12 Responses
  1. Anonymous Says:


    Hi

    I would like to focus more on luminosity(and as far as possible,bliss) to deal with chronic physical pain(back pain, muscular etc...)

    many physical ways had been taken(diet,exercise etc...) and yet theres only so much improvement ...

    And no, im not deluded to think practice is going to cure all source of bodily pain, but look forward in optimistic attitude that its going to help lessen much of it...

    The Q is : how to bring luminosity (or "create" it) into awareness practice ?

    My understanding of "awareness" has change .....in de past, i used to think it as something 'frm the head' but now i see it more like " feeling-awareness" .If one practice awareness "frm the head" , then watever awakening arises will oso frm the head(head awakening) ... the beingness(or feeling) aspect cannot be neglected ....so rather than calling it awareness, i think its more accurate to describe it as "feeling-awareness" .

    Thanks


  2. Anonymous Says:

    At one point on the retreat I started hearing this kind of buzzing sound. Then I thought, "Whoa, I don't remember Joel or Andrea talking about this." There was this little kind of buzzing. Finally I went down to the dining hall looking for someone, and I found Andrea and I asked her about this whole thing. I told her about how at the end of the breath there was this brightness and then this buzzing started. She sat me down at the table in the dining hall. She looked at me, and she had this funny little grin on her face, and she said, "I think you need to go back and watch your breath some more." I've been through this kind of distractedness many, many times. It's always a trip. But this time it was different. I knew there was something funny about the buzzing. Within the next day that buzz had turned into a sore throat, and I had actually watched the process of the sore throat coming on. I was very aware of this early stage of the sore throat before it became a sore throat. It was a kind of hum.

    And then what happened next was on the 2002 fall retreat with the instruction again from Joel and Andrea. In this retreat, I'm again paying attention to the stillness, and they're giving these incredible instructions, and I started recognizing my own thoughts and feelings arising in this stillness. And I began to see. It was a process of seeing a feeling, or seeing a thought, and when I would see it, it's like, it would burn it up. It was transformed. It was just awareness. It wasn't a thought, like we have ideas about things. It wasn't one of those ideas. It was just what it was. This was like, these things just burned up. On this retreat, it got really, really intense. I'd start noticing how "I" was in the dining hall. All of those feelings and thoughts about "me" in the dining hall. And all of the feelings that were coming up associated with seeing through everything. It was like a laser would see them and they would—kind of like moths going through one of those electric zappers—they're cooked. They're transformed to awareness. I began to notice that the more I became conscious of presence of awareness, the more this would happen. So this process on that retreat reached a peak. It just went crazy. At one point I was kind of short circuiting inside. I started having a lot of fear around it because there was nothing. At one point coming down to the dining hall, I remember coming in and I felt I was losing it. And I looked across, and Clivonne was a few tables down, and I looked at her and I could tell she could see something was really screwy with this boy. She said later that I was pale, and kind of crazy looking. All of that passed, but seeing how the mind reached its limit on that retreat was instructive. But that burning up thing, it continued to happen. Presence of awareness became more commonplace. There was also something that I realized, through going to retreats frequently, I was seeing that trying to achieve presence of awareness never would work. I could never achieve it. So what I found was, instead of achieving it, if I just let go and just started watching the movement of the mind to want something different than it is right now, then suddenly presence would be there, it would just happen. ....


  3. Anonymous Says:

    But, yes, there was this thought that came in and says, "You know, you maybe had a good gnostic flash. But this is maybe…" And then that thought was seen. And then the whole rest of it was seen. Then it was just presence of awareness. It's just right here. And, as time has passed now, there have been a number of these kinds of things where, for a moment, there's like this confusion like, "Wow, what is going on?" Then there's seeing the thought, and really that's it: it’s that process of burning it up. It's like, I would imagine there will always be some little things that will come up that will go, "Hey, I'm real." And, for a moment, they're going to be real. And that's good. I mean, they're beautiful. I've noticed one thing about all this with the mind. The mind is cranking out thoughts sometimes, and some of them are real retarded kind of thoughts. They're just really retarded. But the thing that's interesting about them is if you look at them, you realize that these are a gift. There's nothing about them that's wrong. They're just what they are. And we don’t know what they are. This is the thing. For most of the people here, I would imagine that's why you're here, because there's something telling you that the world is not what our minds are telling us. That the world is quite different than what our minds are telling us. So that’s helpful.

    ( the article was from centerforsacredsciences.org - i like the description of 'burning' that he use , )


  4. Soh Says:

    Luminosity is not produced or created, it is realized. Read this and practice self-inquiry: https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-direct-path-to-your-real-self.html?fbclid=IwAR0uHILbaVKoyI9JzI74hxm3fHEIEDNrXOGgWAil5KxxFzBpVGqvVJYMNws


    Thusness also solved his pain issues through yoga and his own practice.

    But I cannot advice on yoga as I am not so experienced, and yoga if done incorrectly also can cause injury. But if done correctly can be of great help.

    2006:


    <^john^> one is always tempted initially to do what ur teacher did
    <^john^> sensing, sensing and more subtle sensing. :)
    <^john^> that is not the way
    oic..
    <^john^> to penetrate into deeper depth, we have to use another way. :)
    icic how
    <^john^> u know how painful it is for one that suffered from slipped disc to do stretching?
    not really.. cos i dont have slipped disc :P
    <^john^> a person is considered to suffered from slipped disc if he felt the extreme pain when he raised his leg above ground about half a feet when lying flat. :)
    <^john^> i tried overcoming it
    oic..
    <^john^> till my jin mai changes position. :P
    wah
    how u 'overcome'
    <^john^> the doctor when x-ray out also dunno how come i can do it.
    lol
    then how u do it :P
    <^john^> sensing into the minutest details enable us to slowly change it. :)
    icic..
    but u said its not so good to want to keep sensing or something ?
    :P
    <^john^> that is why i tell u only the beginning stage. :)
    oic
    <^john^> the correct environment is crucial to progress further.
    then
    but wait
    isnt sensing the details like vipassana?
    <^john^> yes
    oic then how
    :P
    <^john^> what is the other form of meditation?
    shamatha
    <^john^> :)
    <^john^> we need complement.


