2007-04-30

...what is “me”?

Grim and I had a “misunderstanding” last night. And this sutra did partly annoy me. Half of the sutra talks of philosophers so it is difficult to see what is actually relevant to the path. It is like trying to find the needle in the haystack. Too much noice around what is important.

Then grim starts to talk about body and its perceptions. That it is “not as it seems”. God, I hate that expression. That is where Eddie got pissed at me too. Why can´t they see that I´m not trapped in bodysenses? Sure, it is “my” host and that what is “me” hurts by feelings and stuff, but only as they relate to the body. Not as they relate to what is really me. The body relay all emotions to “me”. And I am aware of its struggle. But that does not mean I believe “I” am the body or it´s senses. What is “me” has nothing to do with the body, other than it is “my” host. And therefore an interaction takes place.

How frustrating! I take things for what they are and people always put old dogmas into my face. I want to learn about what is beyond the body, that what I feel is me, not about how body works. The body and its senses will dissolve, “I” will not. Not at this time! “I” will keep the memories of the body. Much later it will it dissolves into the Universal mind and takes the memories with it. But that is just memories, like remembering the snake I saw yesterday.

Grim has read too many books and are trapped in various systems. And keeps talking. I can´t devide “myself” into pieces. I can only grow as a whole. He has not noticed that I´m not beleiving that I am the body. As I see it, he has to let go of the wrong idéas. At least understand that I don´t work that way. I don´t understand the body and its senses to be “me”. Makes me question wether he truly knows he is not the body? Why does he have the wrong idéa about me? I need to know where I am heading, not where I have already been.

2007-04-29

…is not what you think.

How I hate that expression! When people persists in teaching me the same thing over and over again. Using the same s-t they read in books. I am not a book. I work from a whole, not bits and pieces.

2007-04-25

The Lankavatara Sutra

Chapter Five, The Mind System
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Then Mahamati said to the Blessed One: Pray tell us, Blessed One, what relation ego-personality bears to the mind-system?
-The Blessed One replied: To explain it, it is first necessary to speak of the self-nature of the five grasping aggregates that make up personality, although as I have already shown they are empty, un-born, and without self-nature. These five grasping aggregates are: form, sensation, perception, discrimination, consciousness. Of these, form belongs to what is made of the so-called primary elements, whatever they may be. The four remaining aggregates are without form and ought not to be reckoned as four, because they merge imperceptibly into one another. They are like space, which cannot be numbered; it is only due to imagination that they are discriminated and likened to space. Because things are endowed with appearances of being, characteristic-marks, perceivable-ness, abode, work, one can say that they are born of effect-producing causes, but this cannot be said of these four intangible aggregates for they are without form and marks. These four mental aggregates that make up personality are beyond calculability, they are beyond the four propositions, they are not to be predicated as existing or as not existing, but together they constitute what is known as mortal-mind. They are even more Maya-like and dream-like than are things, nevertheless, as discriminating mortal-mind they obstruct the self-realization of Noble Wisdom. But it is only by the ignorant that they are enumerated and thought of as an ego-personality; the wise do not do so. This discrimination of the five aggregates that make up personality and that serve as a basis for an ego-soul and ground for its desires and self-interests must be given up, and in its place the truth of image-less-ness and solitude should be established.

Then said Mahamati to the Blessed One: Pray tell us, Blessed One, about Universal Mind and its relation to the lower mind-system?
-The Blessed One replied: The sense-minds and their centralized discriminating-mind are related to the external world, which is a manifestation of itself and is given over to perceiving, discriminating, and grasping its Maya-like appearances. Universal Mind (Alaya-Vijnana) transcends all individuation and limits. Universal Mind is thoroughly pure in its essential nature, subsisting unchanged and free from faults of impermanence, undisturbed by egoism, unruffled by distinctions, desires and aversions. Universal Mind is like a great ocean, its surface ruffled by waves and surges but its depths remaining forever unmoved. In itself it is devoid of personality and all that belongs to it, but by reason of the defilements upon its face it is like an actor and plays a variety of parts, among which a mutual functioning takes place and the mind-system arises. The principle of intellection becomes divided and mind the functions of mind, the evil out-flowings of mind, take on individuation. The sevenfold gradation of mind appears: namely, intuitive self-realization, thinking-desiring-discriminating, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and all their interactions and reactions take their rise.
The discriminating-mind is the cause of the sense-minds and is their support and with them is kept functioning as it describes and becomes attached to a world of objects, and then, by means of its habit-energy, it defiles the face of Universal Mind. Thus Universal Mind becomes the storage and clearinghouse of all the accumulated products of mentation and action since beginning-less time.
Between Universal Mind and the individual discriminating-mind is the intuitive-mind (manas), which is dependent upon Universal Mind for its cause and support and enters into relation with both. It partakes of the universality of Universal Mind, shares its purity, and like it, is above form and momentary-ness. It is through the intuitive-mind that the good non out-flowings emerge, are manifested and are realized. Fortunate it is that intuition is not momentary for if the enlightenment, which comes by intuition, were momentary the wise would loose their "wise-ness" which they do not. But the intuitive-mind enters into relations with the lower mind-system, shares its experiences and reflects upon its activities.
Intuitive-mind is one with Universal Mind by reason of its participation in Transcendental Intelligence (Arya-jnana), and is one with the mind-system by its comprehension of differentiated knowledge (Vijnana). Intuitive-mind has no body of its own nor any marks by which it can be differentiated. Universal Mind is its cause and support but it is evolved along with the notion of an ego and what belongs to it, to which it clings and upon which it reflects. Through intuitive-mind, by the faculty of intuition, which is a mingling of both identity and perceiving, the inconceivable wisdom of Universal Mind is revealed and made realizable. Like Universal Mind it cannot be the source of error.
The discriminating mind is a dancer and a magician with the objective world as his stage. Intuitive-mind is the wise jester who travels with the magician and reflects upon his emptiness and transiency. Universal Mind keeps the record and knows what must be and what may be. It is because of the activities of the discrimination mind that error rises and an objective world evolves and the nation of an ego soul becomes established. If and when the discriminating mind can be gotten rid of, the whole mind system will cease to function and universal Mind will alone remain. Getting rid of the discriminating mind removes the cause of all error.

