Sunday 17 July 2016

If we are able to be steadily self-attentive, where do we go from here?

A friend wrote to me explaining how he is practising self-investigation and asked, ‘Where do I go from here?’ The following is what I wrote in reply to him.

When you write, ‘I seem to be “witnessing” or aware of the I am thought all the time now’, what exactly do you mean by ‘the I am thought’? The reason I ask is that people tend to objectify everything, so some people assume that the I-thought is some sort of object that one can watch, but the term ‘I-thought’ is just another name for the ego, which is not an object but the subject, the one who is aware of all objects. Therefore what we need to watch or ‘witness’ is not any object but only ourself, the subject (the ego or thought called ‘I’).

Since we are not an object or phenomenon, watching ourself means simply being self-attentive or attentively self-aware. We are always self-aware, but generally in waking and dream we are negligently self-aware, because we are so interested in being aware of other things that we overlook our own self-awareness, which is the foundation or screen on which awareness of other things appears and disappears. Because of our interest in other things, we constantly direct our attention away from ourself towards other things, so our aim now is to turn our attention back and fix it on ourself as keenly and as steadily as possible.

To the extent that we manage to focus our attention on ourself, it is thereby withdrawn from all other things, and hence other things recede into the background of our awareness, so to speak. However other things will linger on to a greater or lesser extent in our awareness until our ego either subsides in sleep, from which it will sooner or later rise again, or is completely annihilated, in which case it will never rise again. Therefore our aim should be just to focus our attention as keenly as possible on ourself at all times.

Until our ego is destroyed, some of our time will be taken up with other activities, but even while our body and mind are active, we can to a greater or lesser extent maintain an underlying current of self-attentiveness. Therefore we should always try to be self-attentive, but when not engaged in other activities we are generally able to be more keenly and steadily self-attentive.

If this is what you are trying to do, there is nothing else you need or should do. Just patiently persevere in trying to be ever more keenly and steadily self-attentive. Therefore the answer to your question where you should go from here is nowhere, except of course deeper and deeper into yourself, which you can do only by persistently trying to be self-attentive.

As Bhagavan assured us in the eleventh paragraph of Nāṉ Yār?:
ஒருவன் தான் சொரூபத்தை யடையும் வரையில் நிரந்தர சொரூப ஸ்மரணையைக் கைப்பற்றுவானாயின் அதுவொன்றே போதும்.

oruvaṉ tāṉ sorūpattai y-aḍaiyum varaiyil nirantara sorūpa-smaraṇaiyai-k kai-p-paṯṟuvāṉ-āyiṉ adu-v-oṉḏṟē pōdum.

If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarūpa-smaraṇa [self-remembrance] until one attains svarūpa [one’s own actual self], that alone will be sufficient.
Trying to do anything other than just being self-attentive would nourish and sustain our ego, because doing anything else would entail attending to other things, which is the food on which this ego depends for its survival, so being self-attentive as much as possible is the only way to dissolve it completely and forever.

226 comments:

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Sivanarul said...

Bob - p,

If you write the comment in Word and post it, sometimes it is interpreted incorrectly by the blogging engine and gets flagged. It might get released a few hours later or never. I had the same issues and I switched to Notepad to write my comments and it has never gotten lost.

Try writing your comment in Notepad and copy and paste from it.

Bob - P said...

Hi Sivanarul
Thanks for your reply and for the advice.
Yes what you say makes perfect sense I will try again now and paste from notepad into the comment box. I will always do this from now on.
All the best and thanks again.
Bob

Bob - P said...

Hi Roger

Thanks for your reply.

After reading your reply to me and "Knower" and your reply to me I think I understand your perspective a bit better.

I think we both believe our present experience of ourself is not the truth or we are not experiencing ourself as we really are. To experience ourself as we really are we both do a form of practise / sadhana which has been taught to us from a perceived external source (ie) a spiritual teacher / jnani.

