Tag: Self-knowledge

A summary of Nondual spiritual teachings

A contributor ‘Maria’ wrote a piece HERE

under the heading of ‘A Tour of Advaita via the Books of Dennis Waite’

As a summary of advaita some may find it useful;

Summary

• Advaita uses various methods (prakriyA-s) to analyze topics about which we have mistaken beliefs in order to reveal our errors and to demonstrate that there is only Brahman.

• The method of discriminating between who we are (the seer) and what we are not (the seen – body, mind etc.) is called dRRigdRRiSya- viveka.

• Who we really are – Brahman – is beyond description and immaculate.

• The body is nothing more than the food we have eaten, yet we worry about its comfort, aging and death.

• Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of the mind. Everything “appears” in Consciousness.

• We do not “think” thoughts – they arise and we witness them.

• The mind assumes the power of Consciousness in the way that an iron ball in the fire becomes hot.

• Attachment to emotions occurs similarly and we must cultivate dispassion (vairAgya). Peace is beyond all emotions.

• The ego is a construction of concepts and its power is destroyed once the truth is understood. This is the basis of “Self-enquiry.”

• ahaMkAra is the process by which we identify with ideas, emotions, roles etc. All disappear in sleep so we cannot be them.

• Neither are we the mask of a “person.” We are the changeless “I am,” the essence of the changing forms.

• The sheath model (pa~ncha-kosha-prakriyA) is used to illustrate the various levels of identification.

• The true Self has nothing to do with the body and mind etc, just as the moon has nothing to do with the bough of the tree on which it appears to rest.

• We are constantly lured by the form and miss the essence.

• Everything transient is first rejected (neti, neti) in order to discover who we truly are, the eternal unchanging. It is then realized that the changing, too, is none other than the non-dual Self.

• Just as dreams are seen to have been nothing but the mind itself on awakening, so the world is seen to be the Self on enlightenment.

• If it can be spoken of, I am not that. Truth is beyond language, which is necessarily in duality. I am the eternal subject. Reality is self-evident.

HAVE YOU SHIFTED? – ‘SOCIETIES & YOU & ME: BIG CHANGE, LITTLE CHANGE’

metamorphosis-dragonfly
RP If you look in the mirror and this is what you see great things are ahead – or perhaps you should re-boot your life? – Lol!
WikiPedia – A dragonfly in its final moult, undergoing metamorphosis from its nymph form to an adult.

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HAVE YOU SHIFTED? – ‘SOCIETIES & YOU & ME: BIG CHANGE, LITTLE CHANGE’ session 12 25/03/15

“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.” ― Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. He also says; “Breath is my anchor.”  BREATH MANTRA – IN: ‘breath…’ OUT: is my anchor

QUESTIONS: Q 1. On your spiritual or inter-spiritual journey have you undergone one big life-changing event or a series of smaller ones – i.e. little steps of insight or one big ‘shazam’ experience?  Q 2. Is the history of humankind a mirror of the inner struggles of the individual’s spiritual journey?  What are the successes so far – e.g the establishment of the Red Cross (cf The Good Samariton?)  Q.3 Is it useful to see so-called paradigm shifts in as the social co-equivalent of what happens to us as individuals?

A) Ulrich Leonard Tölle became Eckhart Tolle – One night in 1977, at the age of 29, after having suffered from long periods of suicidal depression, Tolle says he experienced an “inner transformation.” That night he awakened from his sleep, suffering from feelings of depression that were “almost unbearable,” but then experienced a life-changing epiphany.

Recounting the experience, Tolle says;  “I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness,” just observing and watching.”  (remember his zen quote ‘No self – no problem!?

Tolle recalls going out for a walk in London the next morning, and finding that “everything was miraculous, deeply peaceful. Even the traffic.”  The feeling continued, and he began to feel a strong underlying sense of peace in any situation.[7]

Tolle stopped studying for his doctorate, and for a period of about two years after this he spent much of his time sitting, “in a state of deep bliss,” on park benches in Russell Square Central London, “watching the world go by.” He stayed with friends, in a Buddhist monastery or otherwise slept rough on Hampstead Heath.

