Can Idealism be without thought?

[Federica]

Notice how already two concepts are implied at this point in addition to the experiential fact of the given that "self-reflective quality of thinking is already there" (which is obviously true). One of these concepts is that there is "we" who are thinking, so, in addition to thinking as a conscious activity, there is a sense-idea of "someone who thinks" behind that activity, and that "someone" is implied as if it is different from "someone who thinks" in other sentient beings. The other concept is that there is an "objective world" of which "we" are having a subjective experience.

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.

Try to test these concepts in meditation against your actual direct phenomenal experience and find out if they are true. Can you actually find the "me" who is thinking? No, there is only thinking and the phenomena produced and experienced by thinking. The only "me" you can find is a sense-idea of "me". But wait, isn't this sense-idea is a phenomenon itself? Of course it is a phenomenon, look at it and examine it carefully to see that it is in fact just a phenomenon. But how a phenomenon be the "me" who is thinking and experiencing other phenomena? One phenomenon cannot experience others, they are all equally experienced. So, you can only find self-reflecting thinking, but you cannot actually find the thinker. So here we are making a cognitive mistake confusing the "one who actually thinks" with the sense-idea-phenomenon of the "one who thinks".

There is a leap in this train of thoughts/the perception of experience you describe. The reconstruction of what's going on is this: when we hear the perspective initially, it calls us, it feels beneficial in many ways. In theory there’s been a millisecond when we could have realized that pull, but once we have let that sense of YES enter our soul, it’s so enormously difficult to bring it to light. And so before we know it, we are actively applying ourselves to build up a reasoning that supports it, and to find all the experiential confirmations of that sense in order to secure our new, unhoped-for, blissful sense. I am familiar with what you describe. As I said before, I did a few such meditations. Phenomenologically, it's true that you can dive, and completely immerse yourself, and dissolve yourself in the quality of thought. Through that sense, it's reasonable to conclude that the thought is real and we are the illusion that has to disappear completely in it, just as it has arisen from it. And if it doesn’t come naturally, it’s because the sense of self is so strongly culturally conditioned. Naturally, we can go on and on selecting the reasonable impressions that support this sense.
But how reliable this whole endeavor really is, when looked at uncompromisingly and holistically? In reality the sense of self is there, Eugene, only very well hidden inside the powerful thinking flow. The way to unmask it (if we dare to try) is at the exact moment when we say "I can't find it". We can find it indeed: our self is there, it's recognizable as our Will. There is an initiative that expresses itself (inevitably!) in thoughts, and that is only, exclusively, and unseparably ours. There is no way around it’s been there all the time. It can’t be made to disappear in the thought matter. It is willed thinking that actively decides to willingly subside and to feel how it feels to abandon oneself to the enormous relief of a no-thought possibility. Can you try for a moment to give this sense of enormous relief the right recognition it deserves? Because it is the main energy driving the whole process.
I found this same issue in the video you shared. I do understand its appeal. Not only do I understand it, but I also feel it. And I feel how it gives the heart a lift, a relief, a welcomed soft wrapping, so to say. But it is also evident in the structure of the speech how much leverage is obtained through the power of feelings, and how logic is kept outside in the train of arguments. It's natural to hope that beyond our most terrible fear there is the sweet liberation of abandoning ourselves to emptiness, letting the tension cease, and the worrying, and the restless doing. In the video it’s (also) a known psychological mechanism, which is demonstrated, probably in good faith, I would guess. But we need to be very very careful and separate all the soul influences that express themselves in feelings (as I wrote to Lorenzo) because we rarely are on top of them in full consciousness. We rarely master them. It's very tricky terrain. Playing hard with our unconscious. So it's necessary to make ourselves stronger than that powerful call.

[Stranger]

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.

