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#3643 - Wednesday, September
2, 2009 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Take someone who doesn't keep score,
who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing,
who has not the slightest interest even
in his own personality: He's free.
- Rumi
posted to Along Way
To Sum It Up: Don't Cling
There's no school that says "Cling." Liberation is about cutting, or dissolving, or letting go of, or seeing through—choose your image—the attachment to anything. The description of the mind of no-clinging may be different in the different schools, but the experience of the mind of no-clinging is the same. How could it be different?
–Joseph Goldstein, from "How Amazing! An Interview with Joseph Goldstein"
A reminder: The
study led by Rupert Spira has just begun, and it promises to
be very interesting. Rupert is focusing on "what is our
actual experience" rather than a by-the-book
discussion. Drop by, you may like it. Open Awareness Study
Group is run by the Mumonkan Centre - a non dual teaching centre.
This a non dual study group.
Open Awareness Study Group is a collection of interested people who have come together to discuss non-dual teachings and writings of non-dual teachers. The group is maintained by Rob Matthews of the Mumonkan Centre, Spain. He invites session leaders to introduce texts or teachings and invites participants to ask questions.
At present Rupert Spira is the session leader and he will be so until Nov 30th. In December Greg Goode will take over for one month.
join at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OAStudyGroup/
Excerpts from emails at OAStudyGroup
Re: the 'me' concept
I started 'seeking for the truth' to what
we are about two years ago, as I felt we are more than what
conventional religion says and ideas of the self are. I have been
trying to practice meditation and do some reading about
spirituality, self-realization, etc, with the result that I
understand the concept of open awareness, consciousness, etc,
without actually coming to an experiential realization. What I
fail to understand is WHY we have the 'I-thought' or the concept
of self. Are our brains programmed that way, or is it
conditioning? I mean to say, what makes my awareness be the idea
of 'me' and not someone else, i.e, why is it stuck to MY body,
feelings, thoughts, emotions if its actually an open awareness?
Suppose a baby is without human interaction but somehow manages
to grow up, would he/she still have a 'me' concept? If so, where
would that come from?
I guess this must be a very basic question for those who are not
so new to this, but its one of the big ones for me. I'll leave my
other thoughts for later...
Thanks, Chandi
............. Hi, Chandi...
I can't resist responding to your beautiful question...to which
there is no "easy" answer. When I was busy seeking, my
brain worked overtime trying to understand the whys and
wherefores.
The truth is, no one really knows for certain, scientifically
speaking, why we have a self-concept, why our brains function the
way they do. My feeling, in cause/effect language, is that it's
part "conditioned response", and part
"organic". Babies learn most of the "me
concept" from human interaction, but there is still an
individuality, if only present in the form that would, say,
motivate a wild human to move from point A to point B to obtain
food. In other words, there is still some form of me/not me
feeling present. In an unconditioned human, there would perhaps
be much less of the conceptual identification (I am good, bad,
lost, found, always hungry, too tired, in the rat race, etc.)
which tends to cause us such misery and dissatisfaction.
Our brains are set up "dualistically", though, in that
they conclude by comparing; our language, too. The brain is
unaccustomed to being quiet, as I'm sure you've discovered in
meditation, and wants to compulsively name and establish cause
and effect for everything.
I can assure you that the exclusively "me" or
"I" feeling, the one separate and in some kind of
opposition to "everything else" does go away, to be
replaced in daily life by an individuality that is experienced as
a necessary and fascinating "pole" of the Open
Entirety, like dark is necessary to experience light, or inside
to outside. There is no more being stuck in some small sense of
self, because the Whole Thing is functioning, processing, living
in you. The idea that there is some "Open Awareness"
apart from exactly what you are experiencing right now
is...well...an idea. In other words, when you are walking through
the living room in the dark and (ouch!) hit your little toe on
the coffee table, that's God, or Awareness, or Consciousness
happening all at once, stubbing Its toe and possibly emitting a
swear word. :)
So what you are experiencing, doing, the "me" feeling,
all that, is never, ever apart from open awareness. As a matter
of fact (as I'm sure you intellectually understand), there is no
actual subject and object. The things "out there" that
you assume are apart from the "me feeling" are actually
creating, intimately, the "me feeling", in the same way
you need the contact of something against your skin to experience
"touch". The world creates itself through you, by
feeling you, being you. It's nothing you can rid yourself of. It
is, actually, where it's at. In its purest form--once you realize
that you are not aware OF things, but more AS things, the frantic
need to assert a self dissolves, and a sort of innocent, mostly
delighted face of the universe emerges.
