[FairfieldLife] the two models
Another old posting from Tom T >From Jean Klein Transmission of the Flame page 65 first para: "...We have very often repeated that the seeker is the sought. An object is a fraction; it appears in your wholeness, in your globality. When you really come to the understanding that the seeker is the sought, there is a natural giving-up of all energy to find something. It is an instantaneous apperception. I don't say perception, because in perception there is a perceiver and something perceived. An apperception is an instantaneous perceiving of what is perceiving. So it can never be in relation of subject-object, just as an eye can never see its own seeing. ...you will find a glimpse of non-subject-object relationship. This glimpse is seen with your whole intelligence, which is there in the absence of the person, the thinker, the doer. Understanding, being the understanding, is enlightenment.
[FairfieldLife] the two models
One other thing to add to the stew from one of my long lost posts.Tom Enlightenment is not an experience it is an understanding that comes when the intellect makes the final discrimination. The understanding does not happen in any mind. Self knows Self. The knowing of Self is so strong as to leave no doubt about what has transpired. That knowing imprints on the small self what is known to be beyond the ability of any mind to know. It is the expression of the lively absolute playing out in a physiology. Brahmin looks out through these eyes, talks through this mouth and animates this body. The cosmic Self comes to the forefront and the small self is content to run the relative life. Nothing in your life changes and yet everything in your life changes. It is the ultimate Paradox, which is the clue as to the profundity of what has just transpired.
[FairfieldLife] the two models
Something I posted here a few years ago that seems revelant to this discussion. TOm Ignorance is nothing more that our ability to ignore that which we already are. A great many spiritual people have some pretty outstanding experiences, which cause them to move to deeper understandings. The key here is that all experiences are in, of, by, and about the relative. Those experiences do make a difference and move people to some relative understanding of who we are. When Self knows Self, this happens on the other side of the line. It is the absolute knowing itself. When that happens understanding gets imprinted on this small self physiology of the magnitude of what has happened, thus making it impossible to ignore who and what we have always been. The key is that if there is any doubt then the relative side of who we are has not yet had the clear understanding to make it unmistakable, undeniable and self-validating. Awakening is not an experience but an understanding brought about through clarity. A quote from Jean Klein from his book I AM page 85. "In an experience there is still an experiencer who is stuck in the pattern of going in and out of states. Global understanding is the sudden awareness that the perceiver of these states is unaffected by them, that they appear in the perceiver. This insight occurs in a flash when all the fragments preventing us from understanding, yet which point towards it, unfold in the uninvolved witness. Awareness is the essential element allowing non-understanding to become understanding. It does not result from accumulation as when we learn something, a language or an instrument, for example. It is instantaneous like a flash of lightning where the various elements preceding it are suddenly seen simultaneously and are re-orchestrated, just as the particles drawn by a magnet fall into a pattern when they become attached to it. This sudden vision can eliminate all previous problems without leaving the slightest shadow of non-understanding. This resorption into total understanding releases all the energies usually molded into set patterns and opens the way towards ultimate truth, oneness." (Tom comments, we could also use Wholeness or Fullness in lieu of Oneness.) Patanjali via Alistair Shearer verse 55 and last of Chapter 3, Expansion. Which is where all the sidhis are enumerated and is of course the prescribed result of practicing them which is why it is the last verse of this chapter. "And when the translucent intellect is as pure as the Self, there is Enlightenment"
Re: [FairfieldLife] The two models
On Jan 31, 2008, at 3:38 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Barry writes snipped: > > And again, you are assuming the "unenlightened" > > model, which believes that "progress" *has* to be "made" > > "towards" enlightenment. If you shift to another > > equally accurate model and description of the process -- > > that everyone is always already enlightened and that the > > *only* thing that marks "enlightenment" is a realization > > of what has always already been going on -- then there > > is no "progress" possible. > > TomT: > The reason it is called ignorance is that one actually is able > to ignore that which they always have been and will always be. > It is not called stupid or smart or arrogant or gratuitous or > a lie it is called IGNORANCE. Name and form. For those who