Not necessarily, the sense-reflecting of thinking in a "pure" sense of it is a reflection of thinking directly to itself, which is thinking directly experiencing thinking without involving any sense of "me". Similarly, this applies to "subject-object": if you remove the sense-idea of "object", what will be left is a bare subjective experience of a phenomenon which is inseparable from the direct conscious experiencing of it. There is actually no "object" there, but we project our subconscious sense of "object" on top of any phenomenological experience. But you are absolutely right, in our default mode of perception the sense of "me" and "object" are automatically and always there on autopilot, they are so deeply buried in our subconscious process of perception that we just take it for granted. As Adya said, "this is how complete the fiction became"

There is a leap in this train of thoughts/the perception of experience you describe. The reconstruction of what's going on is this: when we hear the perspective initially, it calls us, it feels beneficial in many ways. In theory there’s been a millisecond when we could have realized that pull, but once we have let that sense of YES enter our soul, it’s so enormously difficult to bring it to light. And so before we know it, we are actively applying ourselves to build up a reasoning that supports it, and to find all the experiential confirmations of that sense in order to secure our new, unhoped-for, blissful sense. I am familiar with what you describe. As I said before, I did a few such meditations. Phenomenologically, it's true that you can dive, and completely immerse yourself, and dissolve yourself in the quality of thought. Through that sense, it's reasonable to conclude that the thought is real and we are the illusion that has to disappear completely in it, just as it has arisen from it. And if it doesn’t come naturally, it’s because the sense of self is so strongly culturally conditioned. Naturally, we can go on and on selecting the reasonable impressions that support this sense.
But how reliable this whole endeavor really is, when looked at uncompromisingly and holistically? In reality the sense of self is there, Eugene, only very well hidden inside the powerful thinking flow. The way to unmask it (if we dare to try) is at the exact moment when we say "I can't find it". We can find it indeed: our self is there, it's recognizable as our Will. There is an initiative that expresses itself (inevitably!) in thoughts, and that is only, exclusively, and unseparably ours. There is no way around it’s been there all the time. It can’t be made to disappear in the thought matter. It is willed thinking that actively decides to willingly subside and to feel how it feels to abandon oneself to the enormous relief of a no-thought possibility. Can you try for a moment to give this sense of enormous relief the right recognition it deserves? Because it is the main energy driving the whole process.
I found this same issue in the video you shared. I do understand its appeal. Not only do I understand it, but I also feel it. And I feel how it gives the heart a lift, a relief, a welcomed soft wrapping, so to say. But it is also evident in the structure of the speech how much leverage is obtained through the power of feelings, and how logic is kept outside in the train of arguments. It's natural to hope that beyond our most terrible fear there is the sweet liberation of abandoning ourselves to emptiness, letting the tension cease, and the worrying, and the restless doing. In the video it’s (also) a known psychological mechanism, which is demonstrated, probably in good faith, I would guess. But we need to be very very careful and separate all the soul influences that express themselves in feelings (as I wrote to Lorenzo) because we rarely are on top of them in full consciousness. We rarely master them. It's very tricky terrain. Playing hard with our unconscious. So it's necessary to make ourselves stronger than that powerful call.

It is indeed a very tricky terrain, not for the faint of heart. Again, thanks for your thoughtful approach. So, a few points here:

- You are right that we need to examine the Will and similarly see how it is related to our sense of self. If you already advanced in these meditations so that you can temporarily turn off or at least dis-identify from your sense of self, but now, examine not just thoughts of percepts, but also willing gestures, you may discover that actually the willing gestures are not at all related to the sense of self. This is a very weird experience and discovery which may be quite disorienting at first, but eventually, if we train the will to work in this mode, it leads to a fully functional state of perceiving, thinking and willing without involvement of any sense of self. Usually though, on the initial and intermediate stages, the sense of self is still there, but there is no identification with it and it is experienced as just another phenomenon (idea-feeling) in the flow of conscious phenomena of spiritual activity. Eventually, when the sense of self is dissolved, it is experienced as an active and fully functional spiritual activity within a purely subjective experience without any sense of the "me-the-owner" of it.

- This has nothing to do with "emptiness" in a sense of being empty of thoughts, feelings or willing acts. As Adya said, it is "full of reality, absolutely full of the Divine, but empty of self". This is exactly what "emptiness" means in the Buddhist tradition: emptiness of the sense-idea of the presence of the "self of me" behind the acts of thinking, feeling and willing, and the sense-idea of the presence of "objects" behind the consciously experienced phenomena (thoughts, feelings, precepts).