His family thought him “irresponsible, even insane.” Tolle changed his first name from Ulrich to Eckhart; by some reports this was in homage to the German philosopher and mystic, Meister Eckhart.

A 2012 interview article states that he saw the name Eckhart on one of a pile of books in a dream, and knew he had written the book; soon after in real life he ran into a psychic friend who called him Eckhart out of nowhere, so Tolle changed his name. SOURCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle

B) SAUL BECAME ST PAUL – As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. —Acts 9:3–9, NIV

C) PARADIGM SHIFTS in society – All disciplines have assumptions. Empirical sciences are data-based and assume that theories can be formulated to explain that data. Empirical sciences also assume that data is neutral – which it is not. A paradigm is a result of these assumptions- it is the existing beliefs, practices, and general perspective of a discipline. The paradigm of a discipline is expressed through various products of the discipline such as laws, theories, generalizations, methods of collecting data, and methods of evaluating data.

Paradigm Shift – Findings that do not fit within the existing paradigm may cause a paradigm shift may occur. This happened with Einstein’s theory of relativity. It was previously believed that time was constant throughout the universe. Einstein showed that it was not, so the paradigm shifted- now the belief is that time is a dimension like space.

Some of the “classical cases” of Kuhnian paradigm shifts in science are:

1543 – The transition in cosmology from a Ptolemaic cosmology to a Copernican one.

1687 – The transition in mechanics from Aristotelian mechanics to classical mechanics.

The acceptance of the theory of biogenesis, that all life comes from life, as opposed to the theory of spontaneous generation – began in the 17th century & was not complete until the 19thC with Louis Pasteur.

1920 – The transition between the worldview of Newtonian physics and the Einsteinian relativistic worldview.

DATE ? – The development of absolute dating. (Techniques include tree rings in timbers, radiocarbon dating)

1965 – The acceptance of plate tectonics as the explanation for large-scale geologic changes.

In social sciences – In Kuhn’s view, the existence of a single reigning paradigm is characteristic of the sciences, while philosophy and much of social science were characterized by a “tradition of claims, counterclaims, and debates over fundamentals.”[5]Others have applied Kuhn’s concept of paradigm shift to the social sciences.

EXAMPLE; The movement, known as the Cognitive revolution, away from Behaviourist approaches to psychological study and the acceptance of cognition as central to studying human behaviour.

RP Many think the term is frequently inappropriately used or mis-applied – or even too troublesome.

D) WHAT I WAS became WHAT I NOW AM – WHAT YOU WERE became WHAT YOU NOW ARE

Q. 4  If you, within, have had a paradigm shift from what was the old & the new inner paradigm?  Q. 5 How important is self-knowledge? Which self is it that we come to know – small self or big Self? Or both? Do we hide from it? Is it thrust upon us?  Q. 6 What kind of knowing flows from gnostic or irfan-ic experiences that enable self-knowing?  Q. 7 Is the ‘no self’ the higher or lower self – or is there only one self?        -0-

TAGS: self-knowing, Kuhn, mystical experience, life-change, knowing, gnosis, irfan, paradigm shifts, Pauline conversion, spiritual journey, self-knowledge, change………..

Just look at what this nervous lady has achieved as a peace-maker – wow!

“Anger is like gasoline. If you spray it around and somebody lights a match, you’ve got an inferno. [But] if we can put our anger inside an engine, it can drive us forward.”

How do you deal with a bully without becoming a thug? In this wise and soulful talk, peace activist Scilla Elworthy maps out the skills we need — as nations and individuals — to fight extreme force without using force in return. To answer the question of why and how non-violence works, she evokes historical heroes — Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela — and the personal philosophies that powered their peaceful protests. (Filmed at TEDxExeter.)

Scilla Elworthy founded Oxford Research Group in 1982, to promote effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers and their opponents.

