Meditation exercise on "separate me"

[Federica]

Eugene, can you not feel the immediate, sweet respite and alleviation from the heaviness of responsibility that we are rewarded with, as soon as we suggest the thought: All your problems and suffering are on the illusory entity “separate self”? It’s an escape route. One should follow the intuition “it’s too good to be true” but we are so longing for immediate relief, that instead, we take it, we welcome the relief, and we conveniently focus all our attention not on how to work with our reactivity, but on how to knock down the “separate self”.


This relief is what we are after and indeed, we get it with this meditation, an immediate but fake exoneration of responsibility. That is the addictive character of this ‘meditation'. The message is:
“Dear practitioner, let me put you immediately at ease, it’s not us who harbor any issue, fault, or responsibility, it’s the separate self. It’s all because of it, OK? And it’s the same for all of us. So let’s fight the separate self and liberate ourselves from it, because all the reactivity, egoic patterns, and all suffering are because of it. And the separate self is not us. No, no, we are pure Consciousness. So all the ugly stuff is on the separate self, and all the beautiful stuff is what we really are. So let’s integrate that now “experientially”.


How do you think one can take responsibility for self-improvement with these premises? How do we find the strength to work hard at recognizing weaknesses, uncovering the subconscious patterns of reactivity, when we open this escape route and regularly reinforce it in our soul? Unfortunately, the inevitable effect will be zero motivation to put down the real work, zero responsibility, zero results in terms of spiritual development. Only a sweet but illusory soul uplifting effect, that in fact perpetuates the problems.

First, the "separate self" is not improvable, it's a catch-22, the ego cannot improve itself, it can only become "enlightened ego".
How convenient. In this way, we are permanently justified in putting zero effort in self-improvement, and all the stakes on becoming enlightened, not through self-work but through teleportation (which also requires work to believe in, I would give you that). Ironically, or sadly, it is a catch-22 in a sense.

Second, the "separate self" is a lie, it is a delusion, it is a psychosis of the soul. Would you say that a person who wants to heal from a psychosis wants an "easy relief", wants to "escape from responsibility"? No, they just want to be healthy.

No Eugene. It doesn't help to stigmatize our human suffering and call it a generalized psychosis. It only polarizes a love-hate confused relationship with oneself that negates any possibility of discernment and just can't be helpful (under your hypothesis, how can you ever be sure that nondual enlightenment is not a psychosis within the psychosis?)
But even if it was true that we are immersed in generalized psychosis (it is not) let's note the following. First, not all who suffer from psychosis want to heal from it, because that requires some level of awareness of the psychotic mechanisms. And for those who do want, what "healing" really means is "I want this suffering to stop". Which puts them in a very vulnerable position, where easy reliefs are incredibly appealing.

Third, the real spiritual development only starts once a soul is healed from this psychosis of "separate self", this is where real constructive work starts and real results will come. As I said, it is a futile effort to improve symptoms of a decease while the root cause remains not addressed. Until the healing from psychosis happens, all spiritual development and real work should be targeted exactly to the healing of the psychosis. And that work is not easy, if you think that it is an "easy escape", you are mistaking. Do not underestimate the power of the "separate-self" ego-delusion.

This is a logical but false deduction, based on the false premises described above (it is the soul wishing the pain to stop who is speaking, psychotic and non-psychotic cases alike).

And forth, I'm obliged to answer your questions, but I'm not supposed to write here because Ashvin sent me away from the forum to practice for 3-6 months, so please let me go

Please stay, Eugene.

[Cleric K]

First, the "separate self" is not improvable, it's a catch-22, the ego cannot improve itself, it can only become "enlightened ego"

I believe there’s something quite out of place here. Calling the separate self an illusion is quite customary in popular nondual culture today but this doesn’t help in the least. You yourself have said many times “the ego is completely real, it is there in the structure of reality”... yet then it is called an illusion nonetheless.

I understand your motivation – to find the only true center of being. But the ego is not another center in the strictest sense. Consider the following.

The Divine Spirit is like a master virtuoso. Yet it expresses through the layers of entangled relations – these are our sheaths. Now give a virtuoso a broken piano and he wouldn’t be able to make very good music.

This is the healthy way in which we should see things. The flaws of character are not in the least due to something that doesn’t exist but we think it exists. They are the channels and ducts etched in our soul, life and physical bodies. The way we move, the way we act, our gait, our handwriting, our default reactions, our sensibilities, our way of thinking – all of these are curvatures within our bodies, which streamline our flow of becoming.