Plus from what you write our practise sounds very very similar which is it to look within, be still, be quiet, be self attentive, just be, etc etc. There may be slight subtle differences but I think we are in essence doing the same thing.

So you could say we are both on the same boat headed to a destination.

I think our beliefs or ideas differ when it comes to what the destination is or our experience once we supposedly reach our perceived destination.

If I understand you correctly from your posts on Michael's blog you believe your destination will be dualistic but very different form your present dualistic experience. Of course you could be absolutely right here Roger.

My belief is it won't be dualistic but non dual where I will experience nothing but myself. Like for example in deep dreamless sleep. For me any type of duality where there is a subject and an object is not the absolute truth. This is just my opinion and my understanding of Bhagavan's teaching but I could be absolutely wrong.

So I think we do differ in this regard. However neither of us can prove ourselves to be right.

Also from your posts it seems to me you believe that all the sentient beings within your field of awareness have egos or they are all self aware like you (multiple egos). I don't think you believe or think that there is only on ego or only one self aware being?

I personally believe that there is only one ego and all I perceive in my field of awareness in truth is egoless and is not self aware. I believe there is only one self aware being. It is the only thing I know for certain.

However while I take myself to be an individual person all other sentient beings are as real as me and need to be treated as I myself would like to be treated. If I didn't believe this I wouldn't be a vegan for example and could be a very cold, uncompassionate person. But my understanding or my belief is like I said there is only one ego or only one self aware being. This one ego or self are being is presently identified with the body/person Bob who is nothing but its projection along with the world and everything else.

So for example let's just say you shared my belief Roger and also thought there was only one ego or only one self aware being.


You would believe that the one ego has projected or created everything including Roger the person body. For the ego or false limited consciousness to rise it needs a body or point of reference and to identify with that body and take it to be itself which happens simultaneously. So now there is the 1st person and 2nd and 3rd persons / duality.

You are experiencing yourself not as you really are but instead as multiplicity.
Continued below ....

Bob - P said...

Continuing from above ....

The body / person the one ego is presently identified with is a person called Roger. Roger the body/ person appears to be self aware because Roger's source or foundation is the one self aware ego. Plus the ego only seems to be self aware because it's source is the non dual self aware being, yourself as you really are, the truth, the absolute reality. You would therefore believe that everything including the person Roger is a false perception of what you really are.

So everything within your awareness including Bob, Michael's blog, Bhagavan, all your friends, family, all other sentient beings and basically everything other than you within your field of awareness is just like Roger a projection of the one ego that presently takes itself to be Roger.

You would believe that your self as you really are has manifested within your dualistic field of awareness in a limited human / non human form called Bhagavan / Arunachala which appears to be separate from yourself due to ignorance. He would teach you that you are not what you take yourself to be and tell you to turn within and carefully look at yourself to see what you really are. You would trust Bhagavan and take what he says to be the gospel truth because he is yourself guiding you home so to speak. You find questions arise about the simple teaching so Michael James, his blog and all his wonderful writings manifest within your field of awareness to help you and continuously remind you to look within and to investigate yourself.

You would trust Bhagavan that in truth the ego has never existed. But you would also trust his teaching that the ego is everything and there is only one ego or self aware being. You would also trust him that if you investigate yourself earnestly and manage to turn you attention 180 degrees and experience yourself alone you will experience yourself as you really are the non dual self aware happy being. There would be nothing other than yourself. No world, no body, no Roger, no people. You would be completely empty of anything other than yourself and instead completely full of what is real, yourself. So you are not empty or nothing but instead complete whole fullness.

If you believe all this you would believe the same as me as this is my personal understanding.

But I am not trying to convince you of anything. As I said I could be completely wrong. You said I wrote or related in a very non - confrontational way the reason why is because I don't take myself too seriously, with my belief how can I (lol)!!!!
In all fairness if I wanted to do a better job I would write only in E-Prime.

You may say if you believe this Bob why are you writing all this and why do you post comments on Michael's blog? Are you not just writing to yourself (lol)!

