- Layers of Reality -

Ok friends, some thoughts here, Im at work so this may be horribly
sloppy and jumpy so please be kynd and bear with me? Also please
keep in mind that these are only my opinions, which have honestly
been gathered from direct experience, but objective and of course
subjective, and in no way am I spewing dogma or demanding acceptance
of what I have to say/believe in. I only want to express some belief
and while what I have to say does rely on a single source God as the
essential core of our existance, please be considerate and let me
roll with this before disregarding it as metaphysical nonsense.
I guess the best place to start off is with the preconceived notion
of reality as perceived by all of us at birth and up to a point where
we begin to see through certain layers or 'veils' of this very
reality. The physical world, the tangible universe, or the material
plane, is the base plane, or layer of reality, that all self-conscious
human beings (or any receptive life form, really) are inheritly aware
of, and is the first to be broken apart when we begin searching.
It is said by Krsna in the Bhagavad Gita that true spirituality begins
in a person when they first look beyond the world that is supposed
to simply be accepted as all there is and questions where he/she
comes from. We need to consider first, what is the ego? And what is
the mind? Who is perceiving the concept of 'me' and where is this
source located? During meditation we can step outside of the limited
enclosure of our physical body, and when advanced we can step right
outside of not only our ego but our mind as well. I would like to
relate a funny incidant that occured this past summer to a friend of
mine named Brian. He was going to an outside nightime party with a
bunch of friends, plenty of beer drinking, live music, drunk people
looking for sex and drugs, etc. So he takes some kind of pill, some
RC I cant recall which one, and he called me about 3 hours later
while he was tripping. He starts telling me that he sees strings
everywhere and they wont go away. Strings between himself and a beer
bottle as he walks over to grab one. Strings between himself and
his then girlfriend as well as other girls at the party. Strings
connecting his cigarettes to his hand and his mouth. Basically, he
perceives his attachments in the from of, well, stings. And I thought
this was funny because he used to argue with me (He is some kind of
New Age Christian, long weird story) about Krsna and the Bhagavad
Gita and how it was rediculous and unbelievable. But Krsna clearly
explains to Arjuna this very reality, the strings that attach us to
our habits. The way he explains it goes something like this :
1. The soul is the owner of a chariot.
2. The mind is driving the chariot, controlling the 5 reins.
3. The 5 reins are the senses of taste, touch, sound, smell, and sight.
4. The horses are the physical representation of the attachments, and
if not controlled will blindly run after whatever they desire.
So, in a sense, he was seeing the reins descending from his self-
consciousness, attempting to habitually pull him towards what he desired.
Really, who is in control? We are more than just a body catering to the
brains every whim. If we desire to do or not do something, we have to
force our mind to comply. Who is forcing the mind to comply? Ok I dont
want to go into much detail here for fear of being rejected as dogmatic,
but I believe that our Soul is the one who should be in control, but most
of us are so busy with satisfying the ego's demands that we have lost
sight of this essential truth.
Sadly I have to get back to work haha, I promise to continue this thought
asap and please, anyone with an opinion is more than welcome to contribute,
as well as anyone who completley disagrees, and if anyone has questions
for me to know more about my personal belief please dont hesitate to ask.
Thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to read this with an open
mind, I truly have nothing but love for all of you and I am happy to help
in any way that I am able.
Much love, peace, and most importantly health both physically and
spiritually, may all of your prayers thoughts and meditation be fruitful.
- Surya

 

Sensitive subjects we are talking about here. I'm sure it will arise so many opinions.
Strange that you have those toughts cause I'm a bit thinking last few days about similar things. Is that maybe some sort of connection?

I was thinking about ego matter and don't know what to say exactly but I see everybody putting egodeath like something really important into posts all the time. For me that is important at certan stage (to say it like that) but later not much. It died so many times but its always back maybe a little changed and you are aware of it but it's there. And I don't really know anyone who is completly egoless all the time. Some people are not seeing it some people are refusing to see that it's there. And than again I can't put all the blame on ego. There are a certain moments of my life where I'm thanking my ego.

I believe myself that a soul should be in control but only recently it came to me that a soul maybe took a control of an ego too. And all the realizations and veils suddently became not so important and stayed just simple love and life itself.

Sensitive subject as I said and I can't yet really be completly sure about it. There is a possibility that I started mixing ego with something else.

Thank you for your openess and honesty to us here on this forum.

