--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, navashok <no_reply@...> wrote: > > First of all Lawson, I really appreciate the dialogue we are having. Don't > think that I want to dump TM. I think it is a very good technique to start > meditation, and I think that at a later stage it is up to everybody to either > continue to advance with TM or with something else. > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@> wrote: [...] [...] > > Well with TM, if you REALLY are in samadhi (pure consciousness), you can't > > note it until such time as some degree of waking state consciousness > > reassumes, and by then, you are no longer in the pure state. > > And this is something that raises question marks for me. How could you say > that you experience pure consciousness, when you 'notice' it only afterwards? > Does it mean you are not conscious during the experience, or does it mean you > are unable to press a button while you are in?
Sigh... MMY and just about everyone else describes pure consciousness as the situation where the ripples in the lake have completely faded away, leaving the water of the lake perfectly still, etc. Using that analogy, where does your confusion come from? Noting the lake [the mind] is still requires a ripple associated with noting the lake in the first place. Deciding to a button requires a ripple associated with decision-making. Pressing the button requires a ripple associated with voluntary motion. Etc. By the time you press the button, a little of ripples have arisen to support the activity of that button-press. > > What kind of 'purity' is this, when it is *lost* so easily? So whole model of > having pure consciousness, as an overlay over normal activity, and also the > normally active mind, rests on the assertion, that the purity of PC doesn't > get lost, right? What kind of purity is it that it is lost so easily? Gee, using any and all physical analogies that I can think of.. Adding 1 percent non-salt makes the salt less than pure. Having a few overtones in a sound makes the sound more complicated. Within the model of how regular practice of TM alternated with activity, which I guess is what you are really asking about, the fact is, ANY kind of mental activity is less pure than pure consciousness but theory AND research suggests that repeatedly practicing TM, so that the nervous system starts to at least approach the pattern found during pure consciousness, alternated with regular activity, starts to create a situation where the EEG pattern found during pure consciousness shows up more and more outside of TM practice. This isn't some special thing. It is called "Hebbian Learning" and in its simplest form, has been used as an explanation for how the brain works since the 1940's. when a nerve cell fires close to another nerve cell, the second nerve cell starts to become associated with the first nerve cell so that it becomes more likely to fire when the first one fires. When a pattern of firing is established throughout the brain, and is repeated often enough during meditation, that pattern of firing starts to show up more and more outside of meditation. Non-TM techniques tend to show a pattern of behavior associated with paying attention to things, concepts, emotions, perceptions, etc. TM shows a pattern associated with simple relaxation. It turns out that in the very earliest days of EEG study, where the only brain wave pattern known was alpha (the types of brain wave patterns were named in order of discovery, by the way), it was found that simply closing the eyes, even in a dark room, would raise the alpha EEG associated with resting. Flashforward to the early 2000's, and scientists started to realize that "simple rest" wasn't all that simple. They noted that certain parts of the brain became MORE active during rest and the term, "default mode network" was coined. In time, the DMN was taken to be how the brain operates while in "self-referral" mode. It turns out that any and all meditation techniques tend to activate the DMN. However, the WAY in which they activate it varies from technique to technique. Concentrative, mindful, and such techniques lead to less alpha over time, both during and outside of meditation, while often increasing gamma power and coherence (gamma is associated with paying attention to objects). TM, more than any other studied technique, tends to enhance the natural alpha that spontaneously shows up as one starts to rest. Regardless of the type of meditation, the basic pattern that is enhanced during meditation starts to show up more and more outside meditation. TM enhances the natural functioning of the DMN while most other techniques actually start to reverse it. The brain learns to stay restful as a result of TM practice and the brain learns to stay extremely vigilant as a result of mindfulness and concentrative practices. > > I think that the whole contradiction comes about, because of the definitions, > how you define PC in TM, and then attribute a certain physiological signature > to it. In this way, you already limit how it can be expressed in activity. > Really speaking you should start from the other end, find somebody who lives > in CC / GC /UC, and then measure his brainwaves, and then compare it to the > experiences that are called 'transcending' in TM. > > How does a person in TM know he has transcended? It is clear that he is being > told so. The technical definition in TM of TC is: No mantra, no thought. But > that