Imagine this vividly. Our “I” always has the same Source – the Divine Singularity. When we’re deeply enmeshed in the disorganized sheaths we’re still that Spirit that experiences itself. But because of the curvatures of the sheaths, the Spirit has very little creative control over its flow of becoming. Instead, its state of experience evolves largely according to the etched riverbeds of the bodies. Then if we’re insulted or if we insult somebody, these are all semi-automatic reactions within our soul body, they simply follow the gradient in configuration space. So even if we feel as an evil ego, our “I”-ness still has its source in the Divine. It is only that our soul body is thus organized that our spark of “I”-ness is pushed and pulled by the most various desires (which are the curvatures of the soul body). The only illusion is that we accept these desires to be an intrinsic part of what we are. This is what most people do. They say “I like purple” or “I like Brad Pitt”. And even from a materialistic perspective it is already clear that there are lawful reasons, there are some structures that make us feel like that. However, people simply accept that as their unique atomic constitution. It’s similar in deeper esoteric understanding, where we know that it’s not only the brain but the finer fractal-levels of entanglement that shape our flow of becoming. And these we can begin to investigate immediately, we don’t need laboratories and scanners – everything is at our disposal.

What you call ‘separate self’ is like a collective token for all these layers. Then you imagine the purity of the free Spirit and call the state within the layers a delusion which must be pushed away. However, as Federica pointed out and you agree, this doesn’t lead anywhere. We have to penetrate the sheaths with the spirit and begin to creatively mould them, according to higher ideals. Otherwise we find ourselves in a dual situation. You already mentioned this. You are unhappy because of the fact that when you have to interact with the outer world you can’t keep your nondual state and snap back to dual patterns. This makes you believe that you have finished your work on Earth and you can continue beyond, where you won’t be distracted from your nonduality.

But all this results because of the hard split, where we basically take all our being, label it separate self and declare it an illusion. Then we feel right only in meditation where we’re undisturbed and we can diffuse into Oneness.

On the other hand, if we take seriously that we have structure (which is not in the least of importance only on Earth – we live with our sheaths also after death, even though they get transformed) then we understand that it is precisely this ‘delusion’ that we must work on. It’s like the virtuoso getting to work to repair the piano, to tune the keys and so on. This is our true work. And as we have said so many times, the only reason why one neglects this work is because it is believed that all these sheaths of entanglement have importance only on the Earthly stage and will be completely left behind at the gate of death.

When we understand things in this way, our meditations become a living process of exchange. We open all our being to be inspired by the Sun Spirit that works through us and which gives us the spark of our “I”-ness. Through that higher Inspiration we begin to notice the things that we have to rectify in our layers of being. The goal of this is that the Earthly ego becomes ennobled. It learns to be a servant of a higher Idea.

Then our daily life changes too. In fact, we may discover that we find unusual joy in interacting with people and the world. Not because we’ve put on our pink glasses. In fact we become even more conscious of everything that is painfully wrong in the world. Yet we also understand how everything unfolds according to Divine impulses and we find our joy in trying to align with them and work for them.

Now this doesn’t mean that in our busy daily activities we’ll be living in the nondual state. Our aperture will be surely narrowed and this is how it is supposed to be. But everything that we do now flows through better shaped channels. And this is not unique to spiritual development. It’s like this in every area of life. The student needs quiet time to study. This is his meditation. In that process he etches the proper channels within the bodies. Then when he goes on the exam, he reaps the fruits of his labor. He’s pressed by time, there’s nervousness, yet if the channels were properly etched, the ideas will easily flow. It’s similar in sports. Athletes do over and over again the most varied exercises in order to embed in their muscle memory certain movements to the state of perfection. These can’t simply be made up at the time of competition.

So the ‘delusion’ that you speak of must be worked upon. It is our suit. It is our interface to reality. If we call that illusion we have no choice but only seek to seclude ourselves and spend time in the nondual state. Yet there should be constant rhythmic interplay, just like we have waking and sleeping.

By calling the ego an illusion we selectively bundle whatever we dislike about ourselves and then believe that we’re above it. But this has one serious drawback – we have failed to examine our structure. We believe that we’re above our soul body and we’re no longer steered by the curvatures of unconscious desires. This is the fatal error. Because we now make it impossible to examine the very desires which make us push away the ego-bundle and declare it a delusion. We’re blinding ourselves about the fact that we still operate within physical, life and soul bodies and the curvatures within this out-of-sight soul body steer us towards this declaration of delusion. Alas, by believing that we’re already above the soul body, we no longer have any chance to recognize that what we do is not some absolutely ‘free will’ of our pure creative potential but is still heavily conditioned by our out-of-sight structure (we can’t bundle it in the ego-package and push it away simply because we’re unconscious of it).