- In these practices it is very important not to cling to any sense of blissfulness, even though this bliss will accompany these meditations on a regular basis. We should simply ignore it and treat it as just another feeling-phenomenon without identifying with it or clinging to it. We are doing this to find the truth of who we actually are, and to spiritually evolve, not to experience "bliss" and not to escape from anything. This is actually a real spiritual science. The sense of bliss is actually very natural, because it is like a sense of relief when you carry a heavy luggage for a long time, and then drop it. Likewise, we carry this luggage of "me" with all its related self-centered fears, unsatisfied desires, frustrations, narcistic or demeaning images of ourselves, and then we drop it all and naturally feel relief and freedom and the feeling of connectedness to the Cosmos, because that luggage was filling our mind with its stuff all the time and preventing us to see the World as it is in its beauty. But that does not mean that those self-centered fears, unsatisfied desires, frustrations, narcistic or demeaning images of ourselves will suddenly disappear, no, these thinking patterns have a lot of karmic inertia and will only very slowly dissolve over years of practice, but the key is that, once the dis-identification from them happens, they lose their grip, ownership and driving seat in our psyche, so they do not have a mechanism to self-sustain themselves by feeding on our emotional energy.

- A psychiatrist may tell you that this is just a well-known in psychiatry, but in this case self-induced, syndrome of derealization-depersonalization (DRDP). However, I already mentioned big differences somewhere else: the disidentification from and eventual dissolution of the sense of "self" and "object" is only a first and, so-to-speak, "negative" part of the process, it is like removing the "veil" of looking at the world through the sense of "self" and "objects". For people suffering from DRDP, they still believe that the sense of self and reality of objects should be there, and so they feel lost and disoriented when they cannot find it. Also, they perceive the world as mechanical, dry, distanced and feeling-less and have many other negative side effects of the DRDP. But this is not at all how the world is experienced in the nondual state: it is experienced as vivid, alive, "full of the Divine", and many other of high-cognition intuitive and inspirational experiences that may sound very "flowery" and esoteric, like "Divine Love" for example of "Divine Compassion". It is like you remove black-and-white glasses and see the world in its primordial beauty. So, I studied the DRDP and found that the actual symptoms and effects of the DRDP are quite different, even though the loos of the sense of self and objects is common, which makes me think that the actual mechanism of cognition is still very different. Maybe a psychiatrist would classify it as a "highly-functional DRDP" similar to Asperger's "highly-functional autism", but I'm sure they never had chance to meet such people as patients .

Again, if you find it too confusing, disorienting or just not working for you, then please do not do it. But if you are courageous and spiritually-scientifically driven to get to the bottom of it, then you might keep going deeper.

[Federica]

Not necessarily, the sense-reflecting of thinking in a "pure" sense of it is a reflection of thinking directly to itself, which is thinking directly experiencing thinking without involving any sense of "me". Similarly, this applies to "subject-object": if you remove the sense-idea of "object", what will be left is a bare subjective experience of a phenomenon which is inseparable from the direct conscious experiencing of it. There is actually no "object" there, but we project our subconscious sense of "object" on top of any phenomenological experience. But you are absolutely right, in our default mode of perception the sense of "me" and "object" are automatically and always there on autopilot, they are so deeply buried in our subconscious process of perception that we just take it for granted. As Adya said, "this is how complete the fiction became"

Well,it’s like a dog chasing its own tail - what comes first? You say, the experience of pure subjectivity comes first. I say, it starts with a desire for an experience of pure subjectivity. I think the most straightforward way to recognize this is a floating concept, a feeling-driven desire with no complete experiential support (only appropriately selected fragmentary support) is to consider the subject-object negation you have laid out above. A pondered, inquisitive, experience-based look has to recognize: "No, sorry, this really cannot stand. This can only be the expression of a preordained desire".