 

i believe that we need some ego to exist in this physical reality. on LSD we can experience what it is like with less ego or even ego loss. most would agree that with complete ego loss, functioning in this physical world would be incredibly difficult if not impossible. so, we know that our soul must need our ego for control. this is just the way it is.

learning how to work with this ego in a way that is beneficial for all is a difficult thing for many and is the meaning of life.

if you dont see your ego as a burden you will be able to appreciate what it is there for and better learn how to work with it in a way that is no longer bothersome.

once and awhile i like to trip to be free from the ego and sometimes i wish i had less ego all the time. there is a reason things are the way they are, best i accept that and learn what the benefit is. maybe that is the only way it can be - maybe we are slowly growing out of our egos in a way that requires us to exist in the way we do. maybe in many lifetimes from now we will exist with less ego and more of a connection with the rest of our selves. maybe in other realities or other worlds there are species that already exist with less ego. some alien beings who have evolved in a way that they are not so ego heavy - they would be capable of magic, telepathy, healing powers, etc. that is where i think we are going - or at least where we are supposed to be going.



… to be continued

 

There is a story in Miracle of Love, a compilation of stories about Neem Karoli Baba put out by Ram Dass in the late seventies, and somehow in the stories Maharaji is teasing a devotee with an apple that he wants to eat. The devotee up to that point had been heavily involved in karma yoga, the yoga egoless work, but he had never really gotten in touch with his desires. However, through the simple experience of wanting to eat the apple so badly, he began to see desire as a tangible thing. He said that at that moment, nothing in the world was more tangible to him than his own desires. He could feel them so strongly in his mind, connecting him to all sorts of attachments. It makes perfect sense that either in a metaphysical way or as simply a psychological visual representation on drugs or whatever that our desires could be represented as physical strings between ourselves and our attachments... desire is that strong and that tangible.

 

Attachments are there also as ego. It is also one string to the psysical reality we live in. It would be also very difficult if not impossible to let go of all attachments. Incident I had yesterday while I was just on a half of gram of mushrooms led me to think about that and I understand RELAYER now what he was talking about mushrooms. Just a half a gram and led me to absolut void. It was an incident with mentaly unstable person and I don't take it personaly or bad but it woke up whole process of thining within me. Attachments are our jobs, family, frendships, life itself... One should be really lonely to be able to let go of all desires and attachments and even then they will arise. It is impossible to divide everything on black and white. So where does one make that line in between the two? If the attachment is not a burden we should "be able to appreciate what it is there for and better learn how to work with it in a way that is no longer bothersome".


Here is what H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said about attachments:

"Attachments cause feverish brath and feverish breath takes away peace of mind. Then you are in pieces and you fall prey to misery.
Before you get scattered too much, gather yourself and rid your breath of feverisness through surrender and sadhana (spiritual practices). Unfortunately most people do not notice what is happening until it is too late.
When someone is drowning in the ocean of attachments, surrender is the life jacket they can put on and wait for the rescue team. Without fighting the attachments, observe the feverish breath and go to the cool place of silence within.

Your first step is to direct your attachment to the Knowledge, to the Divine.

Your non-attachment to the mundane is your charm.
Your attachment to the Divine is your beauty."

We are circling our whole life. Where is the beginning and where is the end of the circle? Just keep circling and enjoy your life!

 

I relate to relayer's

"If we desire to do or not do something, we have to
force our mind to comply. Who is forcing the mind to comply?"

and this was what I have always considered teh possible place to view the soul. the impulse against impulses.

but I am inclined to see the will to force the mind to do something as the same as any impulse of animal sorts, but which has teh potential for overriding any of the lower-level impulses.

belief can often be the key. if one believes they are able to overcome impulses (or laziness), and moreso believes that they will be better because of it and happier because of it, and also depending on whatever else is their priority, they can do anything that their body is capable of.

for example, smoking cigarettes. many people say it is hard. i think this is due to a few factors:

believing it is hard.
believing they are not incontrol (that addiction is forcing them to do things)
lack of an association between quitting and being the person they want to be. they probably want to be a better person who does smoke, due to the many associations they have with the media and with their own judgements of other smokers and non smokers.

it becomes complicated when you look at every single factor, but i think that with the right beliefs, anyone can simply stop smoking flat out. which is why hypnosis and other cognitive approaches can lead people to have the feeling like their addiction simply dissapeared. when really, they were put in a position that made not smoking seem like a better idea than smoking.

look i dont want to go into the whole business of how to quit smoking, i am leaving my original point

that it is not a metaphysical soul that overcomes earthly desires, it is merely a certain mindset that can frame desires in such a way that puts the desire to be free of 'earthly' desires ahead of such desires.