And one last thing. When we’re busy in the day it is indeed impossible to meditate and expand. And this is not even necessary – actually it could be harmful. But we can surely pray. By praying I don’t mean to stop and recite memorized prayers. It’s about channeling our inner activity. For example, when we feel unsatisfied, we can feel the presence of the Divine within us and repeat in our mind “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you…” By giving thanks we open ourselves to the positive currents which help us dissipate the clouds of resentment. Another very effective thing is, when we feel that we’re treading thin ice, when we’re unsure what we’re doing, we can repeat “Lord, be with me at every step”.

Whoever experiments in such ways will find out that we don’t at all need a special meditative state. We’re like a deep diver connected with the air line to the surface. It’s of no use to imagine that we’re outside the water. We embrace this fact. Yet we can focus on our air link, to always remember that a higher level of our being gently modulates the envelope of the potential that we explore. We have to seek that Being as an attractor, as the guiding light that helps us find our way in the chaos of sensory perceptions.

Just like the student and the athlete, the degree to which we’re able to do this, depends on our ‘homework’. The more intimate our relations with the Divine Being are within our meditations and prayers, the more we transform our channels and ducts of the sheaths. Then in our daily life prayer becomes very natural, it flows through prepared curvatures. Prayer becomes as breathing. With every breath we look upon the Divine and desire to inhale only the most beneficial, the most loving currents and exhale them in the sensory world as virtuous life.

The summary of all this is that we really need concrete knowledge of our structure - the physical, life, soul bodies and the Divine spark of "I"-ness that works through them. What we call a separate self is simply how our "I" feels when it is out of control deep within the disorganized sheaths. Instead of calling this specific "I" state a delusion, we should investigate our structure and understand the hierarchy of our organism, why the virtuoso that works through us has so little control. If we simply declare that "I" state a delusion we have no choice but bask in the feeling that somewhere on high we're already the virtuoso and we simply have no conditions to work further here. But the virtuoso has all the means to begin transforming his musical instruments. That's how our true being gradually awakens within us and how we can work virtuously even among the chaos of the senses, by keeping constant attunement through prayer.

[Stranger]

How convenient. In this way, we are permanently justified in putting zero effort in self-improvement, and all the stakes on becoming enlightened, not through self-work but through teleportation (which also requires work to believe in, I would give you that). Ironically, or sadly, it is a catch-22 in a sense.

I already said that all hard work on improving the state of consciousness of individuated spiritual activities (aka "self-improvement") remains to be accomplished. Please stop misinterpreting my words. What needs to be also done, in addition and in parallel to the "self-improvement", is removing the deluded sense-idea of "separate self" (and dualistic perception in general for that matter). This has nothing to do with "teleportation" (how did you get that idea?). It is like if a person is in a state of maniac psychosis and believes that he is Napoleon, what needs to be done is to remove this maniac idea from controlling his mind, no need to "teleport" anywhere. Once this delusion is healed, he can continue his studies and personal development and all self-improvement work that is needed.

No Eugene. It doesn't help to stigmatize our human suffering and call it a generalized psychosis. It only polarizes a love-hate confused relationship with oneself that negates any possibility of discernment and just can't be helpful (under your hypothesis, how can you ever be sure that nondual enlightenment is not a psychosis within the psychosis?)
But even if it was true that we are immersed in generalized psychosis (it is not) let's note the following. First, not all who suffer from psychosis want to heal from it, because that requires some level of awareness of the psychotic mechanisms. And for those who do want, what "healing" really means is "I want this suffering to stop". Which puts them in a very vulnerable position, where easy reliefs are incredibly appealing.

Yes, there are people who do not want to heal, it is understandable and completely their choice, and for them there are measures that can be taken to alleviate their suffering. But for those who do want to heal, they just need to take measures to get healthy, and I already said that the relief if quite-quite far from being "easy". It is rather hard and long work, but the result is a sane and healthy state of consciousness free from delusion of duality which then can further be improved through unlimited growth and further integration into the Cosmic Organism.

But as I said, if you or anyone else wants to stay in the dualistic "separate-self" mode of consciousness, you do not need such sophisticated arguments, you can just say "I'm not interested, I'm OK". As I said, there are no obligations or expectations, you can just stay, it's your choice. This dualistic mode does have its own joys and interesting experiences, you will remain suffering and in confusion but spiritual practice can alleviate these symptoms to some extent and you will survive. It is only for those who had enough of it and want to be sane and clean from this delusion, and for these people you have absolutely no right to violate their spiritual freedom and block their way to heal.