This should be easy to acknowledge, but it’s not, when we have invested so much in a given approach - emotionally, intellectually, practically - that the felt sunk-cost has grown so huge by now. The more we invest our efforts, energy, pride, and whole identity in one direction, the more we cut bridges behind us, and with these, the possibility to consider things with uncompromised eyes. Definitely, if we could press pause, look behind and examine the steps taken, instead of stubbornly throwing ourselves ahead with restless determination (I am choosing my words, I can feel your restless determination) the benefits would manifest and would overcompensate for the huge investments already made. The investments would be turned into the biggest win. But it's exceedingly hard to take that inner reorientation. In my case, it’s not that I had extraordinary strength. It’s rather that I was blessed, for reasons that are not clear to me, with a steady sense of “the trick” in the no-self approach (and yes I see the dialectical way you could turn this around at your appearing advantage).

We can observe this sunk-cost phenomenon constantly at work in behavioral economics, for example - not the science, but the reality of socio-economic human behavior. If you don't want to look at psychology/psychoanalysis/psychiatry we can look at the inbuilt irrationality of human behavior. For example, we can observe how investors resist disengaging from a certain investment position on the market, even when unequivocal information becomes available to them that they should disinvest. We all fall prey to this trick. The exclusive reason for "persisting" is that disinvesting should force us to admit we have acted mistakenly based on wrong assessments. And this is hard to take in. And so we prefer to freeze and stick to our position. We irrationally postpone the "moment of truth", even if we know that its probability is overwhelmingly positive! But we trick ourselves with all sorts of arguments and prefer to face huge losses rather than to acknowledge our fears. We say to ourselves, very conveniently: true courage is to stay there!

Similar occurrences can be observed in all aspects of life, in negotiations in the broadest sense, in exchanges like the ones we have on this forum, in our inner dialogues. The reason for this irrational processing is that our discernment is constantly mixed-up with desires and feelings that are not fully under our control, and not even under the scope of our conscious awareness. Fear, pride, disappointment, and more. It’s also basically the same mechanism playing out when we are paralyzed in the face of a sudden imminent danger. Then we experience this same primordial urge “is there a way to not take action here, to stop the film, dismiss the whole thing, and just do nothing, just like that, so that I don’t have to face this?” Let's remember we are at the adolescent phase of our human evolution! This urge is an attempt to paradoxically disengage by staying, but becoming still. An image for this could be that of the exhausted boxer taking a mental and physical time-out, a few moments of stillness, by rushing in the arms of the adversary. That’s too close for the fight to continue. I don’t think it’s a saying in English, but in other languages there’s the expression “escaping ahead” rather than away.

But in the midst of these ingrained, limiting human behaviors, we are fortunate that spiritual science has made itself known to us, showing us the only way to reset the steps in the right order. Then we can make sure to grow out of our own self-sabotaging behavior. We can stop the waste of our potential, that in fact is not ours, and that we don’t have the right to waste. But there must be an initial will-sparkle. If not, then we will stay true to our trusted investments no matter what, directed by the heavy weight of the sunk-costs of our past, and we will calm ourselves with seemingly inclusive thoughts of the type "Whatever path works for you is fine (but I am one of the more evolved early adopters on the right path)".

[Cleric K]

From this quote in particular, it even seems that the process of abstraction also ("projecting the meaning of the state into words") is set on the no-self side of thinking. But this I would admit is not totally clear to me, because later I understand you mean that abstraction is precisely the sign that active thinking and sense of self have come in. But whichever is the correct interpretation of where you were placing abstractions, I doubt, as I said, that we can go through the ready-made concept forming process, and that we can listen to someone else's thoughts, without a sense of self.

Maybe it will help if you consider that at the time the above dialogs were led, the phenomenological approach was much mess established here. When I came to the forum the conversations were still heavily into abstract philosophy, where ontological primaries were debated. In that sense, much of the opposition to the 'self' has been that there's no such metaphysical 'entity'. My responses to Eugene at that time were tailored in such a way that I wanted to show that the phenomenological approach doesn't in the least depend on some metaphysical postulation and belief in some abstract entity 'self'. That's why I emphasized that at no point we have to invent some 'self'. As you say, the intuition of being an active spiritual force is inherent in everything we do.

