--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, a_non_moose_ff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Stanley" > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > Is it your belief that an enlightened person no longer has > > > an ego or conditioned mind? > [snip] > > And I assume, corrections welcome, that the premise of your > > question stems from the view of Waking Down that there is an > > ego (and conditioned mind) in enlightnement.
Nice post. Thanks. > > I suppose it's time for me to come out of the closet and fess up to > having recently emerged from the Dark Night of the Soul as another FFL > SCA. My conditioned state has not changed; I still have the same > wiring, the same likes and dislikes, attractions, etc. What's > different, however, is with who/what I identify. Though maybe its semantics, my experience is not I NOW identify with THAT. Its just IT IS. And this other stuff just goes on its merry way (day to day life). > I'm not a mood-maker; I tell it like I see it. And, on 1 Nov. 2005, I > wrote to Sandra Glickman: "On Saturday you asked me something along > the lines of, "Who is aware of being irritated?" The answer is that my > I-ness experienced itself as being in the condition of being > irritated. For me, it's all me/I/self all the way down." > > That is no longer the case. I emerged from the dark night with this > sorta neti neti thang going on and the realization that I am NOT this > John Alexander Stanleyness. I am NOT my body. I am NOT my > conditioning. I am NOT my thoughts, beliefs, opinions, etc. Yes. I think many of us have gone through such a process over the years. Not being my body was clear from a yong age. Not being my thoughts and opinions came off and on over the years. The ruthlessness of some of Byron Katie's work helped sear off some dangling flesh of that. As in all of such de-couplings, non-attatchments, understanding is one stage, having it manifest in ones life is another stage. For example, its not too difficult to understand that one is not their ideas and thoughts. That unanalyzed, thoughts have no more inherent "rightness" than ony one's else. They are NOT inherently true because I had them. But its another thing to find less and less and then no sense of ownership of ones ideas. No sense of loss if someone takes "my" idea and runs with it and claims it as "theirs". No sense of having to prove "one's" ideas to be correct, or better. No sense of insult if someone criticizes ones ideas OR the thinker of the ideas. I think of it as not a loss but like giving books away to the Library. Its still "there" but others can now take the book out of the library and "own" it -- with no loss to "me". ) Thoughts are "public goods", not Mine. Beyond loss of ownership and possessivness of thoughts, I found that there is a deeper sense of do-ership that gets de-coupled. That is the "decider". The intellect. Buddhi. For me, for years, the sense of "doer" (of "I") was not in the body or mind (thinker of thoughts), but in the decider. It was "I" that was making powerful and subtle distinctions, comparisons, valuations, gainng insights, etc. That intellectual process still contines, but the sense of "I", me as the doer, me as the decider had gone. Analysis just happens. It is buddhi's nature to analyze. And it just does it. No "Me" necessary or involved. Similar with what I know as intuition, though others may use the differently. I used to use the term "bindu points" -- little points of energy that bloom instantly into knowledge about something. It just happens. It just unfolds. Its not me. As you say, "neti, neti." Whats left? IT IS. It just glows, for want of a better analogy. Its not I am THAT. its just IT IS. And along with IT, buddhi and thoughts and runing around of daily life happen just as outside events happen. They react among themselves accroding to their inhernet nature. Senses see something. Automatically. Mind reacts with a thought. Automatically. Buddhi analyzes and distinguishes. Automatically. Legs move, mouth moves. Automatically. IT just IS. > If I ask > myself, "Who am I?", there is only silence and awareness; there is > nothing I can say (which is why it took me a while to grasp the > awakening; I was hung up on the concept that there would be an > affirmative "I AM THAT", so I spent a couple weeks in a state of doubt). That is similar experience here. If anything, its a realization of I am not That. That is, IT just IS. Separate from the social self or genes -- the buddhi, thoughts walking, speaking. That social/genetic self, more recently the buddi, used to be ME. For practical purposes of social interaction it still is. All of that is NOT IT, which just IS. > The internal experience now is a very quiet, child-like innocence. > There's profound joy and freedom in it, yet it is utterly mundane. > And, while the conditioned state has not changed, it simply doesn't > matter. I laughed while reading Vaj's recent post about obliterating > vasanas, because I figure that as long as my vasanas are not > compelling me to eat human liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti, > who the fuck cares? My sense of the vasanas are the tight grip of residue and structure of conditionings and experiences that make "I" appear to be the body or mind or intellect. When that grip lossens, then that false sense of I dissolves. But the structure of vasanas is still there -- just not a tight or binding grip. More translucent. Social self is still there. Just not hung up in "oneself" as before, no one or thing to get insulted, or to get mad and angry (as in "losing it" -- though certainly displeasure might still be shown). Thus an experience of social self, same characteristics, but being loser, freer, playful, very flexibible, etc. And some vasanas -- while more loose and translucent, may be "human liver and fava bean" oriented. Its my experience that mind / intellect continue to react, process, learn, and digest old habits and patterns, just as when vasannas were tighter. But now faster, with everything flowing more loosely, flexibly playfully. And I sense vasanas can and do get more radically transformed as jiva mukti flows in to veheda mukti (spelling ?) As IT is seen to be all there is. > Perhaps, at some point, I'll decide to do some > exploration and/or modification on the level of my subtle relative > existence, but not right now. After so many decades of Scotty down in > engineering diverting all available power to the grasper beam and > aversion engines, I am content to just be. > > [snip] > > And Tom T, who claims enlightenment, says there are milions of > > diferent types of enlightenemnt, or flavors as he calls them. > > It makes perfect sense to me that awareness aware of itself, as > expressed through myriad mind/body organisms, will show up in myriad > different ways. I have no problem with that "expression" view either. Many different types of conditionng / education / vasanas unfolding -- translucent as they may be. However, at times this view appears to be extended to a braoder and IMO, a silly view that almost any criteria goes. Even as Rory has done, "make up your own." And whethere there is a strong sense of EGO, or NO-self, or witnessing sleep, or not witnessing sleep, or performing sidhis or having ritam, or not, all is good, all is enlightenment. Thats how some appear to have have used the "million flavors" of enlightenment previously, and its that view I was mocking. > If the field of all possibilities could only express > itself as those possibilities that don't contradict each other, it > wouldn't be a field of ALL possibilities. Well, thats fine. But taken too far, it just all becomes neo-pseudo-aidvaita-speak and any silliness can be pawned off as "the pardox of Brahman". > > So hopefully you share some the the difficulty I have with the > > use of the label "enlightenment". And also the phenomenon of > > self-proclamation of self-defined enlightenment. > > The only difficulty I have with the label "enlightenment" is the > notion that it has to be rigidly defined. Well, if you mean enlightenment to mean "something good is happening", then fine. Its just traditionally the term has been used in specific ways. And in recent years some have hijacked the term and used it to label almost anything, BUT implying that they mean the same as traditional "enlightenment". Its a bit of a charlatan's game is some caes, IMO. > But, I have no issue with > someone proclaiming that he no longer identifies with story and illusion. I have no problem with people explicitly discussing experiences -- such as , "there is no sense of doer", "there is no sense of ownership", "things seem to just happen", "there is a continuity from the time I close my eyes until the time I wake up", etc. But using a label that clearly means many things to many people, loses its value for maningful discussion. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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