You are absolutely right, Cleric, there are so many pitfalls and distorted ways in nondual practices. You are right, some meditative states are very seductive for the lower self. Especially in the Advaitic practices where the self-enquiry goes through the "I am That" thinking path, the pitfall is to associate the sense of lower self ("I am") with the Self of all ("That"), and this would be a big cognitive mistake that many Advaita practitioners actually fall into. It basically leads to a self-inflated super-narcistic state of "I am God". The "I am That" is supposed to be understood in a different way: "I am That, you are That, they are That, everything is That". Buddhism takes a safer path, and before proceeding to realize the Self, goes through a practice of realization of the falsity of the lower self (the practice of "anatta"="no self") and a falsity of any self-identification in general. We usually associate our sense of self with our identity, and it is crucial to realize that any kind of identification is a false premise. Christ's teaching (if understood from nondual perspective) also goes through a safer path and approaches the Oneness with the Father through the denial of the lower self ("Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.").Cleric K wrote: ↑Wed Feb 01, 2023 1:32 pm Eugene, a question about the latest meditation you posted on the other thread. I'm writing here because it fits the topic better.
I'm sure you know that the affirmation "I'm indestructible and changeless", if taken one-sidedly becomes something very seductive to the lower self. So the question really is what is changeless?
I know that you are aware of all this and my question is what are your methods to counteract this danger? For example, the fact the Eugene in this present incarnation feels certain sympathies and antipathies about reincarnation obviously cannot be a part of the changeless aspect because what we call incarnation doesn't even exist in the higher strata of being (where there's only transformation). When you meditate, what are the countermeasures to be taken in order to avoid mistaking the changeless aspect of the essential being with something that is relatively consistent through our present incarnation but at the scale of evolution is only a swing of a pendulum far from equilibrium?
But there are many other pitfalls where people get stuck in some weird states of consciousness mistaking them for nondual realization. This is why, as I said above, in the authentic Tibetan Buddhist schools the nondual practices were kept secret and were only passed directly from masters to students who were practicing under the guidance of the masters to avoid these pitfalls. In our days the authentic teachers are very hard to find and get engaged with, and there many false teachers and practices, especially in modern neoadvaita.
Well, this is the key point: it can be actually reached to directly, not asymptotically, right here and now. The Source is That which consciously experiences everything (=Awareness), the Source is that which is ever-present (=Being), That which Thinks and Wills. The infinite potential to Be, to Aware, to Think and to Will is changeless. In our direct experience from our first-person perspective we actually know directly that all forms, phenomena and thoughts are present and consciously experienced, that there is always thinking and willing. This knowledge is direct. We usually associate (identify!) this ability with our lower self and think "it is I, human Eugene, who exists and is aware, who thinks and wills", but this is a cognitive mistake, the Being and Awareness, Thinking and Willing is actually the Source itself. It is right here and now, our conscious experiencing, being (presence), thinking and willing is exactly the Source's conscious experiencing, being/presence, thinking and willing. It's exactly like Meister Eckhart said: “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” We are all Awareness-Being-Thinking-Willing, we are all only made of the Source and only the Source, we have absolutely no mode of existence other than being the Source. It is not "I, a human being Eugene" who is Thinking, willing, Experiencing and Being. We just fooled ourselves and convinced ourselves that it is our lower self that experiences and thinks. We "stole" the Thinking, Willing, Being and Experiencing from the Source and identified our lower self with it pretending to be someone other than the Source. But that is only a stupid idea that we mistake for the truth, it is not what the actual reality of our being is. As a result of this deception, we perceive our lower self as the perceiving "center" of the universe that perceives and experiences the outside world, which is a complete delusion, and form this comes the delusive subject-object split. It is actually the other way around: it is our sense of lower self (which is nothing more than a thought-feeling) that is produced by the Source's ability to Think and experienced by the Source's ability to consciously experience forms (=Awareness). Once this delusion is recognized and removed in our mind like a veil, the reality can now be seen directly as it is - a flow of phenomena and forms, a spiritual activity of Thinking and Willing, all happening in the unlimited space of Source's Consciousness which is the same everywhere in every individuated soul, and we are now directly at the point of the Source (or, more precisely, the Source recognized Itself in our individuated stream of Its Consciousness). But not from its Cosmic perspective, only from its "localized"/individuated perspective, but fundamentally it makes no difference because it is still the same Source in a full existential sense. So, the key is that it is not that we as separate beings asymptotically approaching the point of Source in order to "merge" with the Source, it is a simple realization that we have never been apart from the Source and never been anything/anyone other than the Source, and that the existence as someone other than the Source was just a false idea in the first place, just a delusion. So, once we drop this delusion, what remains is just the direct knowledge of the Source being Itself and being Aware of its own Awareness and own Being in our individuated stream of Thinking.So when we understand things in this way, our changeless being is really something that can be only asymptotically approached towards the point of Source, which is the eternal and infinite potential of Being that lives in all beings.
