Thusness (2008) on Stage 3: "Associating 'death of I' with vivid luminosity of your experience is far too early. This will lead you into erroneous views because there is also the experience of practitioners by way of complete surrendering or elimination (dropping) like Taoist practitioners. An experience of deep bliss that is beyond that of what you experienced can occur. But the focus is not on luminosity but effortlessness, naturalness and spontaneity. In complete giving up, there is no 'I' ; it is also needless to know anything; in fact 'knowledge' is considered a stumbling block. The practitioner drops away mind, body, knowledge...everything. There is no insight, there is no luminosity there is only total allowing of whatever that happens, happen in its own accord. All senses including consciousness are shut and fully absorbed. Awareness of 'anything' is only after emerging from that state.
One is the experience of vivid luminosity while the other is a state of oblivious. It is therefore not appropriate to relate the complete dissolving of 'I' with what u experienced alone."
Related article on going from I AM to Nothingness: http://www.prahlad.org/disciples/premananda/essays/NISARGADATTA%20CONSCIOUSNESS%20AND%20AWARENESS.htm
Thusness's comments on Stage 3:
Session Start: Saturday, October 04, 2008
(3:21 PM) AEN: Q: Is the "I Am" there all the time, as long as my body is there?
M: The "I Am" is absent only in the state of samadhi, when the self merges into the Self. Otherwise, it will be there. In the state of a realized person the "I Am" is there; he just doesn't give much importance to it. A jnani is not guided by a concept.
(3:21 PM) AEN: .... Feeling that I am present depends on having a body; I am neither the body nor the conscious presence.
In this body is the subtle principle "I Am"; that principle witnesses all this. You are not the words. Words are the expression of space, they are not yours. Still further, you are not that "I Am"
(3:22 PM) AEN: Q: As an individual can we go back to the source?
M: Not as an individual; the knowledge "I Am" must go back to its own source.
Now, consciousness has identified with a form. Later, it understands that it is not that form and goes further. In a few cases it may reach the space, and very often, there it stops. In a very few cases, it reaches its real source, beyond all conditioning.
It is difficult to give up that inclination of identifying the body as the self. I am not talking to an individual, I am talking to the consciousness. It is consciousness which must seek its source.
(3:22 PM) AEN: Out of that no-being state comes the beingness. It comes as quietly as twilight, with just a feel of "I Am" and then suddenly the space is there. In the space, movement starts with the air, the fire, the water, and the earth. All these five elements are you only. Out of your consciousness all this has happened. There is no individual. There is only you, the total functioning is you, the consciousness is you.
You are the consciousness, all the titles of the Gods are you names, but by clinging to the body you hand yourself over to time and death -- you are imposing it on yourself.
(3:22 PM) AEN: I am the total universe. When I am the total universe I am in need of nothing because I am everything. But I cramped myself into a small thing, a body; I made myself a fragment and became needful. I need so many things as a body. In the absence of a body, do you, and did you, exist? Are you, and were you, there or not? Attain that state which is and was prior to the body. Your true nature is open and free, but you cover it up, you give it various designs.
(3:24 PM) AEN: wat he means by in a few cases it may reach the space
(3:28 PM) Thusness: not exactly good in my view.
(3:28 PM) AEN: oic
(3:28 PM) AEN: wat is he trying to say
(3:33 PM) Thusness: trying to experience something like stage 3
(3:33 PM) AEN: icic..
(3:35 PM) AEN: ya he said about going into oblivion
(3:35 PM) AEN:
M: If you feel that sense of something, can it be the truth? When this consciousness goes into oblivion, who is to say what that state is?
Q: I don't know.
M: Because your "I Amness" is not there, you do not know yourself. When you began knowing that you are, you did a lot of mischief, but when the "I Am" is not there, there is no question of mischief.
(3:37 PM) Thusness: 'I Am' is not there when sense of self is not imputed on sensate reality.
(3:38 PM) AEN: icic..
(3:39 PM) Thusness: when we truly know what awareness is, there is no 'I Am'. That does not require being in a state of oblivion.
(3:40 PM) AEN: oic..
(3:41 PM) Thusness: What is important is to experience the one taste of oblivion and presence. Vividly present and gone thoroughly.
(3:41 PM) AEN: icic..
(3:43 PM) Thusness: When we see that all forms are emptiness, we have the one taste of all manifested states and no state.
(3:44 PM) AEN: oic..
(3:45 PM) Thusness: When we see are all to see all insubstantiality and essencelessness of forms are vividly luminous, seeing the texture and fabric
(3:45 PM) AEN: oh ya nisargadatta sems to see that dissolving of 'I AM' as a stage isnt it, he said it dissolves in samadhi otherwise it will be there
(3:45 PM) AEN: oic..
