Philosophy Now Forum

Mind is naturally affected by the unassailable peace.

“The peace you claim to have found is very brittle; any little thing can crack it. What you call peace is only absence of dis-turbance. It is hardly worth the name. The real peace cannot be disturbed. Can you claim a peace of mind that is unassailable?”
- SNM

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sat Apr 21, 2018 4:56 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Sat Apr 21, 2018 3:27 pm
"Uneducated though the Master is, his conversation is enligh-
tened to an extraordinary degree. Though born and brought up in
poverty, he is the richest of the rich, for he has the limitless wealth
of perennial knowledge, compared to which the most fabulous
treasures are mere tinsel. He is warm-hearted and tender,
shrewdly humorous, absolutely fearless and absolutely true —
inspiring, guiding and supporting all who come to him."
- ibid

The thing about the western man is that he has to realise that you don't need to have a PhD in order to ''know yourself''
The important thing is to ''know thyself'' ...first...and then all else will effortlessly fall into place as it should.

Academics are concerned with being someone, whereas the wise can be very creative and productive without having to apply that inner creativity and skill onto paper to prove their worthiness ... knowledge is already inbuilt within all of us equally that we are able to apply that knowledge and achieve just about anything we can think of.. putting it down on paper is just so that we don't forget what we already know...because we can be very forgetful, and is why all knowledge comes from a source that exists prior to our knowing of it, else we wouldn't know how to function or do anything. We are discovering ourselves only, the SELF that is already here before we discovered it.

Also, humans being gifted with a good pair of working hands has been our greatest asset so far. It's not so much to do with education, but all credit goes to the brilliance of consciousness that designed the hands in the first place..the hands that are able to write down our innate knowledge onto paper... we owe this intelligence to a higher reality, and we can tap into this intelligent consciousness because we are it.

But obviously we cannot ride a bike until we first learn the skills to ride the bike, but once we've mastered the skill, or any other skill in life, we then need to step up and serve humanity with our skills and do those jobs with pride and love and not feel like those jobs are just a means to make money and survive...and if we don't make as much money as we can then we will surely die..this mentality is doomed from the start, or even the mentality to say I'm more clever than you because I can do this and you can't, is doomed from the start...no, that's not the way forward, that sort of mentality causes segregation and competitiveness. . it's not good.

Are we willing to scrap money, and find a way to love going to work each day in the mindset of serving the whole of humanity and not just ourselves, or are we happy to continue to be competitive and be a slave to humanity for fear of lack, or fear of not being a someone in the world. When are we going to realise that we are immortal beings and that whatever it is we are doing at this present moment is just one of an infinite amount of experiences we are going to experience in eternity.

I don't think we are ready for that level of intelligence yet.



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D: The thing about the western man is that he has to realise that you don't need to have a PhD in order to ''know yourself''

W: I think “the western man,” and the western woman interpret “know yourself” in various ways.
The most common interpretation is to know your limitations and accept them.
No fireworks in that.

D: The important thing is to ''know thyself'' ...first...and then all else will effortlessly fall into place as it should.

W: Thus the danger of waking up.

D: Academics are concerned with being someone,

W: Like any career there is ambition and advancement according to the rules.

D: whereas the wise can be very creative and productive without having to apply that inner creativity and skill onto paper to prove their worthiness

W: Sri Nisargadatta said that any motion (duality) of doing for him was just inertia, i.e., living out the old karma.

D: ... knowledge is already inbuilt within all of us equally that we are able to apply that knowledge and achieve just about anything we can think of..

W: Yes, to the limitations of human incarnation, which are few in number, although self-sabotage is rife.

D: putting it down on paper is just so that we don't forget what we already know...

W: It can also be a manner of existence, recently discussed.

D: because we can be very forgetful, and is why all knowledge comes from a source that exists prior to our knowing of it, else we wouldn't know how to function or do anything. We are discovering ourselves only, the SELF that is already here before we discovered it.

W: Hmm. This self is getting thrown around a lot. Needs some data.

D: Also, humans being gifted with a good pair of working hands has been our greatest asset so far. It's not so much to do with education, but all credit goes to the brilliance of consciousness that designed the hands in the first place..the hands that are able to write down our innate knowledge onto paper... we owe this intelligence to a higher reality, and we can tap into this intelligent consciousness because we are it.

W: What would the world be like if all the folks were born with twelve fingers and twelve toes.

D: But obviously we cannot ride a bike until we first learn the skills to ride the bike,

W: You learn how to ride a bike by falling off.

D: but once we've mastered the skill, or any other skill in life, we then need to step up and serve humanity with our skills and do those jobs with pride and love and not feel like those jobs are just a means to make money and survive...

W: That’s living by a philosophy, ethics, morals, standards.
They say everyone will sacrifice these at the right price.

D: and if we don't make as much money as we can then we will surely die..this mentality is doomed from the start, or even the mentality to say I'm more clever than you because I can do this and you can't, is doomed from the start...no, that's not the way forward, that sort of mentality causes segregation and competitiveness. . it's not good.