My present experience is no I am not because everyone I experience and interact with is as real as Bob but if I understand Bhagavan's teaching correctly then you could say in truth I am writing to myself. But this is beyond my limited ignorant comprehension.

Hope you have a great weekend Roger and all the very best with your practise.
Take care.

Bob

P.s - I will not be writing as much now I normally just write the odd short post and thank Michael for his wonderful articles. Of course questions do rise and I ask questions to help with my understanding. I must stress Roger I am sure there are errors in what I wrote with regards my understanding I must confess I do find it very hard to write about this without contradicting myself or contradicting Bhagavan. This is why I believe we are blessed to have Michael and his blog!! I must also point out if what I wrote does make that is thanks to Michael not me.


But as I said Roger I am not blessed when it comes to typing speed!!

It has been a pleasure talking / writing to you.




we are already that said...

Roger Isaacs,
the real Bhagavan continues to teach in silence because he is nothing but silence.
Regarding 'sakta':
according a footnote shown in the mentioned article of John Grimes:
the quoted saying of Bhagavan is gathered from the Diary of Devaraja Mudaliar, Day by Day with Bhagavan, 2002.3-7-46.p.266.
I had a look in my book and there on page 269 -only a few lines above the quoted passage - we read:
"Visitor: What about the powers of supermen ?
Bhagavan: Whether powers are high or low, whether of the mind or super-mind, they exist only with reference to him who has the powers; find out who that is."
So I conclude that the meaning of the word 'sakta' in the clause 'There can be no sakti apart from the sakta' is in the sense that sakti exists only with the reference to him who has the perception of world/maya/lila/sakti.

About the ajata doctrine ("Nothing exists except the one reality") or drishti-srishti vada ("Apart from the seer, there is no seen") and the argument called srishti-drishti vada you will find some articles on Michael's blog.
Good evening.

we are already that said...

Roger,
I want to add that John Grimes is a recognised academic authority on Advaita. He received his Ph.D. on Indian Philosophy from the University of Madras.

Roger said...

Hi "we are already that":
>>I want to add that John Grimes is a recognised academic authority on Advaita.

thanks, I ordered his recent book on Advaita and Bhagavan.

Roger said...

Hi Bob,
Thanks for your effort in discussing these details, this is valuable for me in stimulating contemplation. Please place "In my opinion today, may change tomorrow..." in front of each sentence below mentally.

You believe there is only one ego:
From the level of duality, there are multiple individual egos. Been a traffic jam recently with multiple egos yelling?!
From the level of non-duality, there is only one "I". And what was known as a personal ego has evaporated as an illusion.
When in the state of duality it maybe useful to contemplate the potential characteristics of the non-dual state... but building up mental anticipation or imagination about higher states might become just more mental activity requiring eventual elimination?

You say: My belief is it won't be dualistic but non dual where I will experience nothing but myself. Like for example in deep dreamless sleep. For me any type of duality where there is a subject and an object is not the absolute truth.

There is a distinction between experiencing just one thing as practice, and non-duality!!!

You want to perceive or experience only one thing "I", a very high practice!
But are you confusing the experience or practice of just one thing ("I") and the Realization of non-duality? After Realization non-duality is established as a new persistent higher state of consciousness, you may experience more than one thing, but whatever is experienced (Lakshmi the cow etc...) is seen (in some sense) as not different than Self and therefore no longer "subject-object".

You say "trust Bhagavan...":
I prefer the adage "do not believe anything that I tell you... until/unless you find it in your own experience" (BL).
I am not trying to undermine your trust, I am somewhat different, extremely independent and not reliant on external authority, instead seeking the inner guide. I trust my practice of being "inwardly attentive" alone.... and nothing and nobody else. Remember Michael has told me in the past specifically that what I am doing could not possibly work, only atma-vicara works, everything else is mental activity. I do accept everything as "food for thought" or "grist for the mill".