Not necessarily, the sense-reflecting of thinking in a "pure" sense of it is a reflection of thinking directly to itself, which is thinking directly experiencing thinking without involving any sense of "me". Similarly, this applies to "subject-object": if you remove the sense-idea of "object", what will be left is a bare subjective experience of a phenomenon which is inseparable from the direct conscious experiencing of it. There is actually no "object" there, but we project our subconscious sense of "object" on top of any phenomenological experience. But you are absolutely right, in our default mode of perception the sense of "me" and "object" are automatically and always there on autopilot, they are so deeply buried in our subconscious process of perception that we just take it for granted. As Adya said, "this is how complete the fiction became"

This is where the confusion is being bred in my opinion. Modern nondualists take the 'no-me' idea so far that all structure of reality becomes a nebulous cloud. The simple fact is that no matter how enlightened our spiritual perspective is - even if it is in the disincarnate nondual worlds - it always operates within a certain riverbed of structured potential. It is not an illusion to recognize the reality of these constraints.

We simply have to distinguish between contemplating a thought-model of ourselves (our self-image) and our living flow within the riverbed of our being (which is the very fabric of reality). The latter we can think of in images (that's what we do when we call it a 'riverbed'), yet it is not in the least an illusion.

The nondualist recognizes the riverbed of the suit or the virtuoso's instrument and says "I'm not that". That's fine. But the mistake is that it is not recognized that there's finer riverbed alongside the gross physical suit/instrument. If that finer riverbed was to be taken away, there would be no individuated existence. There would be no nondual Eugene that investigates nondual realities after death and decides that there's no reason to incarnate. So there's very definite individual riverbed-worldline even in the higher worlds.

[Stranger]

Well,it’s like a dog chasing its own tail - what comes first? You say, the experience of pure subjectivity comes first. I say, it starts with a desire for an experience of pure subjectivity. I think the most straightforward way to recognize this is a floating concept, a feeling-driven desire with no complete experiential support (only appropriately selected fragmentary support) is to consider the subject-object negation you have laid out above. A pondered, inquisitive, experience-based look has to recognize: "No, sorry, this really cannot stand. This can only be the expression of a preordained desire".

Right, so this is where the "formless" meditation method is useful. If you try to go into a really deep meditative state and stop all phenomena you possibly can, including stopping all desires or expectations for any experiences, what you will find is a bare subjectivity, pure conscious experiencing experiencing itself. But you cannot possibly get rid of the experiencing of this subjectivity, it is invariant of any phenomenal experience. No matter if you have any phenomena (thoughts, feelings, percepts, willings) or not, the subjectivity is still there. Try to experience a state of the absence of conscious subjective experience. Obviously, it is not possible, because in order to experience it, the ability of subjective experiencing must be there to experience it. So, subjectivity is not a "floating concept" and not a "desire", it is the fundamental aspect of reality that makes it possible to have any subjective experience at all. How can you have a "desire for an experience of pure subjectivity" before you have a subjectivity? It is not possible, because you would not be able to experience this desire without subjectivity (=ability to have any subjective experience) being there first.

To summarize, you can remove the sense of self from your phenomenal experience, but you cannot remove the subjectivity (awareness, the very ability to have the subjective experience), because this subjectivity it that which experiences all other phenomena (including the sense of self). Which means that the sense of "self" is not the actual subject that experiences or will, but it is just one of the phenomena experienced by the subjectivity.

But in the midst of these ingrained, limiting human behaviors, we are fortunate that spiritual science has made itself known to us, showing us the only way to reset the steps in the right order. Then we can make sure to grow out of our own self-sabotaging behavior. We can stop the waste of our potential, that in fact is not ours, and that we don’t have the right to waste. But there must be an initial will-sparkle. If not, then we will stay true to our trusted investments no matter what, directed by the heavy weight of the sunk-costs of our past, and we will calm ourselves with seemingly inclusive thoughts of the type "Whatever path works for you is fine (but I am one of the more evolved early adopters on the right path)".

Exactly, and this is what I'm suggesting here - set aside all our biases, desires, fears, and go with spiritual-scientific investigation to find out what is actually going on in the process of our cognition and perception of the world. And once we find any incoherences, the next step is cleaning up and removing them, redeeming and reshaping our cognitive-perceptional mechanism. this is the hard technical work we need to do, it is rather "negative", the work of making a diagnosis of the problem and fixing it.

