I think for most people awakening is a slow degrees-wise process, a rheostat rather than an on/off switch, a gradual dawning rather than an ecstatic explosion. Imo huge damage has been done by the endless grand stories of dramatic enlightenment experiences. It fosters magical thinking and sets the kind of expectations that are nearly impossible to achieve, it disillusions and frustrates.
That is, the juicy bits might be as good as it ever gets!
I came on this idea today that the whole ‘spiritual search’ is based on reaching something, ‘becoming’ something, how could it not? ie. I don’t like where I am so I’ll try the ‘one hand clapping’ business and see if that works…
Right, when you explore you investigate whatever happens to present itself, but when you search you investigate that which you are searching for. Exploring is more open-ended than searching. Think upon the difference between exploring the nature of the self and searching for the ultimate Truth about self.
Yes, I think so, too. Sorry if I haven’t made that clear.
So we are saying that we progress towards awakening over time - what do we mean exactly? We are becoming more and more (or less and less) what exactly? Can we describe what this incremental process looks like?
Is looking “at conflict” the same as looking “at yourself” in conflict? If not, then what happens when you look at yourself in conflict? “I wonder how many of you are vitally conscious of this conflict in the battlefield of the mind.” (JK)
I don’t suppose you mean looking at some conflict on TV (out there) vs our experience of resistance, anger, desire etc?
So are you asking whether we are aware that the movement of conflict is the movement of self?
Is looking at “your conflict” the same as looking at “yourself in conflict”? If not, then what?
More and more right/insightful about the nature of being, less and less wrong/ignorant. The grand design is gradually coming into focus, inkling by inkling, or in one fell swoop (rarely).
Self-knowledge takes time. Knowing what the self is and how it operates does not come in a flash, but in partial insights as the brain’s interest in its conditioned response deepens and expands.
I suppose that in the 1st case we are focussing on my thing, and in the 2nd we’re looking at my relationship to the thing?
But its all very tricky, separating all these concepts : me, my stuff, and the rest (ie. the rest of the universe) - surely all these ideas, reactive and confusing as they are, are all happening in my brain?
So we are building up a body of knowledge over time?
How does this knowledge affect us in each instant?
And how can we be so sure about the final outcome - what will happen once our views have been properly honed? How do we imagine its ultimate effect?
The video posted in the ‘Love?’ Thread # 80 is a dialogue from the Ending of Time between JK and DB. It goes deeply into the question of insight and ‘no-division’.
Yes, except for the fact that the brain isn’t “mine” because I, the presumed owner of the brain is a figment of the brain’s imagination.
The organism is the organs that comprise it, the brain is the organizing organ, and the conditioned brain pretends/presumes/believes that the organism is presided over, owned and operated, by I, me; that the brain is “mine”.
The conditioned brain is a believer, a convert, a self-deceiving instrument of an insane society. When it is aware of its condition and the pressure upon it to continue as such, it is aware that it has no choice in the matter, having chosen long ago to operate this way.
This is the state of ignorance / conflict that I live in. Anything I try to do about it…maintains the illusion: the illusion of a do-er separate from the doing, a ‘center’ (me) divided from everything else.
Yes to be more precise “conditioned” is better than “mine”. So maybe I shoud have said : “surely all these ideas, reactive and confusing as they are, are bound to occur as they do?”
Therefore, is looking at “your conflict” the same as looking at “yourself in conflict”?
As I’ve said before, self-knowledge isn’t an accumulation of information. It’s seeing what thought is doing instead of mistaking thoughts for actualities. It’s a series of partial insights that eliminate what isn’t true instead of piling up more “knowledge”.
Maybe you could expand on the matter? what do you mean?
I like to think of the issue as understanding that conflict is the movement of the known or the process of self in action - ie. what I see and how I react to what I see being a relationship with myself in fear.
Noticing that I am caught up in a moment of resistance, anger, greed or whatever, is a chance to be free.
Are we ‘conditioned’ to think that what is happening could be different than what is happening, an undiscovered denial of cause and effect? And if so is that because in memory things may have happened differently in the past and comparing that to what is happening presently creates the illusion (and confusion) that what is happening ‘could’ be different?
I’m asking because the K statement: “I don’t mind what happens” suggests to me that he understood that what is happening IS the only thing that ‘could’ happen in that moment?
And resistance to (‘minding’) it means that the law of cause and effect is not recognized by the conditioned brain?