Q: I know we've must have addressed this, but can you tell me where the thoughts come from? Is the mind creating thoughts and the appearance? ... and then labeling and believing its own made up story? If not, what creates thoughts/appearance? Is this something we cannot comprehend or do we not know?
A:What is happening in direct experience? What is really the truth of what is happening? Isn't this all that is ever happening?
Can you find a location where thoughts arise from? Or do they just appear?
The mind doesn't create thoughts--the mind IS thoughts.
The mind can be defined as an endless train of thoughts....one damn thought after the other...
Thoughts can appear as labels or stories
But there isn't a mind that is witnessing mind.
There isn't a mind that is knowing mind.
Mind cannot known itself and believe in itself.
They are just labels, stories.
THAT which SEES labels and stories is what YOU ARE.
The infinite space in which these stories/labels appear on/in.
The mind gets frustrated because it cannot find SEEING.
The mind cannot and will not ever find it; so it gives up.
No matter how rigorous the search is--it is impossible because thoughts cannot do anything!
Intelligence is functioning; KNOWING the thoughts that spontaneously appear/disappear
The answer is NOT in the mind!
What is SEEING the mind?
What is SEEING the thought 'me' arise?
Surely it cannot be a 'me' that is SEEING the 'me'? Wouldn't that be another thought?
Don't you see the dog chasing its tail?
What is SEEING this maddening cycle?
SEEING is happening THEN thoughts arise
SEEING is happening then the thought 'me' arises
a 'person' is not SEEING
the label 'your name' is not SEEING
the thought 'your name' is an appearance in the SEEING
SEEING is undeniable then BS stories (seemingly) attach to 'your name' rise/fall
THAT KNOWING/SEEING never changes!
This CANNOT be understood
This is not some complex mathematical formula where it said "Yes! I have it"
This is something that is gained--or added, what could be added to the Infinite?
IT IS KNOW-ING!
14 comments:
That is what is called the mystical experience. So many concepts with conditions. My theory is try not to believe everything from the mind. "Get out of the mind, once in awhile"
From Tao Te Ching~
A true human being is like a new born baby
Wasps and scorpions won't sting it, snakes and adders won't bite it
Raptors and wild animals won't attack it
Its bones and muscles are soft and flexible, yet it has a pretty tight grip
Sex and libido are strange to it, but its little penis already is able to stiffen
That is because its nature is not yet disturbed by thoughts.
It can yell all day without getting a hoarse throat
Because everything is still perfectly in balance
Experiencing that balance is called "living in the eternal present"
Living without past or future is called "being wise"
Everything attempt to extend life is pointless
"Just a Game!"
One who wants to control his life, restrains oneself
It is unnatural that things wither
That which is unnatural will come to an early end
Namaste
Thank you for writing.
Niemo,
Theories are only theories, ephemeral thoughts that have absolutely no substance; they cannot stand on their own.
What is SEEING this theory (thoughts) appear/disappear?
Even 'mystical experiences' come and go...
We're not concerned with the transient.
What never changes?
love,
jason
what never changes is the paradox of duality - the aparently impossible co-existance of transient and permanent, side by side and in harmony; and no - it doesnt make sense - isn`t that amazing??
No duality in Non-duality.
Advaita means one without a second
Even this description falls short
Thought only appears to separate
If we use the computer monitor as a metaphor, there is light dancing on a screen, like the transient dancing on Awareness
No separation whatsoever
Two sides of ONE coin
Yet Awareness is not a thing (an object-screen)
Yet, Awareness is undeniably present--a spontaneous unfolding
An effortless cognizing
THAT which never changes
This cannot be understood as a 'thing'
because it IS KNOWING
love,
jason
what I AM never changes - what i do changes often - am i ONLY being whilst i write this message? or am i also doing? i call it happening .... i call it life ... the perfect union of the permanent and the transient of the doing and the being. i know the oneness of it - yet i do not deny its two components...
There is no 'doer'
no free will
no one running the show
Life is spontaneously unfolding-effortlessly and truly a miraculous perfection.
Oneness cannot be known
this is just another thought
'i know the oneness of it...'
How could there be an individual 'outside' of oneness--to look and say: 'there is oneness!".
thoughts are transient clouds in the sky that YOU ARE (which would include the clouds)
The thought seems to bank on the 'I'
Where is this 'I'?
What does the 'I' thought appear to?
It cannot appear to an 'I' or a 'me'! More concepts...
all thoughts are appearances and inherently false
thoughts are only labels/stories
they don't 'do' anything
pause thoughts--what remains?