[Stranger]

The summary of all this is that we really need concrete knowledge of our structure - the physical, life, soul bodies and the Divine spark of "I"-ness that works through them. What we call a separate self is simply how our "I" feels when it is out of control deep within the disorganized sheaths. Instead of calling this specific "I" state a delusion, we should investigate our structure and understand the hierarchy of our organism, why the virtuoso that works through us has so little control. If we simply declare that "I" state a delusion we have no choice but bask in the feeling that somewhere on high we're already the virtuoso and we simply have no conditions to work further here. But the virtuoso has all the means to begin transforming his musical instruments. That's how our true being gradually awakens within us and how we can work virtuously even among the chaos of the senses, by keeping constant attunement through prayer.

Let me first clarify some definitions. The "separate self" delusion is when we believe and feel that our "I-ness" uniquely belongs to us and that other people/sols have their own separate "I-ness" as "centers" of consciousness that experience and act in the world. The cognitive mistake here is that it is actually the same "I-ness" (oneness), but we falsely believe that it is split into a multiplicity of independent centers of "I". As a consequence, each independent "I" becomes a player in the survival game in the world and develops the "ego" which is a complex of egoic survival mechanisms and behavioral patterns for protecting the status of the separate "I". The "ego" is not an illusion, it is just a complex structure of behavioral/cognitive/emotional patterns. The illusion is the incoherent with reality belief-sense-idea that our own "I"-sense is separate and different from the "I"-sense of other beings (which is what constitutes the dualistic delusion). So, the "ego" is a structure developed around this illusion/delusion and grown from this delusion to protect it.

What you are suggesting is a "linear" way in which we can continue the spiritual evolution in this state of separate-"I" and its protecting ego-shell because it is a lawful structure, and can gradually "ease" the egoic patterns around it. Yes, that works too over a certain period-stage of evolution. The ego is indeed a lawful structure and it was developed naturally since humans started realizing themselves as "I" but made this cognitive mistake of sensing themselves as separate "I" from other people and the rest of the world. This mistake was inevitable due to the underdeveloped state of humanoids consciousness, and now we carry in us the same cognitive mistake with the ego-structure around it through the karmic and genetic inheritance without realizing it. However, at some point in the development a metamorphic phase occurs when a soul clearly realizes that the separate-"I" idea was just a cognitive mistake and there is only one "I" in the whole Cosmos. It is important that the "there is only one "I" in the whole Cosmos" is not just an intellectual understanding, but a complete overturn in the way the world is experienced and perceived. Once that happens, the soul cannot "undo" this realization, it cannot continue fooling itself with this mistake because the soul knows that it was a false idea in the first place. It is like a child dropping his belief in Santa Claus living at the North Pole when he grows up. Once that happens, the egoic complex also gradually starts to disintegrate because there is no more root-core around which it is built and by which it is maintained. This metamorphic stage in the evolution of the soul is also lawful and inevitable, like the beginning of chrysalis stage in the butterfly metamorphosis. What follows is a transitional stage of the chrysalis where a complete rebuilding of the soul structure happens where the illusion of separate "I" becomes unrooted from the subconscious and the old egoic layers and patterns built around it are transformed into new non-egoic ones. This transitional stage is hard and long work and involves constant efforts and inner struggle between the old egoic patterns and the new non-egoic ones. But eventually it is destined to end, because this transformation period is also completely lawful with the forces driving the transition forward that are much stronger than the forces pulling it back to the egoic and deluded dualistic state. The transitional stage may take decades and even multiple lifetimes and even involve changing the incarnational forms if necessary, and necessarily involves continuous efforts in spiritual work on rebuilding and further growing the structures of the soul. At the end of the transitional chrysalis stage a new "butterfly" nondual sate of consciousness is formed free of any dualistic perception, egoic patterns and illusion of separate "I", and from that point a new evolutionary phase starts in a spiritual "butterfly" form where the individuated conscious activity further evolves and expands.

However, until this metamorphosis starts, it is absolutely necessary to continue along the evolutionary path within the dualistic state guided by its lawful forces, because otherwise the soul can never become mature enough to reach the point of transition. So, what you said above, Cleric, still applies and true, but only until the metamorphosis starts. The moment it starts cannot be forced, each soul approaches it at an appropriate time when it is ready and sufficiently mature for it. We are all progressing at our own pace and are currently at different stages, there is no shame to be at any stage of the path. So, if anyone feels that they are not ready or do not resonate with such transition and that this meditation does not work for them, then it is completely fine, by all means continue your development along the path in the state you are currently in even if it is dualistic. It means that it is just not your time, and if it is not your time, forcing yourself and trying to "jump" into this transition to nondual state will do only more harm than good (and you will likely get stuck in some distorted understanding of "nonduality" that is so widespread in modern neo-nondual teachings and practices).

