Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Transcending Situations and Events
If the whole purpose of being an Enlightened Being is to transcend situations and people such that they don't disturb your inner peacefulness, then I fail miserably most of the time. Mindfulness is the goal, but how does one stay mindful all the time? Is it like perfect practice makes perfect?
The four ways that I know of (Tolle, The Power of Now, pp.133-135) to transcend mind and be more mindful are:
1. Be in the present all the time.
2. Disidentify with my thoughts.
3. Pay attention to the feeling of aliveness within my body (variation of the first point?).
4. Surrender, accepting what is, the letting go of mental-emotional resistance to my currrent reality or situation.
Julie asked me the question, "What is transcendence?"
The short answer is to be a human cat. The long answer follows.
Tolle says that:
"The ultimate purpose of the world lies not within the world but in transcendence of the world."
One doesn't transcend or rise above reality in any physical way. How can any one if you are an integral part of that reality? It may be that one is transcending or in truth, altering one's own psychological perception of reality in order to see or perceive a truer, saner reality. If so, then only changing the quality of one's perception is the key. Perceiving stimuli without bias or judgement or comparison (how simple and yet, how difficult) is what everyone is striving to do at either a conscious or unconscious level. How many lies, fictions, or misperceptions will one put up with before reality shows the falseness of one's perception? (As many as it takes?)
Another way to look at it is that one doesn't care. You don't care enough to judge, interpret, or condemn anything or anyone. But at some level, one must care. You need to care for yourself in order to survive, in order to perceive, unless even that is secondary. Perhaps, transcendence of the world means being in complete peace with oneself. Everybody desires peace and security, but few ever seem secure or at peace all the time.
I don't mean to make this an intellectual exercise. All spiritual wisdom and teachings point to experiential perception. You are always experiencing (perceiving or misperceiving) being a human being. Everyone is.
The four ways that I know of (Tolle, The Power of Now, pp.133-135) to transcend mind and be more mindful are:
1. Be in the present all the time.
2. Disidentify with my thoughts.
3. Pay attention to the feeling of aliveness within my body (variation of the first point?).
4. Surrender, accepting what is, the letting go of mental-emotional resistance to my currrent reality or situation.
Julie asked me the question, "What is transcendence?"
The short answer is to be a human cat. The long answer follows.
Tolle says that:
"The ultimate purpose of the world lies not within the world but in transcendence of the world."
One doesn't transcend or rise above reality in any physical way. How can any one if you are an integral part of that reality? It may be that one is transcending or in truth, altering one's own psychological perception of reality in order to see or perceive a truer, saner reality. If so, then only changing the quality of one's perception is the key. Perceiving stimuli without bias or judgement or comparison (how simple and yet, how difficult) is what everyone is striving to do at either a conscious or unconscious level. How many lies, fictions, or misperceptions will one put up with before reality shows the falseness of one's perception? (As many as it takes?)
Another way to look at it is that one doesn't care. You don't care enough to judge, interpret, or condemn anything or anyone. But at some level, one must care. You need to care for yourself in order to survive, in order to perceive, unless even that is secondary. Perhaps, transcendence of the world means being in complete peace with oneself. Everybody desires peace and security, but few ever seem secure or at peace all the time.
I don't mean to make this an intellectual exercise. All spiritual wisdom and teachings point to experiential perception. You are always experiencing (perceiving or misperceiving) being a human being. Everyone is.
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A few years ago I read a book called "The One Quest" by Dr. Caudio Naranjo, a Chilean psychiatrist who studied and compared the different methods, paths, or techniques to attain enlightenment or at least an altered-state of consciousness (in the same way William James studied and compared religions) and concluded, if I am not mistaken, that many of these techniques were actually opposed to each other in principle, but anyway they brought about the same effect or altered state. I'm not sure if this is true. Well, at least Naranjo probably thought that most of these people who practiced and taught these methods were enlightened or achieved what they were aiming at.
Personlly, I believe these methods or techniques can bring about temporary and superficial relief from suffering but don't actually lead to any kind of psychological transformation or enlightenment. This could be the reason why J. Krishnamurti is opposed to all forms of meditational techniques.
Also, aiming at enlightenment is not necessarily the same as treating mentally disturbed people, both psychotic and neurotic, but rather a way of achieving total happiness or understanding the deepest meaning of life. But perhaps, the really sick people get there first. In the same way that Jesus said that the first will be the last and the last the first to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Just trying to compose my thoughts on this.
Personlly, I believe these methods or techniques can bring about temporary and superficial relief from suffering but don't actually lead to any kind of psychological transformation or enlightenment. This could be the reason why J. Krishnamurti is opposed to all forms of meditational techniques.
Also, aiming at enlightenment is not necessarily the same as treating mentally disturbed people, both psychotic and neurotic, but rather a way of achieving total happiness or understanding the deepest meaning of life. But perhaps, the really sick people get there first. In the same way that Jesus said that the first will be the last and the last the first to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Just trying to compose my thoughts on this.
So this is what enlightenment is, or transcendence, is, or how it ought to be. You have an idea, you have an expectation. This is what you think that you know. Well, what if you're wrong? What if that's not it?
I'll write more on the subject later.
I'll write more on the subject later.
