be or become - a light unto the world.

Ultimately, union with the source or divine.

Yep, I'll just go and listen to all of those Alan Watts lectures again, if I can drag myself away from Rabindranath Tagore and Rumi for long enough to do so.

We become free from our thoughts, unburdened and unrestrained by them, yet we still remain as witness, as the Sun witnesses clouds and shadows, while the mirror of reflective Consciousness sees itself as it truly is.

Still the heart aches and longs for something beyond the notion of 'becoming' or 'being'...as we realise we are/have been the personification of cosmic love-essence all along...and yet, the heart feels as if it is being ripped out like an exquisite form of blissful torment, wanting to love something beyond 'Self' even though we realise that nothing else is...however, as far as Faith is concerned....Source deserves the label of 'Omnipotence' for a reason...and so:

In Everything...there exists both "Nothing" AND "Something"....thus Maya (illusion), Dvaita (Duality) and Ahamkara (ego) is not transcended, but fully included in the All....and I just love Mahadeva anyway.