Re: To: Tommy and Anonymous -- KRIYA YOGA DISCUSSION BOARD

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Date Posted: 07:36
Author: knonymous - 27 Mar 2002
Subject: Re: To: Tommy and Anonymous
In reply to: tommy - 27 Mar 2002 's message, "Re: To: Mike" on 07:35

Advaita Vedanta, Dzogchen, Nirvana, no-mind, nonduality. Plain and simple.

I suppose I am one of the said mouseketeers here, although I am not a regular poster in the least. So,..

Gentleman, I believe a ...Quote, is in order! From my favorite writer, HATED by many people around the world--Robert Anton Wilson (from the introduction to Cosmic Trigger):

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where the absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended.

My attitude is identical to that of Dr. Gribbin (Physice editor of New Scientist magazine--"I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING." in BBC a debate with Malcolm Muggeridge.) and the majority of physicists today, and is known in physics as "the Copenhagen Interpretation," because it was formulated in Copenhagen by Dr. Neils Bohr and his coworkers c. 1926-28. The Copenhagen Interpretation is sometimes called "model agnosticism" and holds that any grid we use to organize our experience of the world is a model of the world and should not be confused with the world itself. Alfred Korzybski, the semanticist, tried to popularize this outside physics with the slogan, "the map is not the territory." Alan Watts, a talented exegete of Oriental philosophy, restated it more vividly as "The menu is not the meal."

Belief in the traditional sense, or certitude or dogma, amounts to the grandiose delusion, "My current model" -- or grid, or map, or reality tunnel--" contains the whole universe and will never need to be revised." In terms of the history of science and of knowledge in general, this appears absurd and arrogant to me, and I am perpetually astinished that so many people still manage to live with such a mediival attitude.
...

"reality" is a word in the English language which happens to be (a) a NOUN and (b) SINGULAR. Thinking in the English language (and in cognate Indo-European languages)therefore subliminally programs us to conceptualize "reality" as one block-like entity , sort of like a huge New York skyscraper, in which every part is just another "room" within the same building. This linguistic pragram is so pervasive that most people cannot "think" outside it at all, and when one tries to offer a different perspective they imaging one is talking gibberish.

The notion that "reality" is a noun, a solid think like a brick or a baseball bat, derives from the evolutionary fact that our nervous systems normally organize the dance of energy into such block-like "things," probably as instant bio-survival cues. Such "things," however, dissolve back into energy dances -- processes, or VERBS --when the nervous system is synergized with certain drugs or transmuted by yogic or shamanic exercises or aided by scientific instruments. In both mysticism and physics, there is general agreement that "things" are constructed by our nervous sytems and that "realities" (plural) are better described as SYTEMS or bundles of enrgy-functions.

So much for "reality" as a NOUN. The notion that "reality" is SINGULAR, like a hermitically sealed jar, does not jibe with scientific findings which, in this century, suggest that reality may better be considered as flowing and meandering, like a river, or interacting, like a dance, or evolving, like life itself.

--Capital letters used where words were italycized in the book.

From Ramana Maharshi's Forty Verses:

4. If one has form oneself, the world and God will appear to have form, but if one is formless, who is it that sees those forms, and how? Without the eye can any object be seen? The seeing Self is the Eye, and the Eye is the Eye of Infinity.

9. The duality of subject and object and the trinity of seer, sight, and seen can exist only if supported by the One. If one turns inward in search of that One Reality they will fall away. Those who see this are those who see Wisdom. They are never in doubt.

15. Only with reference to the present can the past and the future exist. They too, while current, are the present. To try to determine the nature of the past and the future while ignoring the present is like trying to count without the unit.

20. He who sees God without seeing the Self sees only a mental image. They say that he who sees the Self sees God. He who, having completely lost the ego, sees the Self, has found God, because the Self does not exist apart from God.

24. This inert body does not say "I." Reality-Consciousness does not emerge. Between the two, and limited to the measure of the body, something emerges as "I." It is this that is known as Chit-jada-granthi (the knot between the Conscious and the inert), and also as bondage, soul, subtle body, ego, samsara, mind, and so forth.

25. It comes into being with a form, and as long as it retains a form it endures. Having a form, it feeds and grows big. But if you investigate it this evil spirit, which has no form of its own, relinquishes its grip on form and takes to flight.

26. If the ego is, everything else also is. If the ego is not, nothing else is. Indeeed, the ego is all. Therefore the enquiry as to what this ego is, is the only way of giving up everything.

--From The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi Edited by Arthur Osborne.

You have to ask yourself what your motivations behind this "spirituality" of yours are. Don't get offended. Take some time and think about this. I had been interested in this stuff for years before I hit these issues.

1. Are you in it to boost your ego, make you cool, smarter than everyone else, wiser, more religious or spiritual?

2. Or, are you in it to shrink your ego
, to "INTEGRATE" your ego into the vast sea of "what is?" To dethrone your ego to it's rightful place of helpful, useful reference point, servant not master.

There are two schools in argument here in this thread and others.

Shibendu is one of many people who I think touch on what is called the "Perennial" wisdom, which jibes with the core of religious experiences, no matter what major faith.--the nondual vison, i.e. I and my Father are One. I don't place him higher in the realization chain than anyone else who has attained the nondual state.

There are others here who know nothing but Hindu, Yogic and Kriya Jargon, catch and key phrases. They wouldn't have the courage to look their ego in the face for all the tea in China. To believe that the goal of Kriya Yoga is different or higher than the highest Advaita, Zen, Dzogchen, Sufi or Taoist experience is to believe in more than one nondual state, and I think the foolishness that that illustrates is quite obvious.

Some validate themselves (and their fearful ego)by the amount of "technique-al" trivial bullshit intellectiual knowledge that they have aquired over the years, or the scriptures they have memorized or how they can scratch their skull with their tongue (kechari can be a great aid in concentration for some, but is never proof of insightfullness in and of itself. There are some who can do kechari with no practice whatsoever, who aren't "spritual" in the least and couldn't care less about yoga, religion or spirituality.), thinking themselves spiritual, advanced or whatever lie they use to keep their ego in it's plush little palace, untouchable to the flame of insight.

--Shibendu is a proponent of the number 2 approach outlined above, and I believe I have clarified his points with explanation by two non-Shibendus above, one of which who holds a megalithic status in the MINDS of many of the number 1 school outlined above. None of whom dare to extinguish their egos like he admonishes though.

Sometimes Shibendu's words can sound a little too poetic or mystical. Take what you can understand and maybe the rest will make sense someday, maybe not.

Ramana's urge to seriously, continuously ask "Who am I?" seems simple and easy at first, but really it takes huge courage and perseverance. "Don't understand me too quickly," someone once said.

The question without an answer or need for one, the koan, looking for the looker.

knonymous

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Replies:

Re: To: Mike -- ketch - 27 Mar 2002, 07:37

Re: To: Mike -- tommy - 27 Mar 2002, 07:38