could be some kind of nap too! Maybe it#s yoga nidra. > No mantra, no thought, no emotion, not intuition, no sensation, no memory, no nuttin'... Not this, not this. > I have very practical reasons for saying all this: when at a certain point, I > was still in the movement, actually meditating in Purusha, I had an opening > in the higher chakras, I was in a state of transcendence that was totally > different than anything that I had ever known in TM. It wasn't just a more of > what I had experienced before. It was so totally different, that it had no > connection, with what is defined as transcendence in TM. No relation. Yet it > is noticed, known. > So how do you know that THAT was the real deal, unlike what had gone before? > So, Lawson, I have a problem with the TM definitions, of extrapolating one > experience, which according to you is there right from the beginning of TM in > it's full blast, (and in the beginning obviously also in other techniques, > according to your reporting -. which is a surprise in and of itself), of > extrapolating this PC experience with other states, like CC or GC or UC. I > think these are simplifying models, having PC together with waking state and > you get CC, etc. > Every thought you ever have or ever will have, has the tendency to refine towards PC. > What is if you are not identified with an "I" as the doer? How do you > identify this with the world, with the outside? If you have nondoership, you > cannot project this anywhere, there is no need, because there is NO DOER > ANYWHERE. > What is doer? What is non-doer? CC occurs, according to research, as the PC pattern becomes strong enough to be noticed more and more outside of meditation, until such time as it is noticed at all times, even during deep sleep. As is the case with everyone, everywhere, one naturally calls their self that which is most permanent. For many people, it is their possessions, their actions, etc., that are held as being "self". For someone who has a sense of silent watchful witnessing PC at all times, the natural way of answering the question is in terms of that which only watches. Who is the doer? The doing simply is what is going on. The Self merely watches, and even that implies an activity which doesn't exist. > > While the PC signature becomes more and more obvious outside of PC, PC + > > waking, even during meditation, is still not the real deal. > > Again, I don't think it's like one experience as an overlay. The PC+ has to > be much bigger to start with. It's not anymore the small and isolated PC. You're missing that physiological measurement is different than internal monitoring. You can say or believe or feel or intuit anything you want, but that doesn't mean that your physiology has matured as much as you think it has. > > > The way that can be spoken about is not the real way. > > > > The literal translation, btw, is: > > > > the way that can be way-ed, is not a way. > > > > In other words, if it is concrete enough to be something you can point to > > or even attempt to describe, its not the real deal. > > That's wrong. You cannot describe it, but that doesn't mean that it is not > something that you can point to or *attempt* to describe. In fact Maharishi > was always clear about it, that that is what people should really do. They > *should* notice it, for example the transition to CC or GC, and he thought it > should be so slow that people could notice and describe it, for example > through poetry. > Noting a transition from CC or GC is NOT the same as noting PC while the state is in its pure form during meditation. Maharishi used to say that "Bliss is not blissful." Its qualities in the pure form are too pure to be described -one must have some level of impurity to even notice THAT one was in the pure state. IOW, one doesn't notice PC but the transition OUT OF PC. And by the nature of physical reality there is always some level of "impurity" in a physical system no matter how evolved you are, anyway, even if it isn't apparent on the level of what we can measure with our own nervous system. > > Calling in "total concentration" or "pure consciousness" or whatever is > > just a philosophical fiction based on your waking state + PC experience. > > In this case you just don't know it. It's not any abstract philosophy at all. > It is my experience for many, many, many years. If you are not the doer, > there is simply no point of speaking about effort or no effort. Again I am > not dwelling in abstractions. But as you say yourself, it is difficult if not > impossible to describe. It's like with the taste of the mango: you have to > eat it in order to know it. And here we are speaking of an experience that is > outside of any normal category of experience at all. > Well, I take it that when you meditate you immediately enter PC for the entire 20 minute period and if Fred TRavis were to hook you up to various apparatus, he would find that, among other things,, you appeared to stop breathing for the entire 20 minutes, every time you meditated? Otherwise, I'd say that you're making the same mistake that Robin Carson made: some valid experience of a higher state does not mean you are in the full-on version. In fact, one can make the claim that regardless of how many signposts you may show, even breath suspension for 20 minutes, every time you meditate,, that STILL doesn't mean that you have finished the potential for growth, even in CC, simply because there IS no end to growth. L