W: Big families. Lots of roommates.

D: Are we willing to scrap money, and find a way to love going to work each day in the mindset of serving the whole of humanity and not just ourselves, or are we happy to continue to be competitive and be a slave to humanity for fear of lack, or fear of not being a someone in the world. When are we going to realise that we are immortal beings and that whatever it is we are doing at this present moment is just one of an infinite amount of experiences we are going to experience in eternity.

W: The only limitation is incarnation.
Learning how to think is mostly unlearning what you think.
Questioning all you’ve learned is tedious, but philosophical.
Eternity is a big subject.

D: I don't think we are ready for that level of intelligence yet.

W: That level of intelligence is there for everyone and it will burn through any corruptions, sooner or later.
Simplicity and love are the ash, better to realize sooner than on the death bed of regrets.

Sri Nisargadatta keyed on aphorisms.

Say what is true and folks will do the rest, depending on the situation.
In this situation, the top is mind.

The top exists as spin. Motion. Change.
The axis exists as stillness.
The axis and the top are distinct but intertwined.
Without the top, the axis is potentiality.
Looked for it cannot be seen, only inferred.
Without the axis, no spin, no top, just lathed wood.

Speaking of infinity, what else?

Walker wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:26 am
D: because we can be very forgetful, and is why all knowledge comes from a source that exists prior to our knowing of it, else we wouldn't know how to function or do anything. We are discovering ourselves only, the SELF that is already here before we discovered it.

W: Hmm. This self is getting thrown around a lot. Needs some data.

Q: Is the 'I am' the Ultimate?

Maharaj: Before you can say: 'I am', you must be there to say it.

Being need not be self-conscious.

You need not know to be, but you must be to know.

---------


Dam another sage: No-Self is synonymous with SELF

Just as Nonduality is synonymous with Duality.

Duality = SELF selfing.

Duality the not-knowing known.

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Walker wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:26 amD: The important thing is to ''know thyself'' ...first...and then all else will effortlessly fall into place as it should.

W: Thus the danger of waking up.

W..what is dangerous about waking up ?

_________


What MN says about waking up..

Do understand that you cannot ask a valid question about yourself, because you do not know whom you are asking about.

In the question 'Who am I?

The 'I' is not known and the question can be worded as: “I do not know what I mean by 'I'” What you are, you must find out.

I can only tell you what you are not.

You are not of the world, you are not even in the world.

The world is not, you alone are.

You create the world in your imagination like a dream.

As you cannot separate the dream from yourself, so you cannot have an outer world independent of yourself.

You are independent, not the world.

Don't be afraid of a world you yourself have created.

Cease from looking for happiness and reality in a dream and you will wake up.

You need not know 'why' and 'how', there is no end to questions.

Abandon all desires, keep your mind silent and you shall discover.

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Walker, when one reads something like that, it's no wonder it is rejected?

I personally sometimes wonder what is the lesser of two evils, waking up, or staying alseep?

.

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Dontaskme wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:16 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:26 amD: The important thing is to ''know thyself'' ...first...and then all else will effortlessly fall into place as it should.

W: Thus the danger of waking up.

W..what is dangerous about waking up ?

Awakening is about loss, not gain.

It means you lose the comfort of your delusions.

Walker wrote: ↑Wed Apr 25, 2018 1:11 am Awakening is about loss, not gain.

It means you lose the comfort of your delusions.

You lose, but in losing you also gain, same goes for gaining....in gaining SELF you lose SELF.. and in losing SELF you gain SELF

In other words, nothing is ever added or taken away from SELF.

The I conscious of object is awareness conscious of itself as an object, but the object was never born, (born refers to something PROJECTED)
while awareness is not a projection. IT IS forever unchanged, unborn.

When consciousness of objects is born,then, likewise, consciousness of absence of objects also arises.

When objects are projected,the power of awareness as subject is presupposed,yet Consciousness-without-an-object remains unchanged.

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Walker wrote: ↑Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:45 am

Speaking of infinity, what else?

The thought arises:

"Who am I?"

Another thought answers:

"I don't know any more who or what I am".

Another thought asks:

"Is there any way for thought to clear up this apparent problem?"

Who can answer this question?

A 'sense' (feeling/idea) of "impending transformation" arises.

As it arises, so it is experienced/known.

This 'sense' is senseless, unknowing

That which experiences the 'sense of impending transformation' is never transformed.


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This quote from Nothing is Everything, a book of Nisargadatta’s dialogs, may shed some light on what he means when he says 'I am’.

Visitor: Does an infant know that it is an infant?
Maharaj: It takes three to five years to know it. How old were you when you first recognised your mother?
V: About four years old.
M: Before that you did not even know that you existed.



V: …Children utter words. Is it knowledge?
M: That is like a parrot. They do not know what they talk.
Before the age of three, there is no intelligence even to know one’s existence. When the knowledge ‘I Am’ is absent, there cannot be any expectations ‘to be’.

He’s saying that little kids lack the knowledge ‘I am.’ It begins when they start to know that they exist.