.********************************************
The first part of this sutra mostly made me mad. Lot of blaming and talk about ignorant and simpleminded and clinging as opposite of those wise ones. It disturbed me as everyone is not ment to awaken.

This part however tries to explain how it works. Even if don´t think that a ruffled surface perfect. What they say here is that there is “impurities” in the Universal Mind. And that causes the mind-system to arise, with all that comes with it.

That is actually what science has found in later years. After Big Bang there was small parts where it was more dense then elswhere. Causing the worlds to arise and with them, us. And, to me, this is exactly as I always thought. Put on paper in two different ways.


They do make a lot of effort in structuring life, just to dismiss it. But in this part they actually say that the Universal Mind is the cause that creates us. Yet they claim the Universal Mind is perfect. That part does not match. The whole ideá seem to be to calm things down and make the Universal Mind perfect. But they don´t say it as the Universal Mind is supposed to be perfect in the fist place.

2007-04-18

Dark Night

The Dark Night of The Soul is when you abandon “God” and religion in order to recognize that you are the Universe.

Usually a process that hurts like h-l and takes several years to go through.

2007-04-14

For Grim

I hope you find the treasure at the end of the rainbow.


2007-04-07

True Identity

(on Collections) If my true identity is unchangeable, then why i am in this world ??

Aries981 said:
I believe in simple philosophy, that i am the truth and i am never changing. Well then my question is why i am then in this world. Why i am associated with this body. Is this universe is real ??Please help me in finding answers to these questions..


aries981
IMO the belief has a solid base. And…. the universe is real. There is only one Universe and as such, everything is real. (you just don´t know everything!)

If you want proof you can go to science. What science can´t help you with is how to experience it.
If you take your finger and follow it down the line as far as it goes you will in the end come to that what is unchanging. You first has the skin, then molecules, then atoms, then ….. all the way down to what is the web of the Universe, and science yet has to unfold that. It is the same for all things and all living beings. We can´t exist without it. It is our buildingblocks, the very foundation of what we are.

The same happens for yogis that follow the train of thought and mind. So it appers to be the same Universe no matter what way you follow. And it has to be!

What I can´t tell you is how it works, why that “unchangable” creates us. IF IT REALLY IS UNCHANGEBLE! But that would be hard to find out. Personally I am open to that scenario. It is evolving through us. IMO.

Question arises, grim, if it is unchangeble, why do we grow? Isn´t our growth a result of the Universes own growth? CAN we evolve if the Universe doesn´t? Or are we limited to what already is there?

aries, more questions then answers as it turned out.
my Gallery:
www.oegallery.com/SpiritualNature
Posted: 2007-04-07 06:35:11


2007-04-05

Compressing photo

Have been working with the photo Gallery the past week.

It is funny nowadays how I relate everything to the spiritual.

Now, on that Gallery, all the pictures used as avatar and gallery head and such has to be very small, actually tiny or the system don´t accept them.

So, here I am having this huge problem to make a picture om 4.5 MB into a picture of only 75kB. And that is not all, they have size demands too. Had a picture of Heaptica that I wanted to use as head, but I failed to make it. The picture had a lot of colors and colors makes bytes. So with the size and weight demands It was impossible to do. So, I had to change picture.

Now the following train of thought appered:
To take this beautiful photograph and compress it into that tiny picture and still be ale to see what it is was very hard.

I wonder if it is as hard for the Universe to compress itself and still express its true nature in the human mind.

Following that train of thought:
When I compress the photograph it results in a lot of damage to the photo. It looses most of its delicate information. And it is impossible to restore it to its full glory.


Maybe that is the reason why it is so difficult to awaken. We are not able to restore that lost information.

http://www.oegallery.com/SpiritualNature

2007-04-04

Illusion thread in Collections.

selfseeker asks aurora:
How do you define "Real" & "Existence" ?

Aurora answers:
you said it in the initial post. :)

If you say something is unreal, that is still real. And existence, well, even the void exists. (I skip that multiverse for now, but that would still be just One) As "everything" is connected and there is only one universe everything is real and everything exists.
Posted: 2007-04-04 06:30:54

2007-04-01

Absolute truth...

In thread "Deuteronomy 13" on Collections:
Posted: 2007-03-31 16:06:16

quote chip:
"Absolute truth cannot be known because 'known' is a misnomer. Absolute truth is knowing. And it can't be expressed absolutly.
If anything it will make one ultra liberal for it, ( absolute truth) transcends all relative conditional knowledge, being both the fabric conditional knowledge is written and remaining unstained.
Without parts, it's wholely unconcerned about the conditional squabbles of man over it's characteristics, for it is wholey present and nothing is lost, nothing is destroyed, nothing is harmed, nothing is gained, man bubbles up, man sinks back, stars supernova, and there is not even a blip in man's time measure we call eternity.
This discussion is not absolute truth. Absolute truth exists (present tense) before 'let there be light' before the performance of Tapas, non modifiable by reasoning. It's why all questions whither in it's presence.
This post is also not absolute truth. But it matters less then this comma, for that which is unchangeable won't be affected by it.
say on fellas....
Back to what i was doing, for now, i have the robins to watch and the swaying willows."

quote grim: "It's also why all questions form in its presence."