But there is another part of it, a positive one, and this is reaching up to the higher-order beings and their meanings and spiritual states. But that is only possible with the attitude of sincere openness, prayer and sacrificial attitude towards our de-evolutionary and self-centered desires and interests. If we don't approach it this way, these beings will not let us in, they only accept the should with pure intentions. In the Buddhist tradition, there are guardian spirits called "dakinis" who protect the nondual realms from entering souls that are not ready or not approaching these realms with pure intentions. Likewise, the Bible says:

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)

[Stranger]

This is where the confusion is being bred in my opinion. Modern nondualists take the 'no-me' idea so far that all structure of reality becomes a nebulous cloud. The simple fact is that no matter how enlightened our spiritual perspective is - even if it is in the disincarnate nondual worlds - it always operates within a certain riverbed of structured potential. It is not an illusion to recognize the reality of these constraints.

We simply have to distinguish between contemplating a thought-model of ourselves (our self-image) and our living flow within the riverbed of our being (which is the very fabric of reality). The latter we can think of in images (that's what we do when we call it a 'riverbed'), yet it is not in the least an illusion.

The nondualist recognizes the riverbed of the suit or the virtuoso's instrument and says "I'm not that". That's fine. But the mistake is that it is not recognized that there's finer riverbed alongside the gross physical suit/instrument. If that finer riverbed was to be taken away, there would be no individuated existence. There would be no nondual Eugene that investigates nondual realities after death and decides that there's no reason to incarnate. So there's very definite individual riverbed-worldline even in the higher worlds.

You are right Cleric, but you are again beating a strawman. It is only "reductionist nondualists" that use this approach, and I said many times before that I agree with you that they are doing it wrong. I would roughly describe the "correct" nondual state as "the fullness of the riverbed of our being (the fabric of reality) free of the sense of the reality of "separate me" and "separate objects". Adya actually described it exactly like that in the video: "full of reality, absolutely full of the Divine, but empty of self".

[Federica]

Well,it’s like a dog chasing its own tail - what comes first? You say, the experience of pure subjectivity comes first. I say, it starts with a desire for an experience of pure subjectivity. I think the most straightforward way to recognize this is a floating concept, a feeling-driven desire with no complete experiential support (only appropriately selected fragmentary support) is to consider the subject-object negation you have laid out above. A pondered, inquisitive, experience-based look has to recognize: "No, sorry, this really cannot stand. This can only be the expression of a preordained desire".

Right, so this is where the "formless" meditation method is useful. If you try to go into a really deep meditative state and stop all phenomena you possibly can, including stopping all desires or expectations for any experiences, what you will find is a bare subjectivity, pure conscious experiencing experiencing itself. But you cannot possibly get rid of the experiencing of this subjectivity, it is invariant of any phenomenal experience. No matter if you have any phenomena (thoughts, feelings, percepts, willings) or not, the subjectivity is still there. Try to experience a state of the absence of conscious subjective experience. Obviously, it is not possible, because in order to experience it, the ability of subjective experiencing must be there to experience it. So, subjectivity is not a "floating concept" and not a "desire", it is the fundamental aspect of reality that makes it possible to have any subjective experience at all. How can you have a "desire for an experience of pure subjectivity" before you have a subjectivity? It is not possible, because you would not be able to experience this desire without subjectivity (=ability to have any subjective experience) being there first.

To summarize, you can remove the sense of self from your phenomenal experience, but you cannot remove the subjectivity (awareness, the very ability to have the subjective experience), because this subjectivity it that which experiences all other phenomena (including the sense of self). Which means that the sense of "self" is not the actual subject that experiences or will, but it is just one of the phenomena experienced by the subjectivity.

Eugene,
What I said is that there's first a desire for experiential confirmation of non dualistic no-self (as per your exact definition). Specifically in the context of your recent "not necessarily" comment, I was referring to the desire to experience a pure subjectivity fully detached from objects, as a floating concept, as per your statements, obviously. I 'm saying, this desire-first spiritual approach orients the practice and makes you state that "in the bare subjective experience of a phenomenon there is actually no object".
And in this negation of the existence of any object it's easiest to recognize the desire-first quality of the approach.
Of course subjectivity, the experience of the self-reflecting quality of thoughts, the sense of being a subject of experience, is not a floating concept or a desire. What is floating, is when you detach it from the "I" and you detach it form objects, and state that you can experience subjectivity like that, a subjectivity, but not your subjectivity. Just pure subjectivity empty of self and empty of objects. This is indeed a desire.

