From where Richard is coming from,he's right in his way.And where you are coming from,Rick,you are right in your way.And Rick,I can't thank you enough for these videos.I am working my way through them(in no particular order)and they are blowing my mind.I'd love to live in a place like Fairfield where there are so many interesting(for me anyway)people.
Rich. I love you so much in this video. You and richard seem to have such a fun time together. And you are so open to his way of looking. Ive been with richard and left and now Im back again. Non duality woke me up and I saw through the person called Carole
Tony Parsons: "every moment is an invitation to wake up." Life is also using Richard to invite everyone listening to this to wake up - although he may not admit this. He doesn't say he is useless, he is beyond the sense of being useful or useless.
I have a strong resonance with Richard's message and descriptions. (Tony Parson's and some others...it's the same). Rick reminds me of my own mind; still trying desperately to understand;, but also very resistant. I sense his difficultly in accepting that the 'years of seeking/meditating and acting nice and spiritual have no relevance in this 'liberation'. He has built up a big old 'spiritual specialness' construct that he just can't let go of..and face the hopelessness, meaninglessness and uselessness of this huge construct. Again; I can relate to this too...it's been devastating.
The dumbing down of liberation here by Richard is amazing. All the benefits of liberation are denied because there is no one to have them. Liberation is merely a 'preferred' occurrence.
I think the construct is best explained as a fiction story about non-human entities, perhaps silicon-based life or something, living in another universe, with different rules etc. This removes the emotive connection to the baggage of enlightenment etc that many hold. It frees the mind to simply understand the construct itself and perhaps traverse the abyss in which Sylvester is now trapped.
Suppose you had a special power. You could enter a person's dream. What would you tell that person to do in order to wake up? What instructions, steps, chants would you use? What could you possibly say that would hasten their awakening? That's the dilemma that Richard and others find themselves in.
Richard Sylvester speaks so clearly about non duality the interviewer speaks so clearly about him self that is why they look like they disagrees take care
A person is standing in a mud puddle and asks a person standing at the edge of the mud puddle, "How do I get out of this mud puddle?" And the person at the edge of the mud puddle says, "There is no person and therefore there is no person in the mud puddle." Nowhere to go and nothing to do because there is no one to do it :) This points at liberation but the person can't see where is being pointed to because where is being pointed to is without the person!
I have a question - if we are not the doer - does that also mean we are not the thinker - that thoughts happen to us and we do not originate them? Then that would mean we are just the speaker of thoughts - and there is no ownership of them. haha and we "think" we are smart lol
Indeed, we are not the thinker either. You have no thoughts of your own, thoughts are a product of cultural input. The thoughts we seem to think come from the answers and the knowledge we already have, from what we know. When that knowledge, which seems to be the self, collapses, the thinking and experiencing structure is also gone, and what is left is the natural expression of life itself in the living organism, which responds to outside stimuli. The reality of it all is that we are just like computers, and we have a hard time accepting that. There is just appropriate response to stimuli, but it is not a reaction of the experiencing and thinking structure.
I'm not suggesting that understanding the construct, getting clarity about it, will in anyway bring on liberation/enlightenment, or whatever you want to call it - as Sylvester said, within the framework he's described, that is entirely impossible and even non-sensical to talk about. But perhaps clarity on the subject might make for a less repetitive interview - in fact, more likely, clarity on the subject would mean that there wouldn't have been an interview - why bother? It would probably mean the end of this youtube channel, in fact.
Both the drinker/drugger AND the seeker are addicted to something. One can be addicted to the enlightened state. The only difference is the method used. But both long for freedom. That's the key. In the end, they long to be free from their addiction. Neither of them may realize it while they're in their induced state. And, since the truth could care less, either one can stumble upon it at any time. This time, there's no fireworks. Just plain, ordinary enlightenment.
Unfortunately, the interviewer had no idea what Sylvester was talking about. His "imperfect metaphors" were not only imperfect, but irrelevant. The interviewer cannot step outside the construct of his own existence. Without that, this conversation could not have gone any other way. It's sad, in a way.
He's better than some of Neo Adavatins out there who just repeats the same jargons over and over like an Evangelist quoting the Bible. It seems to me they make non-duality another belief system. The Buddha teaches the Middle Path: there is relative truth and there is absolute truth (Sunyata). Both are important and one and the same yet different and neither (confused enough? :) ). You can't talk about Sunyata to people who can't distinguish themselves from their chaotic mind. They need some experience to know what that mind is made of. I know I went through that stage before I got awakened. Yeah now I know what these people are saying but I wouldn't get a clue 20 years ago or even last year. And of course these people will say the two aren't related, there is no causality: it just happens. It becomes a cliche when you say that over and over and it will lose its meaning. That's why truly self-realized teachers never deny the relative. As the Zen saying says before awakening there is the world, then the world disappears upon awakening, and there is the world again after awakening (I'm paraphrasing here). Emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Self-realized teachers will shock their students by denying anything they cling on. That's the essence of neti...neti. If the students are too much in the relative truth realm, they will point them to the absolute and vice versa. There is no clinginess to any dogma/idea. The Buddha said perfectly: Sabbe Dhamma anatta (all dharmas are empty, even his own). Even concept of emptiness (anatta) itself is empty (anatta). That's how he conveys non-attachment to any idea in the most succinct, non-compromising way without denying people's stages of understanding. But before you get there, you gotta really lose the self first (yeah nobody is losing anything, yada...yada..,yada).
Rick, there you go again with spiritual seekers "should be more inclined" I mean I also want it to be true because I am a seeker- but you sort of of debunked the theory - because you have said "I have "hung out" with spirituality inclined people for 40yrs - meaning most all the people in your circle are seekers - you dont know the rest of the people.Your circle is limited to seekers. We want our "practice to have meaning...lol But I also understand this is good conversation.
Rick is missing that a guy that just drive his red corvette, full of cocaine smoking a big cigarr.....and suddenly awakining happens.....would NOT start to teach others (but a guy that has meditating for a decade awakining MAY believe that was the reason. See what I mean Rick?; you talk mostly to guys that think they know why
Here the hypocrisy if there is no cause and effect, what's the purpose of all these satsangs and the dissemination of the news that there is no self that these people so gungho-ly preach around the globe? (yeah...yeah...it just hapens. :) ) And how could these people get "awakened" upon hearing it? It just becomes petty and circular and this is why real sages refuse to engage in philosophical debate like this.
humility and wisdom seem to me absent, mind rambling cannot satisfy the heart, all these grammar will be useless at the time of death, spirituality without philosophy, just equal philosophy without spirituality, no one sees/feels that emptyness in all that talking?
