Meditation exercise on "separate me"

[Stranger]

For example, sorry Federica for using you as an example , in this message she said:
"Yes, this is one and the same meaning: when we say self-reflecting quality of thinking, this only means one thing to me: the sense of "I" is there. Similarly, once there is a sense of being a subject of experience, there is inevitably also a sense of object. They are indissociable." This is a very accurate description of exactly how we humans perceive the world as a duality of subjects and objects (= dualistic mode). But this is not how nondual beings perceive the reality. So, in order to be in the "constructive interference" mode with them, we ourselves need first of all to transcend this subject-object duality.

Correct, Eugene? But that was page 18! This is page 23, and so much has been reprocessed since then

Well, if you really reprocessed that and you are now free form the subject-object duality, then accept my congratulations. But 99.999% of humanity is still not, and if you are also still not, then it is a problem, because how can you correctly practice SS and still carry all this baggage of dualistic incoherent perception and interpretation of reality?

But of course, this does not happen overnight, but it is rather a gradual and long path, a process of sacrificing and recycling all elements of our human cognitive-behavioral structure that is incoherent with reality. The only thing I am saying is that consistently working on the sacrificing the dualistic elements of our human structure needs to be part of the process of this work.

[AshvinP]

In your previous post, you mentioned the living detail of an apple on a table. You were responding to Cleric about the living details of the imaginative perceptual reality which would manifest on the Jupiter reincarnation of Earth. Everyone here knows that the perceptual spectrum is not some free-floating reality independent of Ideas - in fact the entire purpose of entering the living details is to flesh out the inutition of how they are intimately related within our evolving individual-collective experience. So what is the purpose of your post and the comparison between the two?

My comment was just about the Imaginative nature of any manifested reality and it was not particularly a comment on the Jupiter reincarnation on Earth.

PS - attaining the Middle Way or balance is not by reinforcing the perceived duality between details/structures of reality and 'nature of reality', but by progressively realizing how they are One and the same. The process of unveiling the former should become united with the process of understanding the latter. If we imagine them as two separate processes, two separate avenues of investigation, then we are reinforcing the duality and oscillating between the polar extremes instead of harmonizing them via the Middle Way.

That is exactly right, we need to follow a harmonized approach as part of the same process.

OK, so isn't the critical part of this harmonized approach the investigation of how the Intuitive, Inspired, and Imaginative nature of reality becomes objectively manifested reality? I'm not speaking of an abstract model of various beings creating genetic structures which create dualistic perception and what not, but something much more akin to Cleric's various posts on the rhythmic cycles of manifestation which we can locate throughout our individual and collective experience of becoming. Shouldn't we move on from the broad realizations about the 'imaginative nature of any manifested reality' to this living phenomenology of the imaginative process by which specified realities, both 'past' and 'future', are manifested within our present stream of becoming?

For ex., if we have an ideal to buy a house, our present thinking states of being begin to unfold in a certain direction, along a certain curvature, towards that ideal. They start to revolve around how to save money and build credit, good neighborhoods for homes, types of architecture and furniture for homes, interior design, etc. One can rightly say we have constrained our thinking into certain curvatures from the unbounded sea of potential by recognizing this ideal, but it would be an error to suggest that is making us less free. We are steered along curvatures towards ideals regardless of whether we are aware of them or not, whether we are consciously choosing them or not. It is precisely by becoming active in that steering towards ideals that we find greater and greater degrees of freedom in our spiritual activity. By finding these greater DoF, we can manifest the Oneness in more pliable forms of the world for the benefit of not only ourselves as perceived 'soul-atoms', but the Human and Cosmic whole.