[Cleric K]

What you are suggesting is a "linear" way in which we can continue the spiritual evolution in this state of separate-"I" and its protecting ego-shell because it is a lawful structure, and can gradually "ease" the egoic patterns around it. Yes, that works too over a certain period-stage of evolution. The ego is indeed a lawful structure and it was developed naturally since humans started realizing themselves as "I" but made this cognitive mistake of sensing themselves as separate "I" from other people and the rest of the world. This mistake was inevitable due to the underdeveloped state of humanoids consciousness, and now we carry in us the same cognitive mistake with the ego-structure around it through the karmic and genetic inheritance without realizing it. However, at some point in the development a metamorphic phase occurs when a soul clearly realizes that the separate-"I" idea was just a cognitive mistake and there is only one "I" in the whole Cosmos. It is important that the "there is only one "I" in the whole Cosmos" is not just an intellectual understanding, but a complete overturn in the way the world is experienced and perceived. Once that happens, the soul cannot "undo" this realization, it cannot continue fooling itself with this mistake because the soul knows that it was a false idea in the first place. It is like a child dropping his belief in Santa Claus living at the North Pole when he grows up. Once that happens, the egoic complex also gradually starts to disintegrate because there is no more root-core around which it is built and by which it is maintained. This metamorphic stage in the evolution of the soul is also lawful and inevitable, like the beginning of chrysalis stage in the butterfly metamorphosis. What follows is a transitional stage of the chrysalis where a complete rebuilding of the soul structure happens where the illusion of separate "I" becomes unrooted from the subconscious and the old egoic layers and patterns built around it are transformed into new non-egoic ones. This transitional stage is hard and long work and involves constant efforts and inner struggle between the old egoic patterns and the new non-egoic ones. But eventually it is destined to end, because this transformation period is also completely lawful with the forces driving the transition forward that are much stronger than the forces pulling it back to the egoic and deluded dualistic state. The transitional stage may take decades and even multiple lifetimes and even involve changing the incarnational forms if necessary, and necessarily involves continuous efforts in spiritual work on rebuilding and further growing the structures of the soul. At the end of the transitional chrysalis stage a new "butterfly" nondual sate of consciousness is formed free of any dualistic perception, egoic patterns and illusion of separate "I", and from that point a new evolutionary phase starts in a spiritual "butterfly" form where the individuated conscious activity further evolves and expands.

There’s very sneaky confusion here. You switch between two modes. In one case you bundle up everything of egoic character in the term ‘separate self’. By egoic I mean all that which is connected with fighting for dominance, greed, violence, hatred and so on. Everything that makes us feel as an independent unit of life which has all rights to trample underfoot anyone standing in our way. That’s OK, we can call that our lower, animal nature. These are the channels within our sheaths that have ensured our survival. In contrast to this we recognize the higher ‘nondual’ nature which recognizes its unity with all beings. This is the one mode and we couldn’t agree more with it.

Yet in the next moment, when it is said that the Spirit has to penetrate the sheaths and transform them according to the higher (nondual) ideals, you declare this to be descent into dualism once again. But this doesn’t make any sense. Think of the Christ. He was among the people all the time, he healed, he taught them. Do you think that in that state he was feeling as an animal that was a separate self and fought for its existence? Or his Jesus suit was the expression of the Divine?

OK, maybe I made it a little confusing in the previous post. When I said that we can’t live in the nondual state all the time in our daily life, I meant that we can’t walk around in an expanded state of consciousness. We would be like dream-walking and quite unfit for practical affairs. I did not mean that it is impossible not to feel as an egoic creature in our everyday life. As said, we accomplish this by gradually etching in our sheaths the good nondual habits of kindness, generosity, sacrifice, vigilance, love, wisdom and so on. Our constant prayer is the way to keep close to the nondual potential well which inspires such expressions.

To be nondual in everyday sensory life requires to be always awake in constant contact with the Divine, being open for continuous guidance. Then we have to see the Divine in every being, no matter how deep that spark might be buried. A whole new world opens up before us when we take on the task to introduce the nondual Divine into the sensory realm.

And no, this is not a one way descent. As said, it is all about rhythmic interplay. We can’t do much unless we take our time for spiritual practices, physical exercises, meditation, prayer. This is how we strengthen our link with the Divine, how we learn to see reality from the higher perspective. This is the time to expend well beyond the body and commune with Cosmic Life. But at the other end of the pendulum we are to distribute these riches that we have freely received to the World.

