Originally posted by DimensionalDetective
How did you initially react when it was felt, or realized?

I must admit up front, that I have not been able to "hold" this state for extended periods yet, but I have had brief glimpses of it.

Two primary things occur when it is realized and felt:

1. I weep tears of overwhelming joy and awe.

2. I laugh histerically in utter amazement of how incredible it is.

In these brief flashes, I become aware not of who I am, but what I am.


Those that have unfolded this inner knowledge, how did it effect you?

My experience was this past summer. I'll be honest I had partaken in a "herbal" cigarette. I was out taking my dog for a walk and had stopped and overlooked the river valley by my place. For a brief moment, it was though I understood everything and realized everything would be okay with game I was in. The colours of the sky the air, everything seemed super-saturated and I had this deep level of understanding. It was gone as quick as it started.

So don't know if this counts at all

Originally posted by thricearound


*snip*

Maybe it's not that our conciousness happens to be our bodies' expiriences but that a body being home to one of conciousness is inevitable.. Or is just most stuff an illusion??

REALLY look at what you wrote there...I can tell that by what you wrote you are teetering on the brink of catastrophe and that's a good thing. A thing anyway. But that is the line of reasoning labeled "On the right track". Those are exactly the right kinds of questions one wants to have in their line of inquiry. Fantastic questions. Only one problem:

You are trying to objectify the experience of awakening. You can't. Impossible. It is nonconceptual. Period. Everything that I have written about it is a lie simply because I wrote about it. Get it? However, the Source of the words and ideas.....What is that? Here's a line of inquiry to bump things up for you:

1) Who or What is reading these words?

2) Who or What is seeing my thoughts? (you can see them can't you? Who or What is seeing them?)

You can see and objectify everything around you can you not? Therefore you are not that.

You can see and objectify your physical body can you not? Therefore you are not that.

You can see and objectify your thoughts and emotions can you not? Therefore those are not you.

Take it all away. You are left with nothing. But still see, hear and feel.

Question then Whom or What is doing the seeing, hearing and feeling! Who is this Witness that sees but cannot be seen? Hears but cannot be heard? Feels but cannot be felt? The answers are closer than the nose on your face!!

YOU!! You are this Witness. Rest in it. BE the Watcher. Don't try to objectify it and see it for it is the One seeing!! Don't try to feel it. IT is doing the feeling! Don't try to hear it. IT is doing the listening! IT is YOU is WE is ALL.

It really is that simple. That subtle. That wonderously ordinary.

When you asked if most things are illusory, change "most" to "all" and then you have it correct.

Any thing is created and therefore it is not real. You are uncreated and therefore the Source of All. Things are thoughts and thoughts are things.

Make no thing. BE. Watch. Observe. Don't identify with any of it. Let your noisy, busy mind become as a mirror or still pond. When it sees tree it reflects tree. No attachment. The tree won't change because of your thoughts or perceptions. It's still a tree. What are You?

Once you have the answer The Great Death or Catastrophe is soon to follow. Nondual Suchness. Radical Awareness. You as Witness collapse into All that is Witnessed. No separation. No division. You can't hear the bell. You are the bell! You can't see the clouds because you are the clouds. Your head the stars, the Earth your feet and the clouds your belly forever and ever again and forever.

Cheers, Love and Grace,

Erik

Originally posted by Psychonaughty
its pure freedom of choice

Did I choose to have a #ed up body that brings a lot of painful discomfort to me? I must be pretty freaking stupid. Or maybe unbelievably smart? So smart that I know not the consequences of my smartness? I mean, I wouldnt make myself feel pain if it wasnt for a really really really good reason...one that I couldnt make any sense of?

Choice seems just so...predictable?

