“There are three monks, who had been sitting in deep meditation for many years amidst the Himalayan snow peaks, never speaking a word, in utter silence. One morning, one of the three suddenly speaks up and says, ‘What a lovely morning this is.’ And he falls silent again. Five years of silence pass, when all at once the second monk speaks up and says, ‘But we could do with some rain.’ There is silence among them for another five years, when suddenly the third monk says, ‘Why can’t you two stop chattering?”

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/jokes.html

http://seaunaluzparaustedmismo.blogspot.com/

And speaking of Bill Hicks, I’d say the comedian carrying the torch after him has got to be Doug Stanhope. I’ve seen him in concert and I highly recommend seeing him. He too has experimented with DMT along with his buddy Joe Rogan.

Sober, life is a play. On dmt, life is a roller coaster with no safety harness.

There’s no height limit either. Basically thier is just some dude, possibly Bill Hicks, who checks to see if you have balls. No balls, and your sent back to TV land.

Personally I just go for the ball fondling nowadays.

Without that realization, but believing that other individuals have realized it poses a problem for the seeker. Carrying the metaphor a bit further, the seeker who believes he can attain realization might say he feels he’s played the part so long and it has grown tiresome or boring or emotionally draining. Or maybe, believing he’s just an actor in a lousy role, actually causes him psychological distress playing ANY role and he longs to step off stage and be just an actor and cease playing a part at all.

It is a common theme that you’ve commented on before: people want to be free from the pain and misery of their every day experience and the hope is that by achieving enlightenment or attaining realization (like someone else has) it brings about that blissful state.

Is there a continuation of the realization, though? The realization that one is an actor on a stage is followed by the realization that there aren’t really any other actors nor is there an audience. And the actor is the stage and the drama itself and all the roles at once.

Where’s Marcelo? I need some more ’shrooms.

I follow what you’re saying, but it seems as if there’s still this perception of an individual who does something or to whom something happens. For example, you write “…to be one with consciousness brings you to a state of…” but nothing occurs or exists outside of what we’re calling consciousness, so how can someone NOT be one with consciousness? How can someone lose that connection with consciousness? There is no someone to be in one state or another (fear-free/fearful). There is no someone to feel a sense of unity or disconnection.

I like what you write about coming back into duality. The semantics aren’t quite right, though…someone cannot come back into duality, because the perception of someone IS duality. However, I infer what you’re saying is something like the ego reappears within consciousness, and that seems true. Hasn’t Cameron mentioned in podcasts before, he finds himself getting caught up in whatever’s going on at the time and will suddenly stop and remember or re-cognize the nature of reality as non-dual?

Where are you gonna go anyway.

It’s being talked about because there is no free will. It’s like saying ‘why is that child handicapped’ We are not in charge of that expression. That true understanding, expresses itself through a body. It is a unique expression, like seeing a field of flowers, all different, yet still expressing THAT. Is it clarity, or is it that that flower expresses itself as such? It’s better to appreciate the field, then stop for a close up of one, if you need detail. Just remember to step back and look at what it’s a part of.

I’m not always ‘clear’, but I can’t change that. That definately won’t stop me from talking my unique speach. This includes the mention of testicals, masturbation, and why I’d like ten minutes in a boxing round with Tha Dalai Lama. I could easily kick his arse.

Whats wrong with carefull psychedelic drug use? Is a drug experience any different from any other? All experiences, are all just experiences. It’s not the experience, it’s what the experience points to that matters.

I’m out of here, cheers.

Goofy

The nameless defines heaven and earth
The named is the source of creation.

Freed from desire, you can see the mystery
Desiring, there is only manifestation.

Mystery and reality emerge from the same source
This source is named darkness.

Darkness withinn darkness.
The gate to all understanding”.

I like the analogy of actors on stage. The actors know the play isn’t real. They know the character isn’t real - outside of the play. They know the character’s emotions aren’t real - outside of the play.

But while the actors are on stage, they perform like it’s all real. The characters are acted as if they are real. The plot is real. So the characters in the play can experience emotion, fear, hunger… and the actors convey those things with the usual intensity. But the actors aren’t really bothered by what happens to the characters in the play because they know - not just through some sort of intellectual understanding they got from a guru or a book - they KNOW without doubt from first-hand experience - that the play, the characters, the emotions - none of it matters outside of the stage.

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

William Shakespeare - from As You Like It 2/7

I think that it can be seen theoretically that the seeing through of separation will not extinguish biological needs of the organism which will continue until death - separation or no separation.