So you recognize that we have to connect with our higher being which lifts us from the animalistic state of eye for an eye. This is all good. But the problem then is that you equate any experience within the sensory spectrum to be by necessity animalistic. In other words you refuse to take as a possibility that we can investigate the manifested realm without this causing us to descend into the animalistic state.

The fact is that we can’t understand our manifested experience without knowledge of the higher archetypal worlds but we also can’t understand the higher without knowledge of the manifested. These are like inseparable poles of Cosmic existence. What we learn from the sensory world gives the raw materials, the raw facts that demand explanation. Then higher knowledge complements the facts with living lawfulness, living spiritual streamlines that shape the dreamscape. The latter in turn helps us see new connections and new raw materials that demand new explanations and so on. There’s rhythmic interplay between the two poles that grow more and more united. We’re quite mistaken if we imagine that the sensory world exists only for itself and we can investigate the higher completely independently. As the simplest example, if we’re not stricken by the raw fact that there are mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms, if we don’t reflect deeply on this, we simply have no chance to grasp the most important structure of the higher worlds. We see these manifested kingdoms with our eyes because there's certain fourfold spiritual structure at large. It is simply impossible not to have internalized the facts of the kingdoms and nevertheless meditate and discover this foldness of the higher worlds in a completely independent way. We can only do that if we discover the mineral, plant, animal and human within ourselves. This puts us into contact with the corresponding worlds.

So the mistake here is that the embodied state is equated with egoism. Thus there’s conflation. We all agree that our Spirit has to lift itself from the egoic, animalistic state. But then you equate this animalistic state with the Earthly state as a whole. You say that you have no interest in the World because that sucks you into duality. In other words, you say that one can’t operate in the sensory spectrum without becoming a vicious animal. But as said, without interest in the World, we simply have no chance to learn anything about its archetypal counterpart. It’s like wanting to read but refusing to look at the letters. The spectrum of reality is the script that we must learn to read and the creative intents behind the script come to meet the letters from the spiritual heights.

By refusing to know the World and equating our Earthly state with animalism, you force yourself to fantasize some nondual world that is quite independent from the mineral shadow that we presently traverse. Yet this sensory World is the Body of God. We sin against the Divine by neglecting his Body and imagine it as nothing of significance, only a temporal stage that sucks us into animalism. Just as we, as Microcosm, know our essential being against the experiences within our sheaths, so the Macrocosmic being concentric to us can only know itself against the experiences in the Cosmic fabric, within which the whole physical world is present. We simply delude ourselves by imagining that we can live in our higher being without working together with the other pole.

[Federica]

How convenient. In this way, we are permanently justified in putting zero effort in self-improvement, and all the stakes on becoming enlightened, not through self-work but through teleportation (which also requires work to believe in, I would give you that). Ironically, or sadly, it is a catch-22 in a sense.

I already said that all hard work on improving the state of consciousness of individuated spiritual activities (aka "self-improvement") remains to be accomplished. Please stop misinterpreting my words. What needs to be also done, in addition and in parallel to the "self-improvement", is removing the deluded sense-idea of "separate self" (and dualistic perception in general for that matter). This has nothing to do with "teleportation" (how did you get that idea?)

It's been clear from the beginning that we are meaning very different things with "self-improvement". You are not interested in doing the hard work on the sheaths and/or it's not your primary focus, as you have said yourself multiple times. So there's no need to cry wolf on how you are being misinterpreted and how I am supposedly violating your rights. And by the way, teleportation is a metaphor... I don't see much usefulness now in further discussing the issues, this exchange has soured you enough. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Hopefully.

[Stranger]

It's been clear from the beginning that we are meaning very different things with "self-improvement". You are not interested in doing the hard work on the sheaths and/or it's not your primary focus, as you have said yourself multiple times. So there's no need to cry wolf on how you are being misinterpreted and how I am supposedly violating your rights. And by the way, teleportation is a metaphor... I don't see much usefulness now in further discussing the issues, this exchange has soured you enough. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Hopefully.

Federica, please stop misinterpreting what I said. I only said that I'm not interested in studying the dualistic structures that human civilization is developed based on the common human dualistic state of mind. Never ever I said that I am not interested in doing the hard work of self improvement. I'm meditating 1-2 hours a day.