have had a realization experience, whether it be temporary or permanent, the "always already enlightened" model is just so much more *accurate*. Yes, but even in sudden paths to E, relative obscurations will remain. That's not to say that an individual cannot go from total ignorance to complete enlightenment in a flash, but it is extremely rare and has happened to maybe a handful of people in history. And also, the world is filled with people (esp. nowadays it would seem) who claim to be enlightened or had some total awakening but may actually be in something else. Unless you have a person, a standard really, who can verify that experience, it actually has little meaning. More often than not students will mistake any number of well known sidetracks as the Big E. Even when one does authentically have a non-conventional experience of our Natural State, on still is on a path, just one where it is a pathless path, as obscurations do still remain. It's *obvious* when it happens that there was never anywhere to "go," nothing to "become," no "stress" to get rid of, no moment at which you were ever "unenlightened." Enlightenment is, has always been, and will always be; the only thing lacking up til now has been the realization of what should have been obvious. As Tom suggests, the being who has considered himself "unenlightened" has just been being IGNORANT of what's been right in his face since the day he was born. So I've always wondered WHY spiritual teachers went for that *other* model, the *inaccurate* one. Because different people have different propensities and different dispositions. Most people need some sort of support or training wheels to begin to let go of their identifications. You know the one -- the one that says that there are things you have to "do" to "become" enlight- ened, that there are "obstacles" like stress that can prevent enlightenment, that one can ever be "unenlightened." Why not do what Ramana Maharshi and a few other teachers did and just TELL THE TRUTH from Day One: "You're enlightened. Right here, right now. GET OVER all this 'unenlightened' stuff already." :-) Ramana actually himself spent years in all sorts of absorptions before he had his "sudden" realization (same with Nisargadatta, a Nath who has mastered kundalini and yoga first). He also taught his students based on where they're at, not a "one size fits' all" approach. As far as I can tell, the entire TM model for the enlightenment process is a LIE. Worse, it is a *known* lie, because Maharishi has at times written eloquently about the other model, the "always already enlightened" model. So he *chose* to tell people that they were unenlightened, and would remain unenlightened until certain undefined conditions were met. He chose to *reinforce* the ignorance rather than dispel it. WHY, one wonders? Ignorance sells? :-)
[FairfieldLife] The two models
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Barry writes snipped: > > And again, you are assuming the "unenlightened" > > model, which believes that "progress" *has* to be "made" > > "towards" enlightenment. If you shift to another > > equally accurate model and description of the process -- > > that everyone is always already enlightened and that the > > *only* thing that marks "enlightenment" is a realization > > of what has always already been going on -- then there > > is no "progress" possible. > > TomT: > The reason it is called ignorance is that one actually is able > to ignore that which they always have been and will always be. > It is not called stupid or smart or arrogant or gratuitous or > a lie it is called IGNORANCE. Name and form. For those who have had a realization experience, whether it be temporary or permanent, the "always already enlightened" model is just so much more *accurate*. It's *obvious* when it happens that there was never anywhere to "go," nothing to "become," no "stress" to get rid of, no moment at which you were ever "unenlightened." Enlightenment is, has always been, and will always be; the only thing lacking up til now has been the realization of what should have been obvious. As Tom suggests, the being who has considered himself "unenlightened" has just been being IGNORANT of what's been right in his face since the day he was born. So I've always wondered WHY spiritual teachers went for that *other* model, the *inaccurate* one. You know the one -- the one that says that there are things you have to "do" to "become" enlight- ened, that there are "obstacles" like stress that can prevent enlightenment, that one can ever be "unenlightened." Why not do what Ramana Maharshi and a few other teachers did and just TELL THE TRUTH from Day One: "You're enlightened. Right here, right now. GET OVER all this 'unenlightened' stuff already." :-) As far as I can tell, the entire TM model for the enlightenment process is a LIE. Worse, it is a *known* lie, because Maharishi has at times written eloquently about the other model, the "always already enlightened" model. So he *chose* to tell people that they were unenlightened, and would remain unenlightened until certain undefined conditions were met. He chose to *reinforce* the ignorance rather than dispel it. WHY, one wonders?