I don't believe that achieving lasting relief from suffering is a matter of transcendance or transcending the world but rather its opposite. Krishnamurti, for example, doesn't believe we can actually transcend the world, we being the world. What he keeps advocating is to avoid having conflict with oneself or the world, the world being not really worse or more evil than we already are. The advantage of this idea or principle is that we don't have to waste our time and energy trying to change ourselves and the world. If you look around you, you will find various ways of achieving happiness and success, as taught by very worldly people and they are not necessarily bad, evil or unhealthy. I mean there's probably nothing wrong with exercising the ego or self to find happiness, success and relief from suffering as long as we don't become disturbed by our frustrations or lack of success, or as long as we don't become spoiled by our successes. Egoism is not necessarily the same as egotism. The ego being the spark of God's consciousness in each one of us. As Bruce Barton puts it: "If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world it will come through the expression of your own personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature."
I mean it is how you look at the world. If you believe the world is infinitely evil, like many of us believe, and that we should separate ourselves from the world and be saints, we will be constantly at war with the world, including saints of other confessions or religions. I don't think society is unbearably corrupt and evil and that we should form our own society and start fighting with other societies. In fact more and more, our society in general don't accept this kind of thinking anymore. After all the world or society is composed of intelligent individuals who keep on trying to solve our problems and find better solutions in order to create a better world. The people who work towards this are not necessarily of "divine" origin.
It's not really an expectation. I've had a glimpse from time to time. There is peace, awe, wonder, joy, and bliss, at least for me, in just observing the world without any thought whatsoever, in looking at the simplest things. Those were my satori. I've had other satori that were less profound. The short answer might be the best answer, be a human cat. Everyone's experiences may be different because each experience is subjective and unique.
Imemine,
I said most of this in my entry. This has nothing to do with ego. The egoic mind is a survival tool. We evolved it to survive. It's carried us far. But we must go beyond the mind to the next evolution of Consciousness. Life itself is God or the Living One, the spark that animates us, the spark we are when we are babies before we have minds. Babies don't have egos per say, neither do cats. They just are.
I said most of this in my entry. This has nothing to do with ego. The egoic mind is a survival tool. We evolved it to survive. It's carried us far. But we must go beyond the mind to the next evolution of Consciousness. Life itself is God or the Living One, the spark that animates us, the spark we are when we are babies before we have minds. Babies don't have egos per say, neither do cats. They just are.
Imemine, you are talking sense, as best I can tell, but there's a quality to what you are saying that rings true. By that I mean, what you relate coordinates with my experience. I should read some Krishnamurti, but am probably as well off with your synoptical version.
jbmoore,
Yes, I understand what you mean. When you try to empty your mind of thoughts, you may end up not having any ego, the ego being made up of thoughts and nothing else. But this is not possible even by the practice of correct and regular meditation or observation. If you keep having beliefs. Beliefs will continue to feed your minds with thoughts. And who is completely free from beliefs? And how can you function in society without any basic beliefs, ideas, concepts and sense of good and bad?
This is probably where the danger lies. When you think you can still be a useful member of our society, when you are completely thoughtless and egoless. It's probably true what they say, people who have attained nirvana cannot go back to the world to help others find enlightenment. And if people become and remain boddhitsatvas, they can become antisocial and destructive. My opinion.
Yes, I understand what you mean. When you try to empty your mind of thoughts, you may end up not having any ego, the ego being made up of thoughts and nothing else. But this is not possible even by the practice of correct and regular meditation or observation. If you keep having beliefs. Beliefs will continue to feed your minds with thoughts. And who is completely free from beliefs? And how can you function in society without any basic beliefs, ideas, concepts and sense of good and bad?
This is probably where the danger lies. When you think you can still be a useful member of our society, when you are completely thoughtless and egoless. It's probably true what they say, people who have attained nirvana cannot go back to the world to help others find enlightenment. And if people become and remain boddhitsatvas, they can become antisocial and destructive. My opinion.
And people who continue practicing meditational methods and techniques, and believing in certain myths, (while at the same time thinking that they are already enlightened) and teaching others to do the same, maybe just be trying to escape from suffering all the time and be having ambitions to become famous teachers, especially world teachers. I think a truly egoless individual will actually drop all these and retire and not worry about others, himself and not having enough money. Again my idea.
You are the 'world', you must transcend yourself,
yourself is the polluted world of your present meaning, insecure and non-peaceful, non-certain even of life the next minute.
You live, only to transcend that impure 'yourself' and open to a more 'clarified' version of 'yourself'. If you live to be 120 you will still need to do this, as long as 'yourself' is entangled in the pollutions of this present state of creation.
You want to say, but, everything is already perfect!, why not I?
The reality is that you are and it is, 'perfect', when you get there.
Where is 'there'? It is within you, within the seed that you are, it is the full blown reality of your meaning, yourself finally in full bloom, every day is closer, unless you don't eat the right food and go backwards.
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yourself is the polluted world of your present meaning, insecure and non-peaceful, non-certain even of life the next minute.
You live, only to transcend that impure 'yourself' and open to a more 'clarified' version of 'yourself'. If you live to be 120 you will still need to do this, as long as 'yourself' is entangled in the pollutions of this present state of creation.
You want to say, but, everything is already perfect!, why not I?
The reality is that you are and it is, 'perfect', when you get there.
Where is 'there'? It is within you, within the seed that you are, it is the full blown reality of your meaning, yourself finally in full bloom, every day is closer, unless you don't eat the right food and go backwards.
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