So now, regarding the distinguishing "changeless" from changing content that can be mistaken as "changeless". The Source's Being is changeless, it cannot not to Be. Its Awareness (which is the same as awareness of the flow of our conscious experience) is changeless, it cannot not to be Aware. It's Thinking ability is changeless, it cannot not to be able to Think. But everything else (including our sense of lower self and identification, of perceiving the world as objects and subject) is a content of Source's awareness that is changing, even though some aspects of that may seem to be relatively constant. Surely, the is ideal content shared between individuated activities, and so it can be said to be "changeless" in its own Platonic way so to speak, so we can also call the Source as the "Idea" as long as we make a distinction between the "coherent" shared content of the Idea from its incoherent content. (And the dualistic delusion is surely a part of its incoherent content).
Another key is not to associate nondual (so-called) "state" with a meditative or seductive state and not to become attached to it (which subconsciously will become a shortcut and something to grab on for the lower-self ego). Nondual realization is not really some king of a blissful state, it's a simple experiential realization of the Source being Aware of Itself here and now in "our" individuated stream of spiritual activity, being Aware of its own changeless Being and Awareness, and of the whole world being a stream of forms in the same One Source's Consciousness. So, when this realization is discovered and become present in our stream of Thinking, this is called "nondual state". But any sense of "bliss" that we may feel is not changeless, it is only a byproduct of this realization. So, in a way, that is why it is called realization of "pure Consciousness" to distinguish its changeless aspect from the ever-changing content (not because the content makes it in any way "impure", but it's just a linguistic idiom not to be taken literally). So, the nondual realization is not a "bliss" to become attached to, but it is simply adhering to the truth of the Source directly knowing Itself as Itself and abandoning a self-deception when we (the individuated spiritual activities of the Source) pretend and believe to be separate from the Source (which is actually just an incoherent thought appearing in the Source's awareness).
That's a fair question. Of course, reincarnation is not a changeless aspect, it indeed has no existence in the higher strata of being. Incarnation is just a specific relatively consistent pattern that our stream of thinking is shaped with (so it is not "changeless" in a full sense, but still has some temporary lawful structures and consistency shaping the thinking). However, the dualistic state is a falsity, and realization of Oneness of everything with the Source is the realization of Truth. Then, what is a point of being in a state of such self-delusion? What is the point of the thinking being shaped with this falsity pattern and relentlessly returning to the same falsity pattern? And if a form of incarnation (such as human) forces these false thinking patterns and memory-erases the true thinking pattern at the moment of birth, then there is a natural reason to avoid it. As I said before, abiding in Truth is not an egoic preference, not a "sympathy", and avoidance of falsity is not an "antipathy" of a lower self. In summary, the Source acts through its individuated spiritual activities, and some of them fall into a false state of thinking by believing to be someone else (separate lower self) other that the Source itself. That is a "spiritual insanity", and recovering and further avoiding of this insanity is a natural and lawful process in the Source's Thinking, which includes avoiding specific incarnations and forms that force the thinking pattern to fall into such insanity.For example, the fact the Eugene in this present incarnation feels certain sympathies and antipathies about reincarnation obviously cannot be a part of the changeless aspect because what we call incarnation doesn't even exist in the higher strata of being (where there's only transformation).
It can be compared with taking a hallucinogen drug that forcefully puts the mind into a psychotic state. Why would a person in a sane state of mind do that? I mean. it may be ok to do it once just to have such experience, but what's the point of doing it over and over again (other than getting stuck in an addiction)?
See, you are now looking at this nondual practice and you rightly noticed how actually difficult it is to reach to this point of Source realization, how many delusive pitfalls there are on the path, how clever and manipulative is the subconscious ego trying to "privatize" all our realizations, grab on to the blissful meditative states and become the "enlightened ego", and that is all true. It just shows how deeply we are immersed in this dualistic insanity in our human form and human mind patterns. It indeed takes extraordinary move to break through this bubble of dualistic egoic self-delusion. And even after the breakthrough the older egoic patterns continue to forcefully shape out thinking in its habitual delusive ways, even though we can now see "through" these delusive patterns from another nondual perspective of a higher level of thinking. But once we break it, what is the point of falling back into the enclosed bubble state again and again in the next incarnations? But OK, sorry, I keep coming back to the reincarnation issue, and let's put it aside for now and leave it for the discretion of each soul.
And, I think I said that before, but just to emphasize. Recovering from dualistic delusion in no way stops or impedes our evolution as individuated spiritual activities of the Source, it actually catalyzes it in new ways because it liberates it from handicapped state of dualistic delusion. There is still a huge realm of dynamic polarities and lawful structures, forms and ideas, hierarchical levels of cognition to explore, develop and know. It is just that this "realm" (which is a state or mode of thinking) is free from the delusion of duality. (In the Buddhist tradition this mode is called "enlightened activity")
Disclaimer: I know, my explanations are probably confusing and have many inconsistencies, I'm not a teacher of nonduality, so please take them with a grain of salt and discernment.
