The Clear Light

Some interesting questions there MeAgain.

I think all experience is valid, even the most subjective and personal. I don't think an experience of this type is less valid if it comes about as a result of ingesting psychedelics, but the way the experience is interpreted may be very different than if you got it through pursuit of a particular path of meditation. In the second case, you might interpret it in terms of the teachings associated with that path.

If you had the experience via drugs or just out of the blue there would probably still be a tendency to understand it in terms of intellectual data one had accumulated through one's past education, conditioning etc. It might though prove to be inadequate, in which case you might start to look into different things - philosophy, religion, science, psychology etc in order to try to come to some more or less adequate way of understanding it.

Any kind of rational explanation the mind comes up with is sure to be removed from the experience itself, so I think it's useful probably to look at various interpretations. Those that tend to imprison one in a cage of dogma are probably the least useful. Those that are more open ended may be more useful.

How the experience relates to ordinary consciousness is a difficult question. I'll get back to it when I have more time.

 

If the criteria for discussion of vision of clear light is that "it carries with it the need to rationalize it as quickly as possible and return to a normal state," then I cannot comment on the vision of clear light. If that requirement is rescinded I have something to say. Having seen clearly my desire is only to extend awareness of that condition and I get the feeling that if had witnessed anything other than this I wouldn't have missed a thing.

I think all experiences are valid but i don't think all conclusions are shared and conclusions are related to the quality of the probable statistical parameters that go into consideration. I think that different states of consciousness give us access to different types of information we would not otherwise be able to apprehend. For example what is it to love or feel fear. How do we apprehend the quality of such things without in fact obtaining or being present to those qualities. Another example of a peculiar state of consciousness which is peculiarly helpful would be apprehension through a magnifying device such as a telescope or microscope or the ingestion of drugs that fine tune neural associations

Answering the first question in the affirmative makes consideration of the next question moot.

[SIZE=14.4444446563721px]In consideration of the third question, whether or not one state of consciousness is preferable to another depends on what you want to do with [/SIZE]being conscious and this is also true of the fourth question in what you think the value of being is.

For my my part I think that having and being are the same truth and like it that giving and receiving are the same.

 

when the little bird let's loose of its ordinary reality , in the pause , it can speak to you , or give a little dance . why you ?
how are you so loved by a wild mind ? you can be presented with the clear light - it's pretty - the bird gets all flashy and
sparkly - and such a moment is very interesting . must the light be described with overly impressive language ?

in your pause .... i may notice you have rainbow eyes .

 

Probably that it is a happier state than the one we normally experience. But happier isn't really the right word, as that implies a relativity, which is not there in the experience. Perhaps it's better to say that one aspect of the experience can be a kind of intense bliss or joy which isn't dependent on anything - it just is.

It's not easy to say much about it. I had such an experience many years ago when I first took LSD. I have never been able to repeat it, or get back to it fully. But I would have to say that for me it was one of the big turning point experiences of my life. Everything seemed somehow different afterwards, and it set me off on what has been a lifetime of exploration.
I think that the experience carries in itself a kind of knowledge. Not knowledge in the sense of constructed ideas or formulations, but a kind of direct knowing of reality/truth. But as soon as one comes back down to the everyday level, most of that gets obscured pretty rapidly. Yet something remains, even if one can't relive the experience through memory, or return to it by any means I have yet tried.

Also, I think the experience of the light actually contains knowledge of the world within itself. I don't think the reverse is necessarily true.

Another point is that I don't see how you could function on the day to day level if you were in that specific state I experienced all the time. For one thing I seemed to have left my body along with all my memories and past experiences behind. In a way the 'me' I usually have to live with had completely disappeared.

Anyway, I don't want to end up rambling on here as I could probably do. All I've said is obviously said through the filter of nearly 40 years of reading, assimilating information and so on from numerous sources. I've had many other experiences since then, both with and without psychedelics, but that was a one off for me. And it was very similar to accounts I've read since from trippers, mystics and even some NDEs sound similar. The Tibetan Book of the Dead and Hindu teachings about the One Brahman that is being/bliss/knowledge seem to definitely be describing something like this.

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I'm awake in eternity and it isn't easy. Most people would be familiar by now with the "awakening" that Humanity talks about. The awakening is really just remembering. The only thing there is to wake up to is the truth of eternity, which is right now.

Eternity isn't something that begins at some point in the future (which is what most people seem to think). Eternity is all there is. Eternity is every yesterday, every now and every tomorrow.

 

MeAgain - 'What can we determine about all this?' -

To answer you question 'is it real?' I think so. And if one thinks it is real, then that obviously has big implications. And it takes on an inestimable value.

However, having stuck my neck out and said it's real, I'd better add the caveat that the everyday world is also real.

As to how we interpret the experience in terms of what this means for humanity in general, I suppose I'd say it represents what we really are in our essential nature. We are part of That. We are that. From That we come, to That we return. But we can't find the way as yet in our development as a species to fully express it. Language fails to get close to the experience itself, but even if it could, still that wouldn't be enough.

But I think one of the things we can determine is that the possibility to realize this state exists. It may be better IMO to approach it without a lot of religious baggage.

I think of it as the Spirit. I can see it reflected in shamanism, religion, magic, psychedelia (for want of a better term) art, music, nature, animals, people - love, hate, all this multiplex universe.
'All this, our funanimal world' as Joyce said.

 

Take a look at my recent thread in Psychic. We're currently vibing on a similar wavelength. You used the word multiplex and so did I (not an every day word). I posted my thread before I read your post.

 

OK - I like co-incidences esp. where words go. I'll have a look.

 

lol

Not a coincidence! It's synchronicity, alignment. Wavelengths, currents.

 

I think what can we determine depends on what you want to determine. To me it is useful considering what I want. Oh and I don't agree that everyday functioning is impossible from that state. The every day world is largely habitual and you can perform daily duties while being absorbed mentally in other things.

 

So what is it then that you want which this helps to facilitate? I'm just interested to hear.

Or do you mean it just helps everything?

 

To be unreservedly forthcoming or free.

 

The mathematical formula is: Liberty plus Justice.

 

Just is

the truth sets free from the claim of injustice

 

No such thing occurs. If the sense were disabled there would be no experience to rationalize.

My take is that the clear light is what makes present everyday level of consciousness possible and is not a separate estate. I think consensual everyday experience is brought about through filtering and is an extension of the idea of separation. So the ego that disappears are barriers to perception of the world as it is. These mental fabrications are chimera, composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, dazzling, or implausible. There is no measure of difficulty in shedding these false distinctions as they are all dispelled in the same way. The veil over the perception of reality is in fact very thin but held together through the power of mind through belief. I think any difficulty perceived in transcending levels is purely conceptual as levels are of identification. So I regard this flash of illumination as being worked out in temporal order. That temporal order is the time you choose to take in awakening. It can be quick or it can take a very long time depending on how long it takes you to become convinced that awakening is necessary or even desired.

 

in a springtime dream i saw with me a horse , a goat and the pure clear light mandala . the light is pretty . so , anyway , some days later
i was walking a dusty little road when i noticed a man with a sign dangling on his front upon which was written 'dreams interpreted' . so
i asked the man about the vision of that mandala . the reply: ... this your spirit of goodness arisen from the physical , in a balance of receiving
and giving .