What I meant is the structures we see in our human society (and likewise they exist in the societies of discarnate beings) built upon and developed from the dualistic perception of the world. For example, most of human political structures are based on the dualistic perception and egoic motivations stemming from it. Most of the materialistic science is built upon the dualistic models of the world. Most of corporate structures are built upon the egoic principles of greediness and competition which again stem from dualistic perception. Most of the human education is of the same kind. This is what is orthogonal to the spiritual nondual content and structures. This is not the structures of natural and material world per se, these are structures artificially built by humans (and other discarnate beings) upon the natural structures based on their abstracted and erroneous dualistic perception of reality. So, that is why I said that I have no interest in further studying all this body of dualistic human knowledge and human structures (as well as structures and knowledge of the discarnate dualistic realms) build on the erroneous dualistic perception of reality, because they are irrelevant and orthogonal to the authentic nondual structures of the spiritual realms.

[Federica]

It's been clear from the beginning that we are meaning very different things with "self-improvement". You are not interested in doing the hard work on the sheaths and/or it's not your primary focus, as you have said yourself multiple times. So there's no need to cry wolf on how you are being misinterpreted and how I am supposedly violating your rights. And by the way, teleportation is a metaphor... I don't see much usefulness now in further discussing the issues, this exchange has soured you enough. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Hopefully.

Federica, please stop misinterpreting what I said. I only said that I'm not interested in studying the dualistic structures that human civilization is developed based on the common human dualistic state of mind. Never ever I said that I am not interested in doing the hard work of self improvement. I'm meditating 1-2 hours a day.

What I meant is the structures we see in our human society (and likewise they exist in the societies of discarnate beings) built upon and developed from the dualistic perception of the world. For example, most of human political structures are based on the dualistic perception and egoic motivations stemming from it. Most of the materialistic science is built upon the dualistic models of the world. Most of corporate structures are built upon the egoic principles of greediness and competition which again stem from dualistic perception. Most of the human education is of the same kind. This is what is orthogonal to the spiritual nondual content and structures. This is not the structures of natural and material world per se, these are structures artificially built by humans (and other discarnate beings) upon the natural structures based on their abstracted and erroneous dualistic perception of reality. So, that is why I said that I have no interest in further studying all this body of dualistic human knowledge and human structures (as well as structures and knowledge of the discarnate dualistic realms) build on the erroneous dualistic perception of reality, because they are irrelevant and orthogonal to the authentic nondual structures of the spiritual realms.

I understand well what you wrote in this thread and in the quoted passage, and I am not misinterpreting. I have already given you that you do work. I'll repeat that we put very different things under "self-improvement". So I maintain what I said. And this time I'll add: you should stop insisting on supposed misinterpretations.

[Stranger]

To be nondual in everyday sensory life requires to be always awake in constant contact with the Divine, being open for continuous guidance. Then we have to see the Divine in every being, no matter how deep that spark might be buried. A whole new world opens up before us when we take on the task to introduce the nondual Divine into the sensory realm.

Yes, that is exactly wat I mean, Cleric, we fully agree here and I 'm glad we are on the same page.

So you recognize that we have to connect with our higher being which lifts us from the animalistic state of eye for an eye. This is all good. But the problem then is that you equate any experience within the sensory spectrum to be by necessity animalistic. In other words you refuse to take as a possibility that we can investigate the manifested realm without this causing us to descend into the animalistic state.

No-no, you grossly misunderstood me. I said many-many times before that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the human sensory spectrum at all. The dualistic illusion that we have a separate "I'-ness ("separate self") different from the "I"-ness of other beings has nothing to do with the human sensory spectrum. A discarnate being can exist out of the human sensory spectrum and still hold a belief that their "I'-ness ("separate self") is different and separate from the "I"-ness of other beings, and likewise a human can exist fully immersed in human sensory spectrum but be free from this distorted illusion (and that is exactly the state in which Jesus lived). Which means that I do take as a possibility that we can investigate the manifested realm without this causing us to descend into the animalistic state. But this process is a constant struggle between the attuning to the awake Divine perspective and slipping back into mindless state driven by egoic instincts. Believing that this process of living spiritually according to the Divine within the "animalistic nature" is smooth and harmonious is totally naive and can only be a philosophical utopia for someone who never actually tried to accomplish it. This is, quoting again, what Jesus and St. Paul meant when they said:

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41)
But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7)

But again, the key here to understand that the "animalistic nature" has nothing to do with human sensory spectrum, but has everything to do with the egoic soul structures built around the erroneous sense of separate "I"-ness. It is therefore not appropriate to call it "animalistic nature". It is indeed "the law of sin" that we keep karmically/genetically inheriting and that is rooted in deluded (=sinful) sense of separate "I"-ness.
What do you think St. Paul meant here?:

Now I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50)

So, again, going back to St. Paul words:

I have been crucified with Christ (= my sense of separate "I"-ness was crucified the same way Christ crucified the sense of separate "I"-ness that he inherited with his human incarnation)
it is no longer I who live (= I no longer live as if I am a separate "I"-ness)
but Christ lives in me (= but the universal Divine Self lives, acts and experiences the world in me)
(Galatians 2:20)

But now, going back the topic of this meditation exercise, the transformation to the "Divine Self" nondual state starts with phenomenologically investigating and proving to ourselves that the sense-idea of our own and separate "I"-sense is false, and that our egoic reactions (law of sin) are indeed built upon this false sense-idea and are causally related to it. This is what this meditative exercise is about.