You do not have to be outside the oneness to see it, you can see it from within. I think that you misunderstand what I mean by doing. To do, is to exercise your free will; to be either the thoughts; or the space surrounding the thoughts. To not be concerned with the transient, is an insult to the being. To not immerse yourself in the joy of the unfolding of the petals of the flower is to not be alive. It is the transience that is the whole POINT of the being. Just because the sky includes the coulds, it does not mean that the clouds are of any less worth to the oneness than the sky is. What is a tree without leaves? What is an engine without oil? What is now without time? What is an artist without the art?
Thanks for writing.
Oneness is Seeing itself
it's happening...right Now
No varying degrees of Seeing.
There is absolutely no free will.
Only a 'me' or an 'I' could govern the body-mind; this is entirely false. Where is this 'me' or 'I'?
Isn't the 'me' or 'I' just a transient image? Can images 'do' anything?
There is no one behind the wheel, no one running the show.
Life is living itself.
'You' are being lived.
One intelligence functioning
So there isn't a 'me' or an 'I' or a 'person' that would be chopping wood, there is just doing--just 'chopping wood'. But, even that label falls short.
Where is this 'me'? Presently, where is this evidence? Is it only created an a fictional story?
The transient comes and goes, but there is absolutely no separation, because what Advaita points to is One (without a second).
As it was mentioned in the previous post, the play of consciousness like light dancing on the computer monitor, there is absolutely no separation whatsoever. The transient and Awareness are One. Two sides of one coin.
To paraphrase Nisargadatta (from a faulty memory) By subtely shifiting my attention I am absolutely nothing, just the witness, by subtely shifting my attention I am absolutely everything, but to say that I am one or the other is false. It is between these two my life flows, and that is the meaning of love.
A 'complete' acceptance of everthing that IS. You ARE Seeing-Oneness.
Thank you Jason. May I never forget how it feels to be told that I have absolutely NO free will whatsoever… as life continues to unfold the other HALF of my flower - I can understand why life in its` unfolding, has chosen to take away freedom of choice from some. I recently had an experience of oneness - I call enlightenment. It was exactly as you explain here in your blog. There was NO duality, and I even wrote a piece on destiny myself - about being lived by life. HOWEVER, since then I have re-found myself. The separate individual seer that is the I and the me. The experience was like a blast out of existence of the little me, and is exactly how you describe you present condition. I cannot explain it better than you have. But, actually - life had not yet fully unfolded for me at that point - there was more to come. More than eternity, more than oneness. More than everything!
Impossible? Well apparently not. When I re-found myself. I realised that even without ego - in fact I still exist - complete with name, boundaries, separateness, individuality, my sight (though greatly improved), and my free will… the choice to do. I found that in this COMPLETE unfolding, that, because I am still very much here and now, everything that I was before the experience is still in tact, and still the same as it ever was - yet now, there is and additional choice that I have. That choice is to be oneness. The oneness that you describe here. I say additional because it is. Where as what you have found is an alternative - not additional. I very much have free will - I have the freedom to do. I can choose to do the will of God and I can choose not to. God gave use free choice for a reason. That reason can be described as love; peace; harmony; joy; unity. The things that only exist in a relationship, because they are the things that happen BETWEEN. Not between the duality of two separate things but between the duality of the two HALVES of the same thing. I am free to write this to you, or not, as I sit merged with God - and my vision is very clear - I see my free choices - and I exercise them often.
Life’s complete unfolding for you has meant that you have no free will - because (to me)you are only the half of life that is oneness. Life’s` complete unfolding for me has meant that I am balance between its` two halves, incorporating both permanent and transient; being and doing; oneness and separateness. With the option to dive into either side whenever I so please. Oneness touched me but it did not destroy me. I can only assume that it left me in tact for a reason, which is that I still have the ability to do. I guess oneness chooses who it leaves in tact and who it obliterates.
I am glad that you are happy and that you are fully unfolded, pleased with your absolutely no freedom of will. However, I have unfolded very much with freedom of will. Obviously you will think that your philosophy incorporates me - that I am being thought and that I only think that I am doing. And this is gods grace - he is kind of course - he would not take away free will from you (which is what seems to have happened) without leaving you feeling complete; content; and fully realised.
I am not just deluded by ego into thinking that my thoughts are my own. Why would oneness have within it a thought that it is only half of life? Why would it think that about itself? Because “I” am not fully unfolded? - who then am I to be not fully unfolded in oneness?
I am person, half of who’s being is connected to, yet separate from, oneness. I am not split; divided; or schitzo.. I am the love that exists between the two halves - with the free will to be both or either; I am not divided - I am whole - I am unity; balance; peace and harmony.
I am not saying that you are wrong, I am just letting you know that I am different to what you describe here.