 

and that the very belief that one has a soul that has the power to overcome desires is a possible rout for overcoming such desires. this is tied in to the 'belief that one has the power to overcome their attatchments'
which is why a lot of people turn to spirituality to escape destructive lifestyles. spirituality is a set of beliefs and these beliefs can frame their old lifestyles in a way that make it seem better to avoid them.

in conclusion, everyone always has the potential for overcoming any addiction - pain can be endured. it all depends on what they actually believe. and people arent aware of the extent of their beliefs; the most powerful beliefs are not understood, they are merely assumed within each thought.

 

i watched my ex-husband struggle for the four years we spent together to give up smoking ganja. he did a vipassana meditation course, which teaches a technique one can use to understand desire and addiction so clearly, it can enable them to fall away. he stopped smoking within 6 weeks of the course, in a manner that was gentle and had none of the traumas usually associated with kicking a habit

the physical sensation caused by the substance/habit/thoughtform/emotional state etc is what we ultimately crave. it was seen and experienced that even the state of being in meditation-induced bliss can become a craving, and sitting to meditate becomes the "hit" taken to achieve it. vipassana teaches how to use the pain and the bliss as tools to eventually be free of them - not meaning they will never be experienced, but that they will no longer entrap the mind into craving the "pleasant" and wishing the avoid the "unpleasant." then from the meditation hall, you take the technique out into everyday life, and should find benefit

i personally found that the (IMO) unnecessary dogmatic rules muddied the simple beauty of the method, as well as, of course, catching a whole new batch of vipassana junkies, and the fanatics who felt that what you ate and when, or what colour you painted the meditation hall were more vital than the actual practise.

the whole conundrum of desiring to end desire, or desiring enlightenment, (which is sometimes classified as freedom from all desire) is a fascinating discussion in itself. :dance:

 

The desire to know God will transform you into a loving
person, and if meditation is done properly, there are no
negative results like those that follow fulfilling material
desires. God never leaves your side, basically, where
everyone and everything else someday will. To merge
into the infinite Love leaves nothing else to ever be
desired again.

 

I can relate most to attachments being strings that control you. Up until last night I had been having a shitty couple of days and was just really unhappy, I felt really dependent upon doing things and was very uncomfortable and couldn't meditate. It was really unpleasant, and even while it was happening I knew I was just feeling very very attached.

 

I beleive the grounds of sanity end where ever you are not.

 

if there is belief in duality, it is seen like that, yes.

at first the search is in the material world, then it seems to shift into the "higher dimension" of the spiritual world. the search for god/enlightenment/ultimate truth/insert term here

the "discovery" of advaita (or oneness) removes the illusion that there is anything/anyone/any state/any place separate from god.

separation is an idea which arises (in oneness, or god, if you prefer); then desire occurs, and with it, the whole glorious mystery of life as a seeming journey or search

when that illusion of separation has dropped away, so does desire, including desire for "union" with god.

there is no point in desiring that which is always already extant.

the desire itself arises from the delusion of separation. once free of that, life is loved and lived and enjoyed in a state of joy and tranquil humility. the root meaning of the word humilty is "to know oneself" or "to know one's place." the key to most esoteric teachings that tried to stay dogma-free is "know thyself"

knowing all is one, all is loved. scientists, for example, would just :lol: at it. and certain sorts of christians, the ones with foam on their lips, would burn me at the stake.

none-the-less. all is one

the above is based on my experiences and is by no means a conclusion, a sermon, or a declaration of truth. if i was to claim such, i would be closing myself to the beautiful possibilty that i could be wrong...the whole picture is so much more gorgeous and profound than i could ever squeeze into a post....even one as long as this one

:love:

 

And does not the concept of duality drop away from
meditation on God? The truth of the matter is that
the physical body inhabited by a soul will sooner or
later be gone, and attachment to such a body is
what I was getting at, not the soul. The soul is what
is in a state of Oneness, not the body, we are most
definitley one but when our consciousness is limited
to the material plane how can we know the truth?
Therefor, it is a noble desire to meditate on God's
love, and this desire is desireless in itself, as is
creation and the duality of dark and light, which,
obviously, can not be denied.

 

thank you for being a questioner and a thinker. i value how you allow me to delve into my experience in order to find words to try and describe it. although silence would be the most eloquent, posts need words

my post above may not have clearly showed how i do not experience the material and spiritual as separate. terms like body, mind, soul all mean the same thing in my experience - manifestations of source/oneness/god

so "i" do not have a sense of being "in" a body, that one day some part of "me" will escape from. there is just a sense of BEING, as a body at present, that is ever-changing and flowing, linked with all manifest oneness, arising in it, made of it, beautiful, profound, mysterious.

if i may, i would like to post a link to prismatism's post on ego. it is a beautiful piece of work. http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269650

 

Beautiful way of saying it denise-louise. Well done for braking the silence and finding a proper words to describe it.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
All is one.

