--- In [email protected], "Alex Stanley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> > > wrote: > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "jim_flanegin" <jflanegi@> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "sparaig" <sparaig@> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "sparaig" <sparaig@> > > > wrote: > > > > > [...] > > > > > > > You enjoy laughing at people who argue about topics > > > > > > > you raise that you don't care about? > > > > > > > > > > > > You may have a hope of getting it after all. :-) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Researching how to implement a troll filter in the Safari > > browse] > > > > > > > > > Reminds me of a lowlife I went to school with who used to enjoy > > > > starting fights over CB radio... > > > > > > It's so funny when he goes on and on about how > > > wonderful it is to be able to change states of > > > attention from moment to moment. He hasn't > > > changed his state of attention as long as I've > > > known him, going on 13 years now. > > > > > He has accused me several times of being angry when I haven't been, > > and ascribed motives to others which don't track either. I can > > appreciate where he's coming from, but it isn't Self- realization. > > Rather it is the edge of twilight leading to the dark night of the > > soul. Or stagnation. > > I guess different people have different approaches to the edge of the > dark night, because I don't recognize my own pre-dark-night state at > all in Barry's FFL posts.
That's why I referred to it as the edge of twilight OR stagnation. Its the difference between keeping up the momentum towards awakening or not. I don't see that the dark night has yet begun for him either, just that the relative ego games may be losing their ability to distract, and once that begins, it is a slippery slope to 'someplace else'. > > About six months before my own dark night of the soul, I had shifted > into a sort of floaty witness state where "Big Alex" was completely > separate from "Little Alex" (the part of me that went through all my > childhood.) I could literally perceive that inner child entity as a > being completely separate with moods and emotional states of his own. > In that state of being disconnected from all the pain of my > conditioning, I was having a great summer. And, as the summer was > drawing to a close, I picked up on Little Alex's resentment that I was > having all that fun without him, and the floaty witness state started > collapsing. Some time in September, with the relative world turning to > ashes, I was trying to tune in to Little Alex, and I realized I am > Little Alex. A few months later, I woke up. > Thanks for sharing this. Regarding my dark night experience, I was developing increasingly elaborate, almost tortured explanations for why my reality was what it was; enlightenment on one side, and a near total lack of satisfaction on the other. I felt so very close to the divine, and yet it wasn't translating into any kind of satisfaction in the real world. All my previous experiences of higher consciousness as much as I clung to them, felt empty and meant nothing. There began to be an unacceptable widening divide between my elaborate explanations to myself and the actual events of my life. TM just exacerbated this, so I really didn't enjoy the light that my meditation practice shed on this cognitive dissonance. Then one day, after yet another letdown, I began crying, and letting it all go, as an effortless process. It felt so good to be shedding the unbearable tension that had built up within me. And after that, I woke up. Ego dissolved completely, or put another way, stayed operative but clear as glass, happily doing the bidding of the Self. My relative personality is pretty much the same, only fresher and more alive, because there is no longer that burdensome sense of ownership. Responsibility continues though, because the Self once exposed requires it.