Trust the inner Bhagavan. The outer messages are conflicting. Michael says "exclude the physical" and I quote from "Talks" and "Godman" where Bhagavan says "exclusion of the physical DOES NOT MATTER". IMO Michael is correct but exclude the physical is not the only way. It seems that the full diversity of Bhagavan's message is not coming through.

You say: experience yourself alone you will experience yourself as you really are the non dual self aware happy being. There would be nothing other than yourself. No world, no body, no Roger, no people.

This is not the "happiness of being"... this is the happiness of NON-Being. :-)

If you say this experience of "no world, no body, no Roger, no people" is a temporary state (nirvikalpa), then I would agree. If you say that it is permanent... this is impossible because we would never know about it! No one could return from it and speak about it!

Sanjay Lohia said...

The defects we see in others are only our own defects ~*~ Extract from the article The Paramount Importance of Self-Attention which appeared in The Mountain Path

Sadhu Om said on 12th May 1978: I was once trying to puzzle out why every creature, whether human or non-human, makes the same mistake of identifying a body as ‘I’. In all of them we see the same defects, such as desire, greed, lust and anger, and all of these are rooted in this one mistaken notion, ‘I am this body’. Then I understood that if there were many creatures there would be many mistakes, but there is only one. Because I take my body to be ‘I’, I see this ‘I am the body’ identification in every creature I project. Because I have a desire for something, I see the same desire in others. It is just like in a dream, where we see our own desires and fears in all the dream-creatures. The defects we see in others are only our own defects. If we wish to remove the ‘I am the body’ idea in other creatures, we only have to remove it in ourself. Then we will see that no one has this mistaken notion.

In Conclusion: Most of us definitely see the defects, such as desire, greed, lust, anger, and so on in others; therefore, we can be sure that these defects are there in us, as we see only our own projections outside. How to remove these defects? We can remove these defects only by destroying the one (our ego) who has these defects. How to destroy our ego? The only way to destroy our ego is by vigilant and continuous self-attentiveness. Therefore, as the title of this article says, self-attention is our paramount duty. Everything else is a passing dream; thus, not of any importance, or value.

Bob - P said...

Hi Roger
Thanks for your reply.
I think we agree on things and also disagree on things but it doesn't really matter does it.
I have my beliefs or ideas and you have yours and there is no point trying to convince each other of anything, not that we were of course. It has been very helpful to me so thank you very much for sharing your perspective with me.

I agree with you we should learn from our own direct experience. Mine is I exist and am aware so I should investigate this. Everything else within my awareness is up for grabs so to speak. When I wake up from a dream the only thing that remains in the waking state from the dream state is the dreamer (ego). Not the dream body / person I took myself to be in the dream and nothing else dreamt by the dreamer (ie) the dream world and everything within it. Everything else disappears because there were imaginary. My belief is the waking state is exactly the same, just another dream. I also believe the dreamer / the ego which dreams the dream state and the waking state in truth is also imaginary. It is a distortion of what I really am that experiences myself as multiplicity.

However these beliefs compared to my direct experience (I am aware, I exist) are admittedly linked to my understanding of Bhagavan's teaching and Michael's help understanding them.

Again my two comments you have replied to are not appearing to me my end I think this is a sign for me to be quiet Roger (lol) !! I think I should post shorter less frequent posts. Will I? Maybe, maybe not but I hope so. I hope I spend more time attending to myself.

All the best Roger and thank you.
Bob

borrowing the original light said...