The stories of blissful awakenings coupled with a freedom from suffering are often associated with individuals who have suffered greatly for quite a number of years - so the sense of freedom experienced in contrast to the suffering must be quite overwhelming and life changing.

As for my own ‘understanding’: There is only this present appearance. Seeking is absolutely meaningless since experience happens of it’s own accord - whatever is happening is simply ‘being done’.

Whoever said that “recognising all as One” would bring about “ease, effortless living, lack of fear, etc”, was over doing it a bit! What it might expose is the pointlessness of seeking, and with that a certain amount of ease or relief may be experienced in the organism. But the usual stuff will go on: pain, fear, hunger, the need to use the toilet etc. - i.e. the natural functioning that is required to protect and sustain the organism.

Rob - are you talking from your personal experience of life after “recognizing”? Or is this theory?

To state that consciousness is “fear free” would be a mistake wouldn’t it? As that implies another condition and thus duality. Additionally, if consciousness is synonymous with life, what’s the antonym? More duality…life vs. non-living, fear free vs. fearful.

Consciousness, if you want to call it that, is all there is but it cannot be identified with, as that which seeks to identify is simply another aspect of it. Nor can it be classified as pure or not. Consciousness/awareness/I-AM-ness only…no life, no non-living, no fearlessness, no fearfulness, neti neti.

By the way, if some of you know what Centerpointe Research Institute, It’d be nice if you could give me your input on it.

As for the implications of cause and effect in your question. This is a variation of paradox of the ‘gateless gate’. The ‘recognition’ is prior to (or outside of) thought, so the seeming problem of time and cause and effect simply does not arise (without going back into concepts).

If there is no time and therefore no cause and effect how then does recognising all as One bring about ease, effortless living, lack of fear, etc.?

Do I know the answers to these questions already but am some how tricking myself that I don’t?

Sorry for all the crap I hope I’m not stinking up the place too much.

The gradual thing was just: Your description sounded like a path to me, while it’s supposedly not a path. It may well be because I’m looking “out there”, like you said.

As for Balsekar, I’m not merely quoting him, I tried to explain how I understand him with reference to my own experience. When I said I know only consciousness, I meant it. It’s not that Balsekar told me I know only consciousness — I “myself” know only consciousness. That’s the only thing I’m absolutely sure of, the momentary conscious experience like sound, vision, touch, taste, memory. It’s what I call the phenomenal world, as opposed to the numinon, the background, the abolute. The latter I know nothing about.

When I think of all these disagreements in terms of no free will with all the statements and counter statements just going on it seems life is a fantastic happening.

But then I remember what Guy Smith says about these just being ‘little black squiggles’ it seems that lifes fantastic happening is just imagination, and that sounds even more fantastic.

Is the difference between ’seekers’ and ‘teachers’ that ’seekers’ concentrate on the imagination story while ‘teachers’ are always aware of the ‘little black squiggles’?

Or is that just more imagination?

On the back cover of The Power of Now it says: Personal Growth/Spirituality.

Rob

Life happens, something happens, a penny drops… life happens, something happens, a penny drops… let me also include, I had breakfast, i had a wank, I watched tv, a penny dropped, I ate dinner, I went to sleep…

Is there a specific pattern there, that can be reproduced for anyone else’s benefit?

Are you actually saying that advaita is another religion, of which you say you are a part of?

I know of several people who keep saying that there is a process to the Full Stop, as if they are trying to give relevance to other processes. So what gives Goofy, what are you actually trying to say here? I mean your the one that suggested that we are advaitians.

And fuck Balsekar, he is an average teacher, I wanna know what you know.

This supposed path, it only appears gradual to you, as it should because your looking out there, but all I see is the immediate, no process, full stop.

I said that all understanding is part of the dream. Consciousness is just a concept. Part of the dream. What you are is non conceptual, immediate, no ‘where’ to be found, it’s not anything it’s not no thing, it’s non conceptual. People like Balsekar create things for people like you to point to, like consciousness, or God, or even intelligence energy.

drop it, and get on with the play

All the best,

Helen in LA

Something else: You say you understand that the understanding is part of the dream. Now what about THAT understanding — that the understanding is part of the dream? Is that part of the dream too? And so on. In other words, do you know anything outside the dream — outside consciousness? Do you know anything about the dreamER? If not (because the eye can’t see itself after all, can it), we’re in the same boat. “I” know only consciousness; in that sense, Balsekar is right to say “All there is, is consciousness. “

Only half of it made it through? Is that me Cam or the website?

The rest, fuck, I can’t remember, went something like “There is only nonduality” yada yada yada