(3:45 PM) Thusness: ,we see emptiness as form
(3:45 PM) AEN: he said "I am the total universe. When I am the total universe I am in need of nothing because I am everything." this is like nondual rite
(3:46 PM) Thusness: yes but that is not necessary
(3:46 PM) AEN: what is not necessary
(3:47 PM) Thusness: Dissolve in samadhi
(3:47 PM) AEN: icic..
(3:50 PM) Thusness: a practitioner that experience the 18 dhatus is buddha nature is in maha every moment.
(3:51 PM) Thusness: there is no concentration nor attention.
(3:52 PM) Thusness: Even swallowing saliva is maha. Great and magnificent.
(3:52 PM) AEN: oic..
(3:53 PM) Thusness: No sense of self is imputed, no samadhi to enter. Always Oneness, One Reality. One action.
(3:53 PM) Thusness: One sunya. :P
(3:54 PM) AEN: icic..
(3:57 PM) AEN: "When you pursue the spiritual path, the path of self-knowing, all your desires, all your attachments, will just drop away, provided you investigate and hold on to that with which you are trying to understand the self. Then what happens? Your 'I-am-ness' is the state 'to be'. You are 'to be' and attached to that state. You love to be. Now, as I said, ... your desires drop off. And what is the primary desire? To be. When you stay put in that beingness for some time, that desire also will drop off. This is very important. When this is dropped off, you are in the Absolute -- a most essential state."
(3:57 PM) AEN: he's saying must drop off conscious presence also?
(3:58 PM) Thusness: Yes
(3:58 PM) AEN: icic..
(3:59 PM) Thusness: But that is not the most essential state.
(3:59 PM) Thusness: It is necessary.
(4:00 PM) AEN: necessary or not necessary?
(4:00 PM) AEN: oh u mean necessary but not the most essential state
(4:00 PM) Thusness: Yes
(4:00 PM) AEN: icic..
(4:00 PM) Thusness: That is not the absolute state
(4:01 PM) AEN: oic..
(4:01 PM) Thusness: That is just another state That is equally empty
(4:01 PM) AEN: icic..
(4:02 PM) Thusness: That too will pass due to its emptiness nature and no purer than that 'I M' state.
Quote - 18 October 2008:
(12:29 AM) Thusness: There r different phases.
(12:30 AM) Thusness: Once the 'I' is gone, this quality of seeing as pure seeing without subject and object separation is non-dual experience.
(12:31 AM) Thusness: But the holding on to the witness prevents the direct experience of the transience.
(12:31 AM) Thusness: So rest in phenomena completely. Be phenomena-ing.
(12:31 AM) Thusness: Don't equate the 2.
(12:32 AM) AEN: oic..
(12:32 AM) Thusness: See both as non-dual experiences, but resting completely in the transience, the phenomena-ing, is anatta and path u towards the insight of emptiness and DO later.
(12:32 AM) AEN: icic..
(12:33 AM) Thusness: In later phase of ur experience, this phase is most difficult to break-through. :)
(12:34 AM) AEN: oic..
(12:34 AM) Thusness: The former always become 'constant' while the later (anatta) is always essenceless, ever manifesting and changing.
(12:35 AM) AEN: icic..
(12:35 AM) Thusness: although both has no sense of 'I', the former has not dissolved the tendency and the DO nature is not seen.
(12:36 AM) AEN: oic..
(12:37 AM) AEN: is this the difference between the non-dual experience and non-dual insight u mentioned
(12:37 AM) AEN: like ken wilber is still non-dual experience right?
(12:37 AM) Thusness: yes
(12:37 AM) AEN: icic..
(12:37 AM) Thusness: There can be no such thing as changeless consciousness.
Changelessness wipes out consciousness immediately. A man deprived of
outer and inner sensations blanks out, or goes beyond consciousness
and unconsciousness into the birthless and deathless state (Nisargadatta)
(12:38 AM) Thusness: The former experience will attempt to seek the above state.
(12:38 AM) Thusness: While Buddhism is not about that.
(12:39 AM) Thusness: It is to see all states are empty and experience the nirvana of sound, taste, an arising thought and all transience.
(12:39 AM) AEN: oic..
(12:39 AM) Thusness: as well as dream and deep sleep...eheheh
(12:39 AM) AEN: icic..
(12:40 AM) AEN: that is stage 3 rite?
(12:40 AM) AEN: i mean the go beyond conscious and unconscious
(12:40 AM) Thusness: yes but it is really stage 5.
(12:41 