So do you agree that these investigative efforts are critical to the harmonized approach and, if so, are you interested in making them? Let's also be clear that much of these living details we are speaking of now are not familiar to you. It is simply inconceivable that you already knew them and they are completely familiar, akin to some other details of the normal sensory-conceptual spectrum. That needs to be established if any progress is to be made. Most of the living details are also unfamiliar to me as well, and that's only natural, but we can't make any progress if we assume they are already known or akin to that which we already know. If we don't feel like we are being prompted towards profound insights and revelations when approaching these details, then something is off. Most likely we are abstracting and reducing them into familiar conceptual templates.

[Stranger]

OK, so isn't the critical part of this harmonized approach the investigation of how the Intuitive, Inspired, and Imaginative nature of reality becomes objectively manifested reality? I'm not speaking of an abstract model of various beings creating genetic structures which create dualistic perception and what not, but something much more akin to Cleric's various posts on the rhythmic cycles of manifestation which we can locate throughout our individual and collective experience of becoming. Shouldn't we move on from the broad realizations about the 'imaginative nature of any manifested reality' to this living phenomenology of the imaginative process by which specified realities, both 'past' and 'future', are manifested within our present stream of becoming?
So do you agree that these investigative efforts are critical to the harmonized approach and, if so, are you interested in making them? Let's also be clear that much of these living details we are speaking of now are not familiar to you. It is simply inconceivable that you already knew them and they are completely familiar, akin to some other details of the normal sensory-conceptual spectrum. That needs to be established if any progress is to be made. Most of the living details are also unfamiliar to me as well, and that's only natural, but we can't make any progress if we assume they are already known or akin to that which we already know. If we don't feel like we are being prompted towards profound insights and revelations when approaching these details, then something is off. Most likely we are abstracting and reducing them into familiar conceptual templates.

I absolutely agree that these investigative details are critical, and I am interested in making them. I do not claim that I already know them, I am a beginner on this path and I'm following Clerics writings, but as a beginner I do not have much to elaborate or add. I am indeed very interested in phenomenological understanding of how the Intuitive, Inspired, and Imaginative aspects of reality become objectively (or more precisely, inter-subjective) manifested reality.

[Federica]

For example, sorry Federica for using you as an example , in this message she said:
"Yes, this is one and the same meaning: when we say self-reflecting quality of thinking, this only means one thing to me: the sense of "I" is there. Similarly, once there is a sense of being a subject of experience, there is inevitably also a sense of object. They are indissociable." This is a very accurate description of exactly how we humans perceive the world as a duality of subjects and objects (= dualistic mode). But this is not how nondual beings perceive the reality. So, in order to be in the "constructive interference" mode with them, we ourselves need first of all to transcend this subject-object duality.

Correct, Eugene? But that was page 18! This is page 23, and so much has been reprocessed since then

Well, if you really reprocessed that and you are now free form the subject-object duality, then accept my congratulations. But 99.999% of humanity is still not, and if you are also still not, then it is a problem, because how can you correctly practice SS and still carry all this baggage of dualistic incoherent perception and interpretation of reality?

But of course, this does not happen overnight, but it is rather a gradual and long path, a process of sacrificing and recycling all elements of our human cognitive-behavioral structure that is incoherent with reality. The only thing I am saying is that consistently working on the sacrificing the dualistic elements of our human structure needs to be part of the process of this work.

Day by day, little step by little step (and oftentimes zero-stride steps, and sometimes backward steps) from within my object-subject duality, aka from within my current human nature, trying to own it in a more conscious way, rather than trying to step out of it and leave it behind as non recyclable waste-product of idealized spiritual evolution. Heliocentrically, if it makes any sense. Not in a parallel movement of rejection, not in spacial other-ness, but finding the depth right where I am here and now, finding the intersection and digging there.

Your last sentence could work, but the way you are using it is as a protection, rather than as a living recommendation that you yourself offer from the inside.

[Stranger]

Day by day, little step by little step (and oftentimes zero-stride steps, and sometimes backward steps) from within my object-subject duality, aka from within my current human nature, trying to own it in a more conscious way, rather than trying to step out of it and leave it behind as non recyclable waste-product of idealized spiritual evolution. Heliocentrically, if it makes any sense. Not in a parallel movement of rejection, not in spacial other-ness, but finding the depth right where I am here and now, finding the intersection and digging there.