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Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 1:39 pm
He’s saying that little kids lack the knowledge ‘I am.’ It begins when they start to know that they exist.

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Absolute truth: We all were once children.

We all existed in a non-dual state, but we have no cognitive memory of that existence since we couldn’t differentiate back then. Since the child does exist without conscious knowledge of its own existence, thought is not necessary for personal existence. And, thought is not necessary for the knowing of existence.

Oh so smart or oh so pleasant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzOIhLJ1C-Y

DAM wrote:Another thought answers:

"I don't know any more who or what I am".

Another thought asks:

"Is there any way for thought to clear up this apparent problem?"

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj says that what we really are, is beyond conception.

Conception requires thought, and one to think the thoughts. Hence, dualism. Humans have this capacity of dualism, which is a survival advantage. This capacity of thought grants a wider access to the one undifferentiated consciousness that all things, including the inorganic, access in varying degrees.

Total access to the one consciousness is possible for humans, as Patanjali and Buddha and Sri Nisargadatta explain in their respective ways.

Sam the Barber, for example, has the self-concept (identity) of that hair surgery tradition with which he identifies. That is, the I Am thought for Sam is rooted in dualism.

Sri Nisargadatta’s self-concept (inasmuch as the Totality can differentiate itself for abstract communication) is, The Absolute, and all that implies from within the shoes of the Absolute (the Maharaj principle), which is not for a dualistic barber to judge.

Sam Barber may say, if Sri Nisargadatta is the absolute then he can brew a batch of divine hair-growth tonic, yet because he doesn’t do that, then this is proof that he is not the absolute, because he is not above all physical laws. However, this is simply the dualistic, transitory understanding and view of a barber.

The absolute is perpetually self-evident through the eyes of the world.

Because thinking and questioning are dualistic activities, then within the realm of barbershops, a person can only speak in negation. You cannot say what you are because what you are is ineffable, but you can say what you are not, and anything you can say, you are not. Neti neti. Not that, not that.

Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 06, 2018 5:04 am

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 1:39 pm
He’s saying that little kids lack the knowledge ‘I am.’ It begins when they start to know that they exist.

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Absolute truth: We all were once children.

We all existed in a non-dual state, but we have no cognitive memory of that existence since we couldn’t differentiate back then. Since the child does exist without conscious knowledge of its own existence, thought is not necessary for personal existence. And, thought is not necessary for the knowing of existence.

Agreed! ..looking back I remember being a child that had no concept of even being a self. That is what's known as the non-dual self.

All the trouble started when someone gave you a name. You became tight as a drum, it's was curtains and goodbye to your relaxed natural state.



''In the absence of beingness, what have I been doing? My unborn children, what are they doing? The same that I did prior to the appearance of this beingness. World, mind and all are expansive, how did this calamity occur- with the arrival of beingness? So I must investigate the cause of the trouble that is, beingness. Think how you came into this body complex instead of investigating the world.

The body falls down but what happened to me? For that principle for which you get no reply, is perfect, whatever answer you get is wrong. If I think of this world, why should I not inquire about prior to consciousness? If I tackle this question, I must investigate what is this principle of ‘I am’? I would prefer to play with that child not born because eternal Para-brahman and unborn children are alike.''

Nisargadatta Maharaj - Taken from I Am Unborn.

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Walker wrote: ↑Sun May 06, 2018 8:47 pm

The absolute is perpetually self-evident through the eyes of the world.

Because thinking and questioning are dualistic activities, then within the realm of barbershops, a person can only speak in negation. You cannot say what you are because what you are is ineffable, but you can say what you are not, and anything you can say, you are not. Neti neti. Not that, not that.

Yes, in order to not be what you are not, you first have to be, to not be what you are not...you cannot (not be) in order to not be that what you are not...hahaha!

And the beauty of it all ..is that we are always free to be or not be at any time we like during our one forever life.
You are the gift you give to yourself. Always be nice and love to yourself, for no one else can give that to you. By being yourself, nothing that is not you can ever effect or enter you when you are home with the be-loved.



Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Lord Christ, uphold thou me that I might uplift thee. Amen


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“There is nothing wrong with duality as long as it does not create conflict. Multiplicity and variety without strife is joy. In pure consciousness there is light. For warmth, contact is needed. Above the unity of being is the union of love. Love is the meaning and purpose of duality.”
- I Am That
Personality, an Obstacle

Keywords:
conflict, meaning, purpose

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:05 pm “… in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am — unbound …”

This is probably one of my favorite quotes ever.

What I think about when I witness my self between thoughts, is that I have two selves, one is the empty unbounded untouched self, and the other is identified ego self full of self conscious tension.

One self is craving all the attention and drama, while the other self looks on in detachment allowing the drama to unfold as it so desires without being tarnished or defaced by the drama. These two selves are inseparably one in the same moment, but the drama queen self seems to be unaware of the other self until it does realise it's there, and it is in that moment that the immortal self is born. So even amid the chaos that can be life, there is a place of perfect peace to RIP when ever it is required.

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How you could go to unbound mind state and then die?