[edit on 10-11-2009 by Psychonaughty]

It started for me last november. I was reading carlos castana(?) the teaching of don juan i think it was called. Anyway i had a really bad nervous breakdown and started to experience my own duality. I couldnt understand at the time, i was just really scared that i was going crazy. There was this other me in my head the started to insult me, I freaked out and it took me a while to stop( i resorted to repeating the hail mary out loud!).
I started living in the moment then, just concentrating all my mind on what i was doing, 'performing each act as if it is my last, prepared to completed it even if it meant death'. It was the only way i could do anything, even walking down the road.

I decided to give the carlos books a rest and try to forget about it. im an avid reader and over the next few months i tried to find different subjects to take my mind off things. but then something wierd happened. every book i picked up seemed to have the same teachings. First it was terry prachett, that freaked me out! maybe 3 or four other works of fiction later and I started to realise that maybe i should not just ignore the subject.
I got my mother a book she asked for, eckhart tolles power of now. Total mind blow! his teaching are identical. when he mentioned core religious elements in buddism and the like i started my own research, but enough on that.
Lots of practise and now i am able to achieve the silence/ presense that tolles talks about most days, if still interspersed with bouts of egoism.
I've had a few instances of the law of attraction and alot of spontanious what i would call philosophical writing.
Two very vivid dreams i would like your opinion on. first ive had lots of dreams of dying, but but i usually wake up at the moment. a while ago the dream went further. in it i performed a selfless act and died. at which point my spirit left my body, looking like energy and i floated above the earth, seeing that earth is really all our spiritual energy and its all connected, all across the universe.
In another dream i remember been given complete understanding of our universe and all the dimensions in it. very strange, especially becauseit was in the form of a horse. its hard to describe. it was like, if you could really understand that which is a horse, then you can understan our universe. i dont know if that makes sense! when i woke it felt like my brain was a sieve and i couldnt retain all this understanding...
Everyday now, i try to control my thoughts, my words and my actions. its hard but im getting better.

For me it was seeking Union with God in the Christian sense. I didn't get "it" or what this Union was supposed to be.

I had a Christian Mystic Monk teacher who was telling me to be aware of Awareness, but it didnt make sense to me. Awareness seems so bland, it just is.

The for some reason I felt drawn to Taoism ..... I was wondering if what they refer to as Tao is God.

Then I coincidentally (happy accident) purchased a book online entitled Oneness by Jon Greven. The title struck me and it was my first introduction into Advaita Vedanta, also known as the End of the Vedas. Veda meaning knowledge, this is the highest form. This onness is beyond knowledge, transcendent, etc.

I read the book in 2 sittings. On the second sitting he said, "Just like the thought of a rock is not an actual rock, so too, the thought of who you are is not who you are"

I had this realization and saw how the source of my "issues" was this ego that was formulated, constructed, a false premise. Then I started looking for what is me that's not a thought.

As I did this, I took a short nap, then woke up and there it was, Oneness. But then the mind sprung back up to analyze this Oneness and it disappeared. I mean its still there, but the mind gets in the way of its subtlety and brilliance. Since the glimpses happen of this, but trying to hold on to the glimpse, it disappears again.

It seems as if the mind is a projector and projects the false illusion of separation from somewhere in the chest (dare I say heart?) ....and its a matter of tracking down the source of thoughts or where they come from to completely destroy the mechanism the identifies thoughts with body and separation.

It is basically permanent ego death, which in its wake leaves the Oneness as a full time never ending experience never to disappear in the shadows of thought again.

There is nothing you can do to get there. Doing anything to get there creates more of the false "you" that blocks the Oneness.

But you can create the perfect environment and situations to allow this to reveal itself. Meditation, reading, self inquiry, etc.

Maharshi says to only think of the thought 'I' and nothing else. Doing so will extinguish the false projection and completely destroy the ego.

Or you can simply be aware of awareness at all times just that. Its so simple that the mind has a hard time just being aware of awareness. Because that means it is not included in your practice, when usually its throwing all types of stuff at you.

The mind goes nuts and puts up this HUGE fight to try and save its position. Thats where im currently at