Because believe me - when I stop doing - my life stops happening - I think a little credit for that is appropriate!
p.s. sometimes a tiny spec of doubt is a lifeline to sanity:))
Love from India
Thanks for writing.
Non-duality can be expressed with a variety of descriptions and labels but, of course the words are merely images that can only point. God can be used interchangeably with Awareness/Seeing/Knowing/Being. There seems to be many associations and stories that accompany 'God', but whatever resonates is valid.
You ARE Knowing
Whatever experience that arises/falls, that Knowing has never changed. For an experience to even happen, it must happen in the KNOWING.
That Knowing is spontaneously Self-Shining
Even if there is not-knowing...there is still a KNOWING of this. This KNOWING is the foundation.
you wrote: "HOWEVER, since then I have re-found myself. The separate individual seer that is the I and the me."
There isn't a separate individual seer that is the 'me' or 'I' that can stand on its own. The 'me' or the 'I' are just transient images. What seems to be the problem is that there is belief that a thought (me, I) is Seeing, Knowing, Being, or governing his or her existence.
The joke is up when the mind is seen for what it truly is. Life goes on (just as it always has). Once Santa Claus is truly known to be false, when he is seen in the mall, not even for a second, you can possibly be convinced he is real. Everything 'attached' to that fiction must also be false--including psychological suffering.
There are some who point in Advaita that frame it into a nihilist philosophy--a cold and detached world of aloof witnessing.
This is another misunderstanding.
Nisargadatta said (from memory): By subtly shifting my attention, I become the thing that I look at; I can subtly shift my attention and am absolutely nothing. But to say that I am everything and nothing isn't quite true, it is between both of those that my life flows...
or put another way, You Are Seeing-Oneness
the transient comes and goes in/on the 'screen' of Awareness-no separation, two sides of ONE coin, or as you express half of ONE flower. Everything just as it is--complete perfection, that is love.
And this seems to be 'sinking in' from what you are expressing:
"I am not split; divided; or schitzo.. I am the love that exists between the two halves - with the free will to be both or either; I am not divided - I am whole - I am unity; balance; peace and harmony."
To be clear, there isn't an individual 'person' that is running the show, God/Knowing is. This imaginary 'person' just appears to take credit. But thats alright, just a game of make-believe. Not a character's (me, I, my) free-will, this 'intelligent energy's'/God/Knowing spontaneous and effortless functioning. The body-mind is much like a musical instrument that the expression flows through.
Any effort for the two to become one is immediately futile,because the two cannot become one; there is ONE (without a second).
much love,
~jason
It is the relationship between that is governing existance; the love the peace the harmony the creativity, the joy, the relationship between the two halves of the wholeness. It is the relationship between that is the REASON for the duality within the one. And that is the wisdom of free choice within the one, that enables there to be a relationship at all.
even more love from India...
aha! you say Jason, that 'mind cannot know itself' - so we actually have come to believe that we know ourselves, but that belief itself is only another thought. in order for the one to experience itself it apparently splits and then has a thought about the other 'thing' Our thoughts have rigged up this whole thing and 'we' are at the centre of it, being totally swept along with more thoughts that in turn provoke emotions, feelings and actions which in turn embeds us in a conditioned response we then understand to be 'ourselves'. but how can this thought which arrives with no colour texture or meaning in our minds possibly create so much belief unless the thoughts themselves have created a certain response.
this is so crucial.
wow
its an edifice breaking apart by reunifying into oneness again.
thank you thank you x
thanks for writing.
KNOWING already knows itself
Do you exist?
How do you know that YOU ARE?
Isn't this a certainty?
Isn't this the only FACT that you are absolutely 100% certain of?
Thoughts float by endlessly....
But what is SEEING this?
It is not a 'person' that is SEEING
thoughts have no independent power and cannot 'do' anything!
so they cannot create belief or any other responses
LIFE is spontaneously and miraculously happening
Recognize clearly that separation never happened...there only appears to be separation (which happens in thought).
So the talk about the water re-uniting with the sea is a bunch of bullshit.
You ARE already the Ocean
there is just a misunderstanding...
Could a wave ever exist 'outside' or separate from the ocean?
Similarly, could a thought appear 'outside' of KNOWING?
YOU have been present for absolutely every thought.
YOU have never been separate from a thought.
Two sides of one coin my friend.
The transient images, though they are constantly appearing/disappearing, are suffused with the KNOWING.
Yet what you ARE has never appeared/disappeared.
It is no-thing. A verb.
a spontaneous process...an unfolding....
Self-shining...
Examine the fundamental assumption that a 'person' is here and doing...
Isn't SEEING happening...THEN the thought "I see" comes in and takes credit?
Do not overlook this.
love,
jason
Beautiful clear pointing.
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