At the root of that fear is the concept of 'nothing'. But when you see that this 'nothing' refers to you to whom this knowing has appeared, the concept crumbles, and there is peace instead of fear.
Absolutely beautiful way of getting people like me who are skeptical about the idea of an eternally existent ego to come to absolute peace with the idea of it ultimately ending
My imagined face feels pressed upon a glass window looking out. A knowing the glass is not really there. I missed you last week. Nabeel is an imaginary cane that helps this heart not to wobble. Deep gratitude.
Thank you 🙏. The normal sort of work took up too much time last week. What did you think of those macro shots of the human eye? I find those pictures reveal so much. Light falls down a hole and is perceived! In direct experience, is there a thing at the bottom of the hole perceiving the light? Or is it that the window is wide open between 'here' and 'out there'?
Reaching the natural state means going through the gateless gate. There is no gate but somehow a decision has to be made - only to discover afterwards that there was never anyone making a decision.
It all happens naturally based on your interest. Just as interest in a genre of music will lead you to many wonderful songs, and a deep appreciation of that type of music itself. Remember, the Natural State simply refers to pure Awareness, empty of content. But even now, Awareness is present. So the difference between this state and that state is subtle and just used to nudge the questioning mind in the right direction!
At the moment I'm thrown from one state to the other all the time: A simple thought kicks me out of the peace of the Natural State and I have to get aware and return into silence. Peace and joy follow quickly only to be erased by the next thought...@@untangle-your-mind
@MatthiasSchwenk Trying to eliminate all thought is like fighting shadows. Thoughts are just one of the felt experiences of the body's functioning and will come and go. They can generally only be stilled temporarily while there is life in this body. But what you realise in even a split second of stillness, is beyond this body or mind or stream of experience. That Awareness which is the Self cannot be thrown from state to state. It is the light of the Self that is illuminating all these states, making it possible for them to be perceived. Even if there is no peace and joy, the nature of Self is the same. The full spectrum of experience, every dimension of perception, is contained within the Self. In the infinity of lives being lived, both the depths of horror and joy are being experienced simultaneously. It is in this Self-knowledge, the full scope of what is going on, that the states of this particular body can be moved past, the sense of being an individual dissolves,, and You feel the peace of the Natural State.
So, when Nisargadatta said "this psychosomatic bundle which is born will suffer or enjoy during it's allotted span; so long as I know that I am not the one who experiences but I am the knower, how am I concerned?" he wasn't referring to the absolute state. I guess he can't have been if he was talking about the realm of 'I Am'. Hmm. Are being, love, and knowing at the same level then, so to speak? And then there is the Absolute, Beyond all those experiences? Again, so to speak. Oh, my.. tiny little glimpse, it seems, into how ingrained duality is. I'm not sure where it's ingrained.. Just in thought?
He is referring to the Absolute. When reading Nisargadatta, 'I' is synonymous to the Absolute. The distinction he's making is that the Absolute is not the one who experiences, but the _knower_ of this psychosomatic bundle. The experiences are a result of that _knowing_ . The distinction may seem subtle, but it negates any identification with this particular body/mind/stream of consciousness. In that same quote Nisargadatta ends with this statement, "This consciousness is time-bound, but the knower of the consciousness is eternal, the Absolute."
@@untangle-your-mind So, the impossible to know/joy experience was oh. Then I guess it must have been the mind accepting it's limitations for a while??
I'm not sure what you're referring to in the first line. When in the presence of consciousness, the knowing turns away from what is being known, there is a palpable peace/joy/bliss to just being. That is not impossible to experience and in fact must be felt clearly for realization. But it's not experience in the usual sense of the word, i.e. there is no object being known. The knowing merges into the absoluteness of the Knower.
Hmm, I'm seeing perhaps I don't understand what you mean by knower at all! Because it still seems contradictory, sometimes referring to the Absolute and sometimes not. The first line I was referring to an experience of a month ago. The easiest way to describe it is that suddenly everything was deeply mysterious, beautiful, and unknowable. All the trying to understand fell away for a while, in a sense of recognition that mind COULDN'T know the absolute truth. And in that sense, from where this mind is, all that could be known, was.. and there words fail me. Perhaps I could loosely describe it that knowing shifted to a different 'place' that didn't include phenomena. But I'm thinking that perhaps I'm conflating mind knowing with what yourself and Nisargadatta are speaking of. There was such freedom in not knowing.
![It's just this Knowing that has appeared upon the Absolute [no music]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