Roger,
perhaps you listen with interest in some lines which I am now reading about Thayumanuvar, the Silent Sage:
Bhagavan said:"Silence is the most potent form of work. However vast and emphatic the sastras[scripture] may be, they fail in their effect. The Guru is quit and peace prevails in all. His silence is more vast and more emphatic than all the sastras put together."
...in the whole of Thayumanavar's literature, what Bhagavan preferred is the following line."With the disappearance of ego, another I-I spontaneously manifests in full glory".
There is divinity in every human being but this divinity is lost when the mind comes into play. It is the mind that makes a person someone other than what he naturally is.
Thayumanavar has therefore prayed to be blessed with the pure and perfect state that is free from the mind...
THe mind is always seeking something. Even when it gets what it wants, it is never contented but pursues some other object.
...because the mind never rests, even for a while. It keeps generating thoughts.
...The mind loves to indulge in thoughts right from the moment when the individual wakes up from deep sleep(sushupti). When it leaves one thought, it catches hold of another thought and this goes on and on. Thayumanavar says that the mind is like a monkey that has been bitten by a scorpion, its movements wild and agitated. Thayumanavar sang:"Oh mind, having associated with you for so long, I will now give a good farewell to you. With the blessings of my venerable Guru, I will then reach a state beyond illusions like 'I' or 'mine' and will attain my natural state of being one with the LOrd."
Though the world is a myth, a mere dream and transitory in nature, the mind always tends to turn towards this unreal world.
It is only when one identifies with the mind that one becomes somebody other than one's real Self.
Maharshi then quoted the song of Thayumanuvar:"O Mind, I advised you to remain quiet but ignoring that advice, you went on debating things and what have you gained ? When remaining in quiet is bliss, why do you pursue this world of Maya?. Though great saints keep on reiterating the importance of remaining quiet, you keep on wandering in the forest of ignorance."

Sanjay Lohia said...

The body of the guru is a veil covering him in the view of his devotees ~*~ extracts from one of the The Paramount Importance of Self-Attention article

Bhagavan used to say that the body of the guru is a veil covering him in the view of his devotees, because it conceals from them his true form as self. What advantage do devotees who were blessed to be in his physical presence have now? All they now have is a memory, which is no better than a dream. If they think proudly, ‘I have seen Bhagavan’, that is just another opportunity for their ego to rise.

To have come to Bhagavan is a sign of our ignorance, but he removes that ignorance by enabling us to understand that his presence is not limited to any place here or there, because it alone exists. He does not allow us to cling to anything external, but makes us discriminate and understand that ‘I am’ alone is eternal, and that the guru therefore cannot be anything other than that.

In conclusion: Yes, as Bhagavan says, ‘the body of the guru is a veil covering him in the view of his devotees’. We lost Bhagavan’s body on April 14, 1950, and many of the devotees who were present then felt than their guru had left them. Thinking thus, they started to leave Tiruvannamalai; therefore, they clearly considered the body of Bhagavan to be their guru. They were clearly misled by the veil - the Bhagavan’s body.

Although, we all immensely loved and still love Bhagavan’s form, and hold it very dear to us, but in a way we are fortunate that Bhagavan’s physical form is no more there to mislead us. We have no option now but to turn within if we want to contact Bhagavan. He resides in and as our heart, and that is his true form. From this perspective even his physical death was a blessing for us.



Roger said...

Hi Bob & "Borrowing...",

Hi Bob, thanks for the conversation. If I pushed too hard, I apologize. Thanks for putting up with my provocative behavior.

Hi "Borrowing...":
I believe there may be a problem in that multiple people have expressed concern about the teaching "when your ego dies, the body and world die too". People may believe this, but also are concerned about disappearing. I feel compelled to dig deeper.

I appreciate your comments on silence. It may be the most potent form of the work, however, I don't see any possibility of these issues being improved (or understood if the problem is with me) without speaking out about them. Actually, the "most potent form of the work" must be relative depending on the situation. If silence were always best... nothing could be written? Neither Michael or Bhagavan were/are totally silent outwardly?

thanks,
R

Viveka Vairagya said...

