How to WAKE people UP!

I agree that we must try our best to live our lives in the present, but it is a very hard thing to do when our entire society is based on the past and the future.

All around me, everyday, everything is based on hope, desire, wanting, regret and the like, so it is hard for me to "go against the flow".

I think before any worldly change can happen, the way society works must be changed.

How? No idea

reply to post by EnlightenUp


You essentially are correct in your assessment of the Four Seals. I will expound a bit on each one.

1) All compound things are illusory

This is the first statement of impermanence. All made things as you know, are an amalgam of pieces and parts. Take away the pieces and you are left with?....Nothing. Correct. But....YOU, Consciousness, Awareness, are still quite emphatically there.

2) All emotions are pain

This is a statement on the dualistic nature of emotions and feelings which are unique to the world of opposites. It is a pointing out of the fleeting nature of emotions and their impermanence no matter what polar extreme they fall upon. Happiness has Sadness. Hate has Love. Anger has Joy and so forth. Bliss however, has no polar opposite and I will get more into that in a bit.

The point being is that no emotional state can be sustained no matter where it falls in the entire realm of emotional existence. You cannot sustain Anger at a permanent level. You cannot sustain Happiness at a permanent level. So the pain is the suffering brought about by the inevidible realization that the much sought after emotional state will not last and is doomed to wane. It is at this point that compassion for drug addicts is easily generated as they are simply trying to maintain the euphoria and high that is perceived as a positive means to an end.

3) All compound things have no inherent existence

This is the second statement of impermance. All made things are by nature, transient and fleeting. What has a beginning most assuredly finds it's doom with an inevidible end or death. All made things rise and fall in your awareness endlessly in the present moment but YOU, as the Eternal Witness of ALL are not that. YOU are prior to it. Prior to life. Prior to death. Prior to time. Prior to space. None of those things exist in the fullness of the Eternal Moment and in that is true liberation and freedom.

4) Nirvanna, enlightenment, is beyond concept

Here is where everything said becomes obvious as a lie. Every word. All fictitious, superfluous, erroneous and self exaltant.

It is impossible to speak of this without conceptualizing it so the words then are more wisely and aptly applied as guides or a map or a pointing out.

Too often the words are mistaken for the territory and thus duality pushes on with the world of opposites, made things and beliefs proliferating suffering, discontentment and dissatisfaction by their distracting nature. Distracting your awareness to look without instead of within for truth.

It's like looking at the contrasting light around a shadow to find it's source instead of turning around to look at the actual light! Madness! Such is the plight of anyone undertaking The Great Search. Only when you have exhausted your search and give up does the revelation come. Only when you have sought to an end and found no solace is the Light within finally re-cognized and re-membered.

The world of opposites and duality at this point comes to a halt and The Witness, The Unseen Seer and all that is Witnessed and Seen collapses into the Great Catastrophe. Everything YOU look at is YOU looking at YOU. Your Original Face. The one you had before your parents were born. Prior to time. Prior to space. Prior to life and death. Only BEingness, Conscious Awareness IS.

Keep on with your meditation. You will eventually come to this point of exhausted searching where all no longer makes sense. There is no thing to know. No thing to understand. NO THING!

All made things begin to dissolve in your awareness and presence and all that is left is an infinite vastness and full emptiness that glows with a silvery shimmer that is not quite mist and not quite smoke. This....This is YOU in all of your ALLness, your BEingness from which all concepts emanate, from which all things are borned into existence and in this realization is a stillness and calm contentment and that....that is Bliss. Eternal, unmoving and All Aware.

I AM. WE ARE. ALL IS.


Is that thermonuclear enough for you?





[edit on 22/DecamThu, 17 Dec 2009 11:34:01 -0600/08 by redwoodjedi]

NOW is a moment of time or it wouldn't be called now. It's not later, or yesterday.

While we live, time exists and you're wanting it any other way changes nothing. It's like pretending all horses are unicorns with invisable horns. If you believe it then....

reply to post by redwoodjedi


You have my appreciation for getting the project completed, finally! Not bad for government work I must say.

You say there's no thing of which to make sense. Why to me does it all keep making more and more sense? Why did I understand the face? Why did I get to see some of the "machine" that makes seemly mysterious things happen?