When Scilla Elworthy was 13, she sat in front of her television set watching as Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest. Immediately she started packing her bags. “What are you doing?” her mother said. “I’m going to Budapest,” she said. “They’re doing something awful and I have to go.” Years later, Elworthy is a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and a recipient of the Niwano Peace Prize. In 2002 Elworthy founded Peace Direct, which supports local action against conflict, and in 1982 founded Oxford Research Group, a think-tank devoted to developing effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers and their critics. Beginning in 2005 she helped set up The Elders initiative as an adviser to Sir Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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TAGS; peace, peace-makers, great peace-makers, Scilla Elworthy, non-violence, non-violent communication, force, violence, anger, overcoming anger, meditation, peace activist, peace activism, dialogue, The Elders, Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, Desmond Tutu, reconciliation, conflict, conflict resolution, Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, protest, peaceful protest, bullying, disarmament, meditation, courage under fire, self-knowledge, Quakers, Friends,

Federalism of spirit – or will there have to be another 1000 Mumbai massacres?

The branches of a tree don't make war on each other!
The branches of a tree don't make war on each other!

I added this post to an earlier piece but I think it is worth posting and developing because it contains an idea that is new to me!  The difference is that I place it here in the discussion concerning the recent massacre in Mumbai.

The suggestion is that the idea of federalism – politically it works well in many countries – could and should be popularized as a key to the peoples of the world relating more successfully at the religious ideological level.  Perhaps this could be termed ‘Federalism of spirit’ – the harmony that cherishes diversity.

How can we prevent massive amplification of hatred?  What would be a starting point forward?    The teaching of the Golden Rule in all schools would be a great step forward – (SEARCH articles on the Golden Rule on this site).  But I’m suggesting that we teach, step-by-step, a Universalist world-view in addition to whatever is the majority religion.   Just as I am British, Chinese or Kenyan I am also first and foremost a human being.  Similarly I am proudly and faithfully a Christian/Moslem/Buddhist, or whatever, but I can also be a Universalist through recognizing;

1) The Golden Rule,

2) the essential Oneness of the mystical core of religions – Perennial Philosophy – and that

3) we are simply all emanations of one Source.

The deal at the moment for many is this – if I have a strong faith I am compelled  because of ‘exclusivity of truth’  to hate all deemed to be ‘other’.  If we all were Universalists as well as being of a particular tradition we could dialogue more profitably instead of killing each other.  Federalism works – even without oceans of blood as precursors.

Of course there are other elements and needs in the mix – the  need for greater political justice, the prevention of plain old crime etc. but shifting the world’s mind-set through teaching the Universal alongside the particular would improve matters enormously.

Eckhart Tolle is probably the most accessible proponent of Perennial Philosophy – the United nations should emply him and Karen Armstrong as Goodwill Ambassadors!

Perennial Philosophy, or mysticism, in one sentence

 

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Perennial Philosophy, or mysticism, in one sentence

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“We can be happy, and serve others well,

if we realize our true Self

by detaching ourselves from the egotistic lower self –

through our step-by-step becoming aware

of the stillness beneath the noise.”


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This is the mystical core of all of the great world wisdom traditions.


If you don’t have the time to delve deeply into one or all of the religions read Eckhart Tolle’s The New Earth and do this course presented by Oprah Winfrey – HERE


Roger’s ver as at Nov 30th 2008


What’s your version?

‘God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere’:Definitions of God and Religion

427px-creation_of_the_sun_and_moon_face_detail-wikipediaOh no this won’t do Mr M.!

Spiritual maturity, as related to religion, is a function of two things.

Firstly the degree toward which the ‘believer’ manages to de-anthropomorphise God, and gain a grown-up understanding of Ultimate Reality.

Secondly the ability to feel and think and do without attachment to ‘thumb-sucking’ supports – they vary with each individual.

The pay-off?  We consequently learn to live with justice as the conditioning influence of all we see, think and do – we come to see through his own eyes and not through the eyes of another.

God of course by definition is undefinable.