Daniel Erway (aka Nirmala) On Identity Formation (http://endless-satsang.com)

To see through the “me,” you first have to take a good look at it and see what it is made of. When I ask you How are you? just notice right now what you refer to for the answer. How is this “you” that you call “me” doing? Do you refer to your thoughts in talking about “you”? Or do you refer more to your feelings or to your desires? After you’ve discovered the various places where you look to describe “you,” just check to see if these thoughts, feelings, and desires have the qualities of something that is true. Do they bring relaxation and quieting of the mind? Are they deeply satisfying? Or are they accompanied by contraction, busy-ness, restlessness, and dissatisfaction?
When someone asks you how you are, and you tell them what you’ve been thinking about or what you think about something or how much or how little you have understood or learned lately, then probably a lot of your identity is formed around your mental processes. Or, if you go to your feelings to answer this question—have you been happy, sad, frustrated?—your identity or self-image may be formed more strongly around your emotional experience. We also try to form a “me” out of our desires. If that is the case, you are likely to describe how successful you have been in achieving your goals and getting what you want when asked how you are.
An identity can’t be formed around a thought, a feeling, a desire, or an experience because these are constantly changing, often into the opposite thought, feeling, desire, or experience. How can a thought ever be “you” if it is gone in the next moment? This attempt to form a “me” out of thoughts, feelings, and desires is like trying to make a sculpture out of clay that is too wet: you shape it, but when you take your hands away it goes back into a blob. No matter how many times you try, it goes back into a blob. The clay is just too wet, too fluid.
Despite the impossibility of forming an identity out of thought, we still try. Those who are identified with their capacity for thought believe that they are what they think. Consequently, they are very interested in what they think. It defines them. However, ideas and opinions are difficult things to pin an identity on because, whether we like it or not, like wet clay, they are constantly changing. This is something many writers can attest to who have written fervently about something, only to find that their ideas changed after the book was published.
Trying to form an identity out of an emotion is equally impossible, whether it is a good emotion or a bad one. We try to make a “me” out of an emotional experience, such as feeling depressed, by saying, “I am depressed,” even though there are lots of moments when that does not apply. What happened to the depressed person in those moments? The same is true if, for example, you try to form an identity around “I am happy” or “I am loving.” Then, you have a real problem when that happiness or those loving feelings slip away, as they eventually will.
Our desires are just as slippery as our thoughts and feelings and no easier to form an identity around. Nevertheless, we cling to them because they make us feel like somebody. Our desires give us some definition: I am somebody who wants a big house in the country, I am somebody who wants a family, I am somebody who wants to go to college. Having a want gives us a false sense of being real. We fool ourselves into thinking that we are some image of ourselves in the future. This image can never satisfy, however, because it is just a fantasy. It has no more solidity or truth than a photograph.

Viveka Vairagya said...



Daniel Erway (aka Nirmala) On Identity Formation (http://endless-satsang.com)
So far, we have been talking about identification with certain internal experiences—thoughts, feelings, and desires—but there is another place where identity forms, and that is with the body. Even when the other lies have been seen through, there may remain some identification with the experiences of the body—with the appearance of the body or with the sensations related to the body: how your clothes feel, the temperature of the air, the sounds hitting your ears, the light coming into your eyes, and so on. When there is still a sense of “I am the body,” we may try to make this flow of sensation into a “me” and attempt to manage it by resisting certain sensations and grasping after others. And yet, the appearance and sensations of the body are also always changing.

Beyond the Self-Image
This attempt to form a self-image out of thoughts, feelings, desires, and sensations is a constant effort; you’re never done sculpting this wet clay. Any self-image is there one minute and gone the next. You’re never satisfied. You’re never quiet. You can never rest. It turns out that the “me” has all the opposite qualities of truth. The “me” is a lie. We build this elaborate structure we call “me” out of what we think and feel and desire and sense, but it’s all made up. Once you subtract all the lies, you end up with the truth, and what is left is nothing—emptiness. Underneath the self-image, there is nothing! When you are finally willing to admit to the emptiness beneath your self-image, it is such a relief! It’s so real.
When we first land in this place of no self-image, it feels empty relative to the busy-ness and effort of identity formation, so we conclude that this can’t be the truth—it’s nothing. Besides, there is obviously nothing for “you” in this emptiness. So, we go back to our old ways—back to believing that our thoughts, feelings, and desires are who we are and that managing them correctly will make us happy. Many dip their toe in nothingness and freak out and run back to their more familiar reality. To the mind, even a lousy self-image can seem a lot better than nothing.
Often, just out of exhaustion with the self-image game, which can never be won, there comes a point when you not only recognize the emptiness but you allow it. You allow this nothingness at the core of your self-image. When you do this, you begin to experience the emptiness as it is, rather than your concept of it, and it turns out to have all the qualities of truth. When you allow that emptiness and stay in it, it becomes full with a truer experience of the world. When there is no self-image and no suit of armor in the way, sensory information flows very freely, and truth becomes obvious. Whatever is happening now registers right in the emptiness. Because your self-image is no longer monopolizing so much of your attention, your mind becomes more spacious and clear. You see everything more clearly.