Is the notion that there's nothing to understand really an inability to bring knowledge across the apparent divide? It feels as though we allowed to be "there" or "here" but to be somewhere in between on levels of existence we must work for that.

I know I've had one of those odd satori experiences. That is obvious. Trust me, you just bloody well know when it happens. I think it will happen many more times. I ruined an atheist's thread for him over it when it was partially responsible for the trip.

I may not be in Nirvana all the time as a result but I've sure as heck seen stuff, stuff the race isn't ready for which is quite ok as I can't formulate it in a coherent form anyway. But, it can be done. It is, for now, safe. It is how we'll accomplish what would now look like pure magic. Some knowings won't be available prematurely. It's a built-in order. That was the message.

What is really peculiar is some essential knowledge that is outside the reach of normal consciousness for a human is NOT nescessarily highly complex. It just simply very foreign. "Seeing the seer seeing itself" (to put as a relexive action is just plain WRONG but language requires the subject, verb, object abomination) was oddly the easiest part of it to grasp, even if still ineffable in essence.

Heh, whatever I just said. Serendipity has Neo meeting The Architect on the boob tube, and so I hit reply...

reply to post by EnlightenUp


*Whew!* It was like pulling hen's teeth! Oh well....impermanence. I think you have had a Satori experience. Your language speaks to that. And if you continue doing what you did to get one or realize one to begin with, you will have another if not more. Should it happen again, I would be happy to help you ground it so that the awakening is permanent.

My only advice to you is don't be so fixated on knowledge. It has it's place but it will not serve you toward a Nirvikalpa Samahdi awakening. No thought. Just BEing. You are in complete control of you thought processes. At this point you are Godhead. A Divine Schizophrenic.

Next time you are excited about knowing something, I recommend using what one of my favorite Zen Masters like say:

If you know something, that must mean you think you have mind. If you find mind, wash it good with "Don't Know" soap. Make it clean and shiney like mirror. Then you know nothing.

Cheers, Love and Grace,

Erik

Originally posted by redwoodjedi
reply to post by EnlightenUp

 

I think you have had a Satori experience. Your language speaks to that.

It seems like it. Is it kensho instead? Wikipedia at least mentioned that sometimes "satori" is used somewhat loosley for "kensho".

But, I have heard it said here and around that those that would claim it really didn't have it. I'm pretty sure that couldn't be right. False humility is no humility at all. I felt a bit strange saying it but decided that I should just speak openly.

And if you continue doing what you did to get one or realize one to begin with, you will have another if not more. Should it happen again, I would be happy to help you ground it so that the awakening is permanent.

Perhaps it's working now.

It only seems to require putting energy toward it in a directed way. Slack off by cutting of the flow and further moments cease to come.

I don't think I could function for this world perpetually "there". So, functional forgetfulness isn't so bad as I see it. I simply prefer the door not be relocked. The awakening doesn't feel completely faded, just more manageable in relation to daily tasks. The state also hit me a couple more times one day last week.

Edit: Someone (you? can't recall) said something about how it's like knowing where your car keys are. They are not a consuming thought 24/7 but when you need them you know where to find them. It seems to describe it well.

My only advice to you is don't be so fixated on knowledge.

I got another tidbit last night about the unconscious while trying to sleep. Let me say that choice of the term "unconscious" is truely irony at its best. There is a higher and far more conscious awareness "in back". It only has to do with direction. One's own "conscious mind" is really just something of a nerve ending which sums onto the larger being. I don't doubt I'll acquire more information on how a single consciousness can seem to form multitudes.

I rather enjoy seeing the nature of hard problems from one perspective suddenly appear as beautifully simple and elegant from another. This simplification proeccess is somewhat analagous to how the video in this thread expresses it.

It has it's place but it will not serve you toward a Nirvikalpa Samahdi awakening. No thought. Just BEing. You are in complete control of you thought processes. At this point you are Godhead. A Divine Schizophrenic.

That's where I get a bit scared.

Next time you are excited about knowing something, I recommend using what one of my favorite Zen Masters like say:

If you know something, that must mean you think you have mind. If you find mind, wash it good with "Don't Know" soap. Make it clean and shiney like mirror. Then you know nothing.

One question: Is this thinking you know, thinking you have mind? How can one possess (or have) mind? Mind seems too intrinsic a something to be able to have it. Perhaps this is semantic hairsplitting. Why say you?

[edit on 12/18/2009 by EnlightenUp]

[edit on 12/18/2009 by EnlightenUp]

reply to post by EnlightenUp


You are absolutely correct. Perhaps you are farther along than I suspected! Once awakened, always awakened. The nowness is available upon instant recall which is exactly where you want it as you still have to function with tasks demanded by the day. You can't very well drive a car and grocery shop while blissing and witnessing without suffering some potentially adverse physical consequences. But when you want it, boom, instantly back to full awareness in the totality of the eternal moment. That's it!

Just this.

My view and other's views on knowledge is a bit of semantic hair splitting but in light of what you do not now know, I think you can understand it's pertinence until one is realized.

A wize man once said to let tomorrow worry about itself. Thinking has a tendency to distract one from the reality of the moment as it is quite impossible to think and be fully present, but I think you now comprehend this.

Cheers and Grace

Originally posted by GoneGrey
reply to post by juzchilln

 

It is only recently that I have given thought to the possibility that time is not linear as we have been conditioned to believe. How I function in thought and action is clearly a product of my life-long view of time as linear.

This will be my first post here on these forums. I have been reading quite alot over the past few weeks and would finally like to make a statement! =D

The linear time structure we see goes out the window when we go back to our roots and live primitively for a time, or go hiking or camping for a considerable amount of time. A few weeks maybe(depends on the person). I spend A LOT of time out there, and after a few days of no watches and modern technological conveniences we start to see time as circular, as everything works in cycles. We obviously see these cycles objectively when we experience the seasons, but our modern concsiousness puts them into an abstract line.

When I think of this abstract line, I always think back to when I was a small child. My first grade teacher was really into bears, and she had all the seasons of the year lining the top corner of the wall, where the wall meets the ceiling. They were in the form of teddy bears doing different things according to the seasons (June - bear sitting on the beach, January - bear sledding, etc.).

The point I'm trying to make is that I STILL see that linear map of the seasons even today, as abstract and childish as it may seem, that image in my mind from those damn teddy bears put me in the linear time consciousness. When we go back to living primitively where that consciousness isnt pressed into our minds, we see everything totally different.

Maybe this is on topic? I hope so. Im trying to say that seeing time as circular could wake people up? =) Thanks for all the great knowledge guys, and I hope to have some more awesome debates!



-Tanulis

reply to post by Tanulis


Yes, those childhood images of the linearity of time are deeply ingrained. When I deal with history in terms of years past, I automatically visualize a standard time line that runs from left to right. This has to have an overall affect on our perception of time.

Do we fear death because of its portrayal as having a start (birthdate) and finish (death date)? If we understood that birth/death is cyclic in nature would we regard our role in that cycle differently and perhaps celebrate death as the lead-in to rebirth?

Originally posted by GoneGrey
reply to post by Tanulis

 

Do we fear death because of its portrayal as having a start (birthdate) and finish (death date)? If we understood that birth/death is cyclic in nature would we regard our role in that cycle differently and perhaps celebrate death as the lead-in to rebirth?

well, my particular beliefs that stem from my religion are:

I believe everything in nature (nature obviously includes other planets, stars, galaxies, etc) is connected. I am connected to you through the earth, as well as every living thing in every corner of the universe. As such, nature itself in which were connected to should be loved and worshiped.

When we die, our spirit is transformed into another being to experience life from another perspective. The matter we consist of never fades away, just changes. You could transform into a tree, a stone, a bird, or another life-form on another planet unknown to humanity. We continue this cycle of life and death as long as we need to until we learn everything there is to learn, and from every perspective. At that point, our spirits ascend to actually become the power that we all feel: the power that guides us all, and is interpreted differently by each person in each religion, and merge with the other spirits who have ascended to become part of that universal, all-knowing consciousness and guide every being in the universe. We become the god with no name, and all names.

Now, thats a super short summary of what I believe, but for the reply to you, I think its suitable. =D


[edit on 19-12-2009 by Tanulis]

Originally posted by Tanulis

Originally posted by GoneGrey
reply to post by Tanulis

 

Do we fear death because of its portrayal as having a start (birthdate) and finish (death date)? If we understood that birth/death is cyclic in nature would we regard our role in that cycle differently and perhaps celebrate death as the lead-in to rebirth?

well, my particular beliefs that stem from my religion are:

I believe everything in nature (nature obviously includes other planets, stars, galaxies, etc) is connected. I am connected to you through the earth, as well as every living thing in every corner of the universe. As such, nature itself in which were connected to should be loved and worshiped.

When we die, our spirit is transformed into another being to experience life from another perspective. The matter we consist of never fades away, just changes. You could transform into a tree, a stone, a bird, or another life-form on another planet unknown to humanity. We continue this cycle of life and death as long as we need to until we learn everything there is to learn, and from every perspective. At that point, our spirits ascend to actually become the power that we all feel: the power that guides us all, and is interpreted differently by each person in each religion, and merge with the other spirits who have ascended to become part of that universal, all-knowing consciousness and guide every being in the universe. We become the god with no name, and all names.

Now, thats a super short summary of what I believe, but for the reply to you, I think its suitable. =D


[edit on 19-12-2009 by Tanulis]

Our reincarnation depends on our level of consciousness when we die.
Kind of like karma. Bad people come back in lower planes of consciousness, while people who are "awake" come back as "Christs" or higher levels of consciousness in order to keep learning.

Who knows, maybe they are so high up on a conscious level, that they get reunited with the Source and don't have to come back.

I don't know if this is right but it's what I believe. If anyone wants to give their take on this, please be my guest.

reply to post by vjr1113


I really like your response, but I had a quick question:


You say karma and ''awakened ones'' as if there is a spiritual ''punishment system'', for not awakening in this lifetime. That would make the tyranny of religion no better than the crusades of christianity. Remember the reasons the kings gave for being Kings? ''Divine Right'' was the reason. Whats to stop a leader or elite few from proclaiming that theyre the only ''awakened ones'' and have the right to rule your life?


Edit: I dont want to sound mean, im just provoking more discussion. I like your ideas though. =)

[edit on 19-12-2009 by Tanulis]

Originally posted by Tanulis
reply to post by vjr1113

 

I really like your response, but I had a quick question:


You say karma and ''awakened ones'' as if there is a spiritual ''punishment system'', for not awakening in this lifetime. That would make the tyranny of religion no better than the crusades of christianity. Remember the reasons the kings gave for being Kings? ''Divine Right'' was the reason. Whats to stop a leader or elite few from proclaiming that theyre the only ''awakened ones'' and have the right to rule your life?


Edit: I dont want to sound mean, im just provoking more discussion. I like your ideas though. =)

[edit on 19-12-2009 by Tanulis]

That's alright it's a discussion board

Yeah you have a point, except we no longer believe the people who say they are divine, so that would mean people are becoming less gullible. For example the increasing number of atheists, people are realizing religions aren't working and the true way is thru oneself.

Back then in earlier times there was very little understanding of our universe, when religious fundies ruled the world. If there was a question, people looked it up in the bible or asked a "holy man".

As time goes on more and more people will wake up, I hope.

Edit: I wouldn't put it as spiritual punishment but more like a learning process. If you have not learned to love and live in harmony with the universe in your life time, it would make sense to bring your soul or spirit back until you mature.

Problem is no one knows what happens when you die, so it could be that you loose some memory of your past life. This theory would also explain why some people remember past lives or things they could not have done in this life.

[edit on 19-12-2009 by vjr1113]

regarding the knowledge that we had back then during those older times, I have a whole thread I'm going to dedicate to that as my DEBUT THREAD, lol. I'll post that discussion when I get enough forum posts to allow me.

I understand what you mean, and I agree with you. I just dont believe in a hell, or a ''punishment'' in any form. We learn and grow in all different ways and PACES, I just dont embrace the idea that if I am mean to people that I'll turn into a swamp rat in the next life. hehe. =P

Originally posted by redwoodjedi
reply to post by EnlightenUp

 

Perhaps you are farther along than I suspected!

Is that so?

Who are the Tim (the tool man) Taylors and who are the Bob Villas? Having been the DIY type this is important to discern.

How does one tell if something derived from ego itself or ego fighting in its own interest against dissolution (because it is falsifying Truth or truthifying Falsehood) or is simply sincerity?