  5. Soh Says:

    https://www.wimhofmethod.com/blog/the-natural-painkiller


  6. Soh Says:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaMjhwFE1Zw


  7. Anonymous Says:

    I think u hv downplayed importance of luminosity.Besides ,to say it is produced or created is no different frm its realized....

    eg..in ones practice luminosity is gradually experienced(and to described this gradual experience of it one can described it as produced,created or realized...)

    And in advaita(though u tend to dismiss advaitic teachings :-) ), bliss is the last covering b4 soul is realized....so luminosity/bliss is something not be placed as secondary in importance, but really to be chased ....


  8. Soh Says:

    You don’t understand. Luminosity is the sat chit ananda of Vedanta. You don’t fabricate it through effort, you discover and realize it.

    Self inquiry is the direct path. Don’t seek or chase anything, those are side tracks. Just realize what you are.

    Luminosity is effortless and intense here. You need to have realization.


  9. Soh Says:

    Luminous clarity or sat chit Ānanda is realized in Thusness Stage 1. The peak of it is anatta, stage 5.


  10. Anonymous Says:

    So yr saying there is fabricated bliss and natural ones?

    But wat if advaita is right,and the bliss sheath had to be gone through b4 soul realization dawns?


  11. Anonymous Says:

    Again , yr saying in yr self realization u didnt go through much bliss/luminosity?


  12. Soh Says:

    The I AM itself is luminosity and bliss, it is unfabricated Presence-Awareness. Fabricated bliss is like 1st jhana, and so on. I've experienced that even when I'm 13 years old. It is not the realization of I AM.

    Just do self-inquiry and the rest will follow. Anything else is sidetracks. As I said before, the sheaths are taught so that they are rejected (neti neti) in self-inquiry so that the Self is realized. You do not concern yourself with the sheaths.

    Ramana:

    The Self is self-effulgent. One need give it no mental
    picture, anyway. The thought that imagines it is itself bondage,
    because the Self is the Effulgence transcending darkness and
    light; one should not think of it with the mind. Such imagination
    will end in bondage, whereas the Self spontaneously shines as
    the Absolute. This enquiry into the Self in devotional meditation
    evolves into the state of absorption of the mind into the Self
    and leads to Liberation and unqualified Bliss. The great sages
    have declared that only by the help of this devotional enquiry
    into the Self can Liberation be attained. Because the ego in the
    form of the ‘I-thought’ is the root of the tree of illusion, its
    destruction fells illusion, even as a tree is felled by the cutting of
    its roots. This easy method of annihilating the ego is alone worthy
    to be called
    bhakti
    (devotion),
    jnana
    (knowledge),
    yoga
    (union),
    or
    dhyana
    (meditation).
    In the ‘I-am-the-body’ consciousness, the three bodies
    2
    composed of the five sheaths
    3
    are contained. If that mode of
    2
    i.e., the physical, subtle and causal — of the waking, dream
    and sleep states respectively.
    3
    i.e. the gross, sensory, mental, intellectual and blissful.
    Self-Enquiry
    19
    consciousness is removed all else drops off of its own accord; all
    other bodies depend on it. There is no need to eliminate them
    separately because the scriptures declare that thought alone is
    bondage. It is their final injunction that the best method is to
    surrender the mind in the form of the ‘I’-thought to Him (the
    Self ), and, keeping quite still, not forget Him.

    ....

    Talk 25.
    On a former occasion B. V. Narasimha Swami, author of Self-Realization,
    asked: Who am I? How is it to be found?
    M.: Ask yourself the question. The body (annamaya kosa) and its
    functions are not ‘I’.
    Going deeper, the mind (manomaya kosa) and its functions are not
    ‘I’.
    The next step takes on to the question. “Wherefrom do these
    thoughts arise?” The thoughts are spontaneous, superficial or
    analytical. They operate in intellect. Then, who is aware of them?
    The existence of thoughts, their clear conceptions and their
    operations become evident to the individual. The analysis leads to
    the conclusion that the individuality of the person is operative as
    the perceiver of the existence of thoughts and of their sequence.
    This individuality is the ego, or as people say ‘I’. Vijnanamaya kosa
    (intellect) is only the sheath of ‘I’ and not the ‘I’ itself.
    Enquiring further the questions arise, “Who is this ‘I’? Wherefrom
    does it come?” ‘I’ was not aware in sleep. Simultaneously with its rise
    sleep changes to dream or wakefulness. But I am not concerned with
    dream just now. Who am I now, in the wakeful state? If I originated
    from sleep, then the ‘I’ was covered up with ignorance. Such an
    ignorant ‘I’ cannot be what the scriptures say or the wise ones affirm.
    ‘I’ am beyond even ‘Sleep’; ‘I’ must be now and here and what I
    was all along in sleep and dreams also, without the qualities of such
    states. ‘I’ must therefore be the unqualified substratum underlying
    these three states (anandamaya kosa transcended).
    ‘I’ is, in brief, beyond the five sheaths. Next, the residuum left over
    after discarding all that is not-self is the Self, Sat-Chit-Ananda.

    ...