PS:
Also, we discussed this before, but the message and the mission of Christ was to path a way for humans into a new transformed incorruptible state of human form. And note that this transformation went through two phases. An active Divine intervention was required for this transformation to happen because humans could not "engineer" this transformation by themselves. The first phase was when Christ incarnated into a human form of Jesus and delivered his teaching in words to humans. His spirit remained in oneness with the Father (John 10:30: "I and the Father are one"), he had no delusion of being a separate "I" from the Father, but his human form was still corruptible and subject to all animalistic instincts that he inherited with the human flesh, this is why he suffered from fear of pain in the Gethsemane to the extent that he asked "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39) But the second phase happened only after the death of the flesh and the Resurrection when he transformed his human form into a totally different structure not subject to corruption and animalistic instincts where the line of inheritance of the "law of sin" was completely disrupted. This second phase only happened to him, no other human yet went through such transformation of human form. It remains to be the second Divine intervention (the Second Coming) that will fully transform the human flesh composition into the new incorruptible form not subject to the "law of sin". All of this is described in the Gospels and Epistles, and if you claim that you subscribe to the mission of Christ, you cannot ignore it. You cannot take only some parts of the message and mission of Christ and ignore the others without breaking the consistency of the Christ's mission.

[Cleric K]

...

OK, then I think we’re more or less clear. I agree that we have to distinguish the animalistic state from the sinful, in the sense that in the animal it is natural but when the conscious humans act animalistically, it is something different already. A different kind of responsibility is borne and corresponding consequences follow.

But anyway, I understand your position – if we sweat enough we’ll be able to live in the world without sin (as the Christ did) but for what purpose, you ask? Instead, when we reach the nondual realization it is simply time to move to the next floor of existence.

I think we can summarize the fundamental difference thus:



In one case we see the worlds as floors of existence (not in a spatial sense of course) that we graduate through and leave behind. We can help ‘from above’ if we like but it’s our choice. In any case, our ascent further is not dependent on whatever happens on the Earthly floor.

This is contrasted with the other view, where we realize our concentricity with the Cosmic Singularity. We awaken as a human being sandwiched between the higher spiritual and lower elemental worlds. Yet as the picture depicts, these are really like polar structures. We do oscillate between more spiritual and more elemental states (this is what the incarnational rhythm is) but actual evolution consists in the integration of these worlds. Ascending in the higher sphere of purified moral impulses and sublimating the elemental sheaths, making them docile and pliable. In the end, the above is the Divine Idea, the below is the manifested Divine Imagination.

If we understand the picture correctly, we see that the higher worlds are at the same time the archetype of the lowest, it’s only that in the lower everything is multiplied. In this sense, understanding the true spiritual nature of the world of matter actually requires the highest forms of consciousness. Thus there’s nowhere to run away from the physical world. That world will simply be spiritualized in the course of evolution. We start from within outwards. If we can’t plastically shape our soul body, our desires, sympathies, antipathies, how can we expect we could influence the much more independent physical and life bodies? Yet this is the only way we can develop. If we are to evolve into Divine beings we need to take more and more responsibility for everything - not that we personally will be in charge of everything but shared responsibility based on Love and Wisdom. Imagining that we can simply move to the next floor and do more pleasant things and not having to deal with the physical Cosmos, will prove to be nothing but a fantasy. The more we grow spiritually the more we transform the elemental worlds – these are like mirror images, they go together. Everything said in the gospels is true because our flesh won’t remain as it is, our Earth won’t remain as it is. But this can happen only if we take on our proper role within the dreamscape. If we dream that we’ll simply go into the Heavens and on another floor we’ll be awaited by a more comfortable Earth and better flesh, we’ll be disappointed. I mean, we'll surely see the archetype of all this in our journey after death but we'll also understand that this archetype must descend and sublimate the elemental realm. It is true that the old will fade away but the seed of the new is already contained within the Earth. It only must be fertilized by the Spirit.

PS: The Second Coming is the manifestation of Christ within each one of us. It is not a global event. For some the Second Coming has already begun, for others it will begin in centuries. The Divine that works through us is what makes it possible to begin the transformation of our sheaths - "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do".