What experiences led you to non-duality?

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

ayar415, sorry if I have asked you before - but why post in th Non-duality section?
I understand being curious and reading in the section.
Do you have an agenda to influence us to not think in non dual ways?

Oh no, Miss Hepburn. I am not denying non-duality at all. Long ago, I picked up a used book in front of the Strand in Central Park. It was a Penguin Krishnamurti Reader. It changed my life. It re-ignited my childhood curiosity about who it was that I was looking at in the mirror. I asked my father what life was about. He said he didn't know and nobody knew. But the nagging question stayed with me all the way to the moment I read that first Krishnamurti book. I researched him, bought every one of his books ever published, and devoured them. I visited all his Foundations throughout the world and met with and talked to anyone who had read him.

The difficulty I had with grasping non-duality, as depicted by Krishnamurti in his Notebook and Journal, as well as, his explanation of it over and over again to David Bohm, caused me to give up my career to find out the truth about it. I wouldn't have made such a drastic change to my life if I didn't think that it was worth finding out. I not only had to give up my job but my parents also. It broke their hearts.

It is more than ten years now since I started on my spiritual journey to figure out non-duality. I know I have cracked the puzzle that Bohm couldn't. The funny thing is that, in doing so, I have gone behind the mirror, where non-duality is, so to speak. At the same time, I can relate with you guys on this side of duality. And the reason why you get cross with me at times is when I am speaking from the other side to folks here. Naturally, it would be a test of wills. Who is speaking with the authority of truth? If JustASimpleguy or alanantic expounds on non-duality, is it offensive to question the veracity of his testimony?

A spiritual discourse is not a battle for superiority to establish authority. It didn't end well with Jesus. I have not come here to claim your forum as my Kingdom on Earth. I have come to share the truth about a spirituality that is not on that other shore or another realm but right where we are.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by ayar415

If JustASimpleguy or alanantic expounds on non-duality, is it offensive to question the veracity of his testimony?

No, I don't think so...and I believe both are mature enough to take questioning or even doubters.
Thank you for your explanation.
I picked up Krishnamurti in the 70s - he was not for me...shhh, don't tell anyone.

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Thank you for your explanation.
I picked up Krishnamurti in the 70s - he was not for me...shhh, don't tell anyone.

And thank you for your patience.

Krishnamurti is not for me either. By this, I mean his "teaching" as marketed by his foundations and followers, some of whom post in this forum and are engaging me in discussion. Also, I don't accept some direct statements of Krishnamurti himself. However, his "glimpses" of the non-dual state were not dismissable.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by ayar415

Also, I don't accept some direct statements of Krishnamurti himself. However, his "glimpses" of the non-dual state were not dismissable.

Ya know, I have kind of a silly saying: ''Even Charles Manson can say a couple of really wise sentences.''

(Not comparing K. to CM!!)
Re: Patience ---you have a younger brother charm about you...to me..you know,
an obnoxious younger brother that has his moments...

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Ya know, I have kind of a silly saying: ''Even Charles Manson can say a couple of really wise sentences.''

A wise saying is one thing, testimony of the truth about life is another.

[psychoslice]

I use to read many books on this so called Oneness, and was fascinated with the experience they had. One night when I was feeling down and suicidal, I just fell onto my bed in tears and disappeared. I felt myself expanding throughout the cosmos, I was One with all there is. When I came to I started to laugh and laugh, and I have been laughing ever since.
I no longer read non duality books, or anything to do with spirituality, I am now too busy enjoying life and have no concerns with so called afterlife matters, because this life is the only one that matters, whatever happens after this life if there is an afterlife, can take care of itself, enjoy Now, because that is all there is.

[Machielove1]

In short looked up Enlightenment (thought about Buddha's enlightenment after hitting rock bottom) found this website of a Lola Jones of Divine openings, read her story of her 21 day silent retreat in India. In the book you had to closely look at a painting for a few minutes close your eyes and stop thinking so thought what the heck tried it and just when I wanted to laugh it of this huge rush of Bliss came over me and for a moment I was gone…

Did not like all the teachings she connected with it and self-improvement stuff so looked further in my Google search and find Ramana, saw a video of him leaving mount Arunachala even more Bliss. Not that it's about Bliss alone but like that you want to know what that is all about never to let you go.

Ask and you shall be given I guess �

[Ewwerrin]

I haven't found nonduality. But realising a decade or more ago that everything is duality led me to search nonduality. Still haven't found it.

[Unseeking Seeker]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

NOW, anyone here have Non-duality experiences?
Anyone become the Universe or merge with the air and dematerialize?
Let's compare notes.

Sure, that’s a great idea, to compare notes of our experiences.

In my understanding, there are three states:

1. Feeling of separateness
2. Stirrings of interconnectedness
3. Recognition of oneness

The first is the ‘usual’ subject-object relationship, where we are the subject and everything else is an object

The second is a connectedness with all other manifest objects

The third is recognising oneness by so becoming one with the all that is.

It is easy to imagine oneness in a vivid experience. For example, the dark void experience. However, here we exist as formless awareness in communication with God or universal consciousness or let us say, we see a form or hear a sound, like the primal Ohm reverberation. We are the cogniser of the experience and so no matter how profound it is, in my view, it is not oneness.

What I consider oneness occurred a few times:

1. In a meditative state, as the bliss current in form intensified its amplitude, awareness of body, time and space disappeared and I became the bliss flame. I was not experiencing the flame, I became the flame. So I take this, as being one without a second, Samadhi, if you will, to be oneness.
   
2. My consciousness expanded and I was no longer in the universe; rather the universe was in me.
   
3. I became the breath of God, in-dwelling in all forms

[Redchic12]

Just wanted to put my two bobs worth in about Krishnamurti.

I read a lot of his books many years ago and whilst I feel he had a lot things worth thinking about, there is one thing that annoyed me.

When he had given a talk, some people would ask him, “well how do we get there or how do we see that or how can I reach that. And he always answered, “ there is no how”.

So my point is why tell us all this stuff cos none of us are going to achieve it if we don’t know how to go about it. Seems a bit pointless really.

Just seemed a bit arrogant to me, so I stopped reading his stuff.

Just my thoughts.