Bob - P said...

[Hi Bob, thanks for the conversation. If I pushed too hard, I apologize. Thanks for putting up with my provocative behavior.]

Not at all Roger I found our conversation very helpful, thank you.
Good to have you here.
All the best.
Bob

ice melting water said...

Bob-P,
be pleased : it's bordering on the miracoluos:
all your missing six comments are shown now in the comment list: Show Origial Post(Collapsed comments and Shown all comments).

Bob - P said...

Hi Ice Melting Water.
Yes I have just looked and unfortunately the duplicate post also appeared.
I know now to always paste in from "note pad" not "word" as Sivanarul suggested and also to be patient as it can take a day or two for the comment to appear.
Thank you for all your help ice melting water.
In appreciation.
Bob

borrowing the original light said...

Roger,
silence in the given context means of course not outwardly silence but being inwardly silent. Thus infinite silence of clear thought-free being does not exclude in any case the ability to act like writing.

ice melting water said...

Bob-P,
yes, both your comments of 30 July at 12:30 (nr.194-195) are shown also as number 203 -204, dated 30 July 2016 at 14:54 and 14:55. Better safe than sorry. Smile.

Roger said...

Hi "borrowing..."
Regarding "thought -free being does not exclude ... ability to act like writing":

Perhaps a subtle distinction: free and non-attached Being does not necessarily preclude subtle thought? It would seem that during an act like writing... some subtle thought must exist (perhaps mere looking or seeing) but without attachment. How could the words come out on the page if there were not first seen in the mind?

Architect: I must think in order to do my work.
Barry Long: No thinking! It is seeing and looking: Someone comes to you with a problem. You see the problem. Then... you see the solution arise. There is no digressive thinking. If the solution was insufficient... you see this new problem... and you see the solution arise. (from memory, not exact)

thanks,

borrowing the original light said...

Roger,
can we really assume that Bhagavan who is said having been always in uninterrupted stillness whatever happened had lost his permanent deep silence in order to write or read something ? Did Bhagavan at all possess a mind ?
Are ajnanis from their viewpoint in the position to say what really happened when we see Bhagavan reading newspapers ore writing instructions or poems ?

Roger said...

Hi Borrowing,
you say: can we really assume that Bhagavan who is said having been always in uninterrupted stillness whatever happened had lost his permanent deep silence

Yes, we can make assumptions about Bhagavan's inner state.... and the accuracy of such assumptions are similar to what a frog in a deep well might assume about the ocean: very little!

Even words such as "stillness" and "permanent deep silence" and "thought-free being" are only ajnani talk for appearances.

original inner light said...

Roger,
there is no need to judge about (the very little accuracy) of that fictitious frog-assumption. When I was young and still a frog I just did not make assumptions about the ocean.
When an architect is seeing any problem at his work he is surely thinking. That is only by the way.
Let's now stop rapidly our 'ajnani talk'.

Roger said...

"original inner light" says "let's now stop rapidly our 'ajnani talk'

"To use words is exactly the same as not to speak; and to keep silent or not is identical.." (Sri Ananadamayi Ma)

original inner light said...

Roger,
to avoid any possibility of confusion: the given statement is expressed from the viewpoint of Anandamayi Ma(not Ananadamayi), who cannot be called an ajnani. Guard yourself against mixing up.

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