Right, that's the way, but some necessary steps involve phenomenological investigation of these dualistic mechanisms and discovering their incoherence with reality, and then practically trying to continuously sacrifice/recycle them in order the restructure the perceptual mechanism and clean it from these incoherent perceptions while staying where you are here and now.

[Federica]

Day by day, little step by little step (and oftentimes zero-stride steps, and sometimes backward steps) from within my object-subject duality, aka from within my current human nature, trying to own it in a more conscious way, rather than trying to step out of it and leave it behind as non recyclable waste-product of idealized spiritual evolution. Heliocentrically, if it makes any sense. Not in a parallel movement of rejection, not in spacial other-ness, but finding the depth right where I am here and now, finding the intersection and digging there.

Right, that's the way, but some necessary steps involve phenomenological investigation of these dualistic mechanisms and discovering their incoherence with reality, and then practically trying to continuously sacrifice/recycle them in order the restructure the perceptual mechanism and clean it from these incoherent perceptions while staying where you are here and now.

This comment too, it could work, formally, but the way you are using it is as a protection, rather than as a living recommendation that you yourself offer from the inside. Because when you speak of "incoherence with reality" you point to an abstract stepping aside, rather than an integration, right? Leaving the dualistic structure "behind", that is your desire-first approach, that commands everything else.

[Stranger]

This comment too, it could work, formally, but the way you are using it is as a protection, rather than as a living recommendation that you yourself offer from the inside. Because when you speak of "incoherence with reality" you point to an abstract stepping aside, rather than an integration, right? Leaving the dualistic structure "behind", that is your desire-first approach, that commands everything else.

I already gave an analogy of a child crawling and then learning to walk. We need to re-learn to perceive the reality in a coherent nondual way the same way a child re-learns their movements when they learn to walk and "leave behind" their crawling way to move. This re-learning is a living practice, not an "abstract stepping aside" (I don't even know what it means, how do you "step aside" from yourself ). Also, that is not first approach, but something that needs to be practiced along with other practices of SS.

[Stranger]

[Stranger]

"Since the oblivion came into existence because the Father was not known, then if the Father comes to be known, oblivion will not exist from that moment on.
Since the deficiency came into existence because the Father was not known, then if the Father comes to be known, deficiency will not exist from that moment on.
It is with Unity that each one will attain himself; within knowledge he will purify himself from multiplicity into Unity, consuming matter within himself like fire, and darkness by light, death by life"
The Gospel of Truth (Nag-Hammdi library)

[lorenzop]

The philosophy I tend to agree with is: Neti Neti . . . . not this, not that.

Neti-neti comes from the Advaita and the purpose of Neti-neti in the Advaitic practice is not to come to a point of a complete nihilism, but to discover the "invariant' aspect of reality what is left after going through all possible neti-neti with respect to whatever you can identify as "variable" part.

So, applying this neti-neti method, can you neti-neti the very existence? Can you prove that such thing as nonexistence exists? Can you actually ever experience nonexistence? Likewise, can you neti-neti your awareness - your very the ability to consciously experience? Can you prove that such thing as non-experiencing exists? Can you actually ever consciously experience the absence of conscious experience to prove that it exists?

My immediate response is that your above is just semantics (there's that word again) - - - A few points:
Your question: "Can you actually ever experience nonexistence?" sounds cool, but it's nonsense, isn't it?.
A 'proof' is nothing more that a temporary satisfaction of mind with a series of thoughts . . . there is nothing inherent to a proof other than this satisfaction . . . so I choose not respond to questions of proof, and I don't offer proofs.
Existence is not a property one can add to a 'substance', nor is non-existence a property one can add.
Neti Neti doesn't claim that there is not existence, only that any positive claim re what reality is, will lead to a contradiction or conflicting data, etc.