[Cleric K]

You are right Cleric, but you are again beating a strawman. It is only "reductionist nondualists" that use this approach, and I said many times before that I agree with you that they are doing it wrong. I would roughly describe the "correct" nondual state as "the fullness of the riverbed of our being (the fabric of reality) free of the sense of the reality of "separate me" and "separate objects". Adya actually described it exactly like that in the video: "full of reality, absolutely full of the Divine, but empty of self".

Well, it's not so much of a strawman in the case of Adyashanti. Actually I'm not sure why you chose to quote him in this context. I don't see how what he speaks of fits with your current philosophy. And even the 'empty of self' only has meaning if taken in your very special sense where 'self' is synonymous to the egoic tendencies of the true Self. I mean, in his talk he doesn't even convey the same meaning as that which you interpret for yourself.

[Stranger]

Eugene,
What I said is that there's first a desire for experiential confirmation of non dualistic no-self (as per your exact definition). Specifically in the context of your recent "not necessarily" comment, I was referring to the desire to experience a pure subjectivity fully detached from objects, as a floating concept, as per your statements, obviously. I 'm saying, this desire-first spiritual approach orients the practice and makes you state that "in the bare subjective experience of a phenomenon there is actually no object".
And in this negation of the existence of any object it's easiest to recognize the desire-first quality of the approach.

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood you. Well, yes, you need that "desire", but I would rather say, "intention", to experience the pure subjectivity. It is like setting a scientific (spiritually-scientific) experiment where you need an intention and motivation to undertake it. But the best approach is not to set any expectations, but to take an unbiased and open approach and just try different experiments with the phenomenal flow. Like "what happens if I stop all phenomena?", "what happens if I remove the sense of "object" or "self"?", "what does the resulting experiences mean?". In spiritual practice it is easy to fool ourselves by setting some expectations to experience some states, and then these expectations can subconsciously manifest for us the states that we are expecting to experience, so it really becomes a "tail chasing". But even that may be useful because we can investigate how our expectations shape our phenomenal experiences, so that, by understanding this causal loop, we can set more clean spiritually-scientific experiments without setting specific expectations. I think there is an important difference between setting an expectation and setting a plan for an experiment like "I will do such and such and just see what happens".

[Stranger]

Well, it's not so much of a strawman in the case of Adyashanti. Actually I'm not sure why you chose to quote him in this context. I don't see how what he speaks of fits with your current philosophy. And even the 'empty of self' only has meaning if taken in your very special sense where 'self' is synonymous to the egoic tendencies of the true Self. I mean, in his talk he doesn't even convey the same meaning as that which you interpret for yourself.

He is often not very precise with his wording, in this video by "self" he referred to a sense of "separate me", "separate subjectivity from other people subjectivity", and I know that because he has the Buddhist background and that is the meaning of the word "self" commonly accepted in Buddhism. Egoic tendencies usually build around the sense of "separate me" as byproducts of it. For example, we may develop a too-good or too-bad self-image, but that can only happen if you have the sense of "separate self" in the first place that refers to that self-image.

But here he speaks about the nondual awakening being only a beginning:


But overall, I do not think you can find a spiritual teachings or practice among nondual traditional or modern approaches that is complete in a full sense, they are all in some way incomplete and usually focus on only specific stages of practice, which is also good, but taking them as if they cover everything that needs to be done would be a mistake. Usually, they just bring you to the moment of nondual awakening and some reasonably mature realization, and then leave you for the rest of the journey assuming that you are now mature enough to figure it out for yourself.

Here is another Adya's video where he talks about limitations of Zen and his more encompassing experience of reality once he grew out from the limits of Zen practice.
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Oh boy, once you dig into Adya's videos, it's hard to stop Here is another one going straight to the core:

God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[a] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)
Before Abraham Was, I Am (John 8)