Here is one definition that defies that indefinablity AND manage to capture the essence of the combined immanence and transcendence of the theological position known as panentheism;

“God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”

Anonymous, ‘The Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers‘ (12thC)

Here are some other attempts -less satisfactory;

To define God is to limit Him. Still it seems inevitable that man should do that in order to get some edge to which his mind may cling. – Heywood Broun

When I was fifteen years old or so I came up with a definition of God to which, in my old age, I come back more and more, I would call it an operational definition. It reads as follows: God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies. – Viktor Frankl

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, Ah! – Joseph Campbell

We know God easily, if we do not constrain ourselves to define him. – Joseph Joubert

God… a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive. – Ayn Rand

A stimulating, and largely satisfactory phenomenological definition of God is;

The philosopher Michel Henry defines God in a phenomenological point of view. He says: “God is Life, he is the essence of Life, or, if we prefer, the essence of Life is God. Saying this we already know what is God, we know it not by the effect of a learning or of some knowledge, we don’t know it by the thought, on the background of the truth of the world ; we know it and we can know it only in and by the Life itself. We can know it only in God.” (I Am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity).

This Life is not biological life defined by objective and exterior properties, nor an abstract and empty philosophical concept, but the absolute phenomenological life, a radically immanent life which possesses in it the power of showing itself in itself without distance, a life which reveals permanently itself. A manifestation of oneself and a self-revelation which doesn’t consist in the fact of seeing outside of oneself or of perceiving the exterior world, but in the fact of feeling and of feeling oneself, of experiencing in oneself its own inner and affective reality.

As Michel Henry says also in this same book, “God is that pure Revelation that reveals nothing other than itself. God reveals Himself. The Revelation of God is his self-revelation”. God is in himself revelation, he is the primordial Revelation that tears everything from nothingness, a revelation which is the pathetic self-revelation and the absolute self-enjoyment of Life. As John says, God is love, because Life loves itself in an infinite and eternal love. See HERE for more

The Baha’i view is also panentheistic;

In the Bahá’í Faith, God is described as a single, imperishable God, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe. The connection between God and the world is that of the creator to his creation. God is understood to be independent of his creation, and that creation is dependent and contingent on God. God, however, is not seen to be part of creation as he cannot be divided and does not descend to the condition of his creatures. Instead, in the Bahá’í understanding, the world of creation emanates from God, in that all things have been realized by him and have attained to existence. Creation is seen as the expression of God’s will in the contingent world and every created thing is seen as a sign of God’s sovereignty, and leading to knowledge of him; the signs of God are most particularly revealed in human beings.

The above two are more less long-winded – why not just say with the blessed Anonymous from the 12thC “God is a circle whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”

Each of us, each and every part of Creation is a ‘sunbeam’ shining out of the Whole.  All is Spirit.  Spirit with a capital ‘S’ is the Whole, the ultimate Oneness, Mystery, ultimate Reality……God (not anthropomorphised) if you prefer.

All that isn’t Spirit per se is spirit-as-emanation, emanation set aside in each case for a special purpose.  The rock is spirit-as-emanation set aside for the purpose of manifesting the rockness of a rock.  The tree is spirit-as-emanation set aside for the purpose of manifesting the treeness of a tree.  The human being is spirit-as-emanation set aside for the purpose of manifesting the positive and noble humanness of a human being.

What would be a starting point forward?    The teaching of the Golden Rule in all schools would be a great step forward – SEARCH articles on the Golden Rule on this site.  But the Universalist world view, including the panentheistic perspective enables something much more importanta federalist position.  Just as I am British, Chinese or Kenyan I am also first and foremost a human being.  Similarly I am proudly and faithfully Christian/Moslem/Buddhist or whatever but I am also a Universalist through recognizing

1) The Golden Rule,

2) the essential Oneness of the mystical core of religions and that

3) we are all emanations of one Source.

Probably no idea has more power to overcome the seemingly endless capacity for suffering and creating suffering than this; ‘There are many paths to the summit but only one summit’.

Revised Dec 01 2008