--- In [email protected], "sandiego108" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "yifuxero" <yifuxero@> > wrote: > > > > ---(below - in my view). No. By all means, attain the Self, the > non- > > dual "state" described by the Neo-Advaitins; but don't regard that > as > > the ultimate goal, or even being close to Enlightenment, unless > one has > > made the progression through the Kundalini signs. The Neo- > Advaitins > > haven't done this. > <snip> > Experientially, in other words, in terms of inner freedom > experienced in real life, (in other words, outside your head) there > is little difference between living a non-dual state and > accomplishing the signs that you speak of. Once the mind is free of > encumbrances, there is little that the freedom of the body can add > to the experience. > > This insistence of yours on attaining signs is just a way to keep > the dissolution of your identity at bay. In other words, you remain > bound to subtle elements of your ego, by insisting to yourself that > true enlightenment has nothing to do with living a non-dual reality.
I can see how the desire to attain signs, i.e., the desire to be a special person with a special mind/body, could keep awakening at bay. But, haven't there been great awakened masters who did attain such signs and teach that they are essential to awakening? If so, were they wrong? Personally, in all my seeking, I was never a seeker of enlightenment. I was only ever a seeker of a fix for the broken I/me story. It took me a year to figure out that in Waking Down, I was seeking yet another fix for the brokenness. But, I stuck with it and ended up in a hellish Dark Night of the Soul, from which I emerged in what yifuxero would probably deem a Neo-Advaitin state. (In reality, though, Waking Down's embodied awakening is both non-dual and Tantric. The Neo-Advaitin state sounds to me like more of a disembodied awakening where the I/me/mind/body story is denigrated and dismissed.) As before, my focus remains on the I/me story, and my shrink tells me that the usual prescription is to deal with the I/me story and do the inner work before awakening. Apparently, I'm doing it backwards. He tells me that for most of his clients, he has to create the container of spaciousness for them. With me, I supply my own internal spaciousness, and the result is that I can work through in months what typically takes years. It can be a pretty rough and bumpy ride, but it sure saves time and money. I was just down near Kansas City, on a Waking Down retreat, and I asked Krishna Gauci ( http://www.krishnasatsang.com/ ) about FFL's Buddhist fundamentalists who insist that one must achieve all these states of esoteric duality. Krishna's spiritual background includes Advaita and Dzogchen, and his response was along the lines of, "Well, yeah, they're fundamentalists." But, he also speculated that embodied awakening would likely be a much more effective platform from which to actually achieve such states.