 

strings are representation of habits of the unconscious mind
or perhaps habits of the unconscious mind are representations of the energy strings

But they do say, enlightenment is when the conscious mind is fully conscious of the unconscious mind and thus has no more unconscious habituation. It controls the creation of all strings and can disattach all strings by will. Which ultimately when that happens, pretty much you make only unconscious habituations of love.

now in the context of layers of reality. It's a peculiar thing I still am not to sure. Are the strings representing habituation or is habituation representing the strings? Which one is more 'real' so to say. Well one method to deduce such a thing is to develop methods of manipulation. Can you cut the strings and thus break the habituation? Or would you go through some process to stop the habituation and then no longer see the string? I've actually used the visual of strings for attachments to people and habituations before. Typically when I want to break a habituation I use the string metaphor in combination with some other process of focus to break the habituation. Which is only because. I consider everything associative, not causal. What came first the string or the habit? Well I'd say they just magickally appeared at the same time, two sides of the same coin in the realm of metaphor and both sides will need some work. Or maybe one can be used as a tool for the other side?

In terms of higher conciousness or lower conciousness. Well certainly you gotta be "hallucinating" to see strings, which would denote "high conciousness". But we are never, while alive, just 'higher conciousness'. If you get up there and cut an energy, all that invariably will mean is, at a 'lower level' your going to have some damn good will to break the habituation. So yes cutting strings literally in a 'higher concious' may be quite an efficient method to cut strings. However I do believe once you develop a method of doing it and get good at it, you can cut strings by will just as efficiently in any level of conciousness.

 

this does a good job of describing what i have attempted to put across regarding the experience both here, in other threads and in life itself. thank you :love:

it is said too that true wisdom is knowing you are nothing; true love is knowing you are everything.

many people stop at wisdom and become great teachers or crusaders. there is nothing wrong with that, but the teachings tend to corrupt or the crusades become fanatic and violent. this is clearly evident in the world today, and has been throughout history. (originally)"well-meaning people believing they are doing the right thing" as Xenon put it.

when true love is present, the need to do anything to change the world falls away. what happens instead is the allowance of one's own (one's) true state: "being of love" or perhaps simply "being love"

in the presence of this energy, change in the world is inevitable. it occurs without force or violence, and has long-lasting, far-reaching effects in what appears to be duality, but which is really just the eternal (time-less) unfoldment of oneness in all its manifestations:

that change is also unstoppable as long as fear does not re-arise with strength enough to overwhelm.
what we see today around us in the world is a series of severe challenges to that love. how will that challenge be met? if it is met with hate or violence, we have become no different to those we hate or rail against.

expose the truth, lead the campaign, rally against the greed and corruption, yes, but from a core state of love and understanding, or all effort will ultimately only breed more conflict.

sorry...went a bit long-winded there :whistling:

 

Just a thought,
There is only ONE reality, but it has many layers, every layer is defined with certain attachments, and once we lose certain attachements that describe that layer of reality, we are able to enter other layer attaching to new attachments. In certain period of time, we have certain attachments, but that keeps changing, and according to that we change and look at reality from different layers. I think that only ONE thing is universal for all layers and connects them together in ONE reality and that is LOVE.
All we need is LOVE!!

 

i love my wife and we look forward to living out our lives together... that is an attachment that i feel good about.

there are many things in life that are unhealthy attachments.

it is very natural for us to have attachments and they are not always bad. but we should be careful what we cling to.

i have a healthy relationship with my wife. we are not attached at the hip - she has her own perspective as do i. when one of us passes on we will be able to let go and be ok with out the other person around.

i think that having attachments is part of existing in the physical world. the only time we will be completely free of attachments is when we are in a very deep state of meditation, (be it natural or induced with psychedelic drugs) or when we are in an after life that is not physical like this one.

 

I agree that some attachments are ok, but only
when, like in this case, it is an attachment to love.
As long as you are still ok wether your wife is there
or not, then I see no problem with this sort of
attachment.
But a healthy relationship is part of the householder
life, and is not something that will bring you down,
unless it was a bad relationship.
But I am a firm believer in Samadhi, and I truly
feel that one can live a life free of ANY attachment
during existance in a physical body, provided the
love is there and the meditation is done.
People CAN get there, Im sure of it. And I intend
on trying to find out, maybe someday.