Open awareness is what you are "doing" in your
questioning and seeking for causes right now. You could also be
peopling, birding, oceaning, starring, and sitting exactly in the
middle of all this seeming activity AS the activity (which you
are).
Don't give up!
Peace,
Maria
.......... Hi,
I too can't resist adding something, not necessarily an answer,
but a[another]
side to the question.
I think the 'me', the dualistic subject-object polarization, and
more general,
any belief or concept, are simplifications. That is, attempts to
simplify the
perception.
The moment I believe something or can identify some aspect of
experience with a
[previous, thus dead] belief or a concept, I can merrily go on
without any
further computational effort. Nothing wrong here, even. A chair
is a 'chair',
and [when I remain with the concept] everything stops here, not
accounting for
the uniqueness of that chair, the different shades of light/color
or differences
in size. I immediately 'know' what to 'do' with it etc.
The 'me' is similar to this - it is a whole network of concepts,
that simplifies
'my' reactions. Again, no problem with that, in itself. It's even
helpful, in
the beginning.
The problem appears because all this has the corollary to
'die'[deaden]
experience, to 'freeze' it. And the 'me' then needs to be grown
and defended and
it brings with it the polarities - and then alienation and
suffering.
And - only then - I find I need to look for it, and then the good
news is that's
never been real [but just a superimposition] :)
Love,
Dorin .......... That is why some say that it is
better to know nothing ...
It is not so much that one can actually "know nothing"
... but more that what is
known doesn't form a part of a defence mechanism for the ego ...
but not that
the ego is anything anyway ...
with warm regards
Roy
3) Feelings and consciousness
Dear Jax,
There are a few things I would say in response to your comments:
1) Some expressions of the true nature of experience stick only
to the
absolute truth and never move from it.
Other expressions, whilst still coming from the absolute truth,
are willing
to tailor that truth to the question at hand and provisionally
acknowledge
and in turn use the terms of the question/questioner in order to
explore the
matter further and arrive at a clearer understanding.
You obviously subscribe to the former and refute the legitimacy
of the
latter, but then contradict your position with statements such
as, 'I wrote
the text below immediately after being fully immersed in this
non-dual
experience.'
The non-dual experience in which someone is immersed for a
certain period of
time is certainly not the non-dual experience that I am referring
to nor, I
would suggest, is it the experience that the Advaita, Zen etc.
traditions
refer to. It is a state of mind that an apparent entity enters
and leaves.
Of course I acknowledge, in a way that you seem to be unwilling
to do, that
when one tries to express this understanding it is almost
impossible to
avoid the inevitable dualisms of language. However, I trust that
in our
discussions there will be enough maturity to tolerate this
limitation of
language rather then getting hung up on every apparent
contradiction.
2) For a teaching that truly comes from experience and not just
from
intellectual understanding, there is great variety and
flexibility in its
expressions. These may appear to include expressions that
validate the
apparent entity, an apparent process, an apparent goal etc.
However, what is
truly transmitted in such an answer is the deep understanding
from which it
comes and even if it is couched in dualistic terms, the silence
from which
it comes and which is its true import, will resonate with same
silence in
the listener.
3) Although it is possible to express only the absolute
understanding and
refuse any more relative formulations, doing so may equally be a
refuge for
the ego, the sense of separation, 'just another ego-manoeuvre to
avoid
suffering,' as you put it. It is for each of us to know in his or
her own
heart where their words come from.
4) It would seem from your comments that you have not read The
Transparency
of Things. I would suggest that you do so if you are interested
in more than
simply an intellectual debate, as all the objections you raise
are explored
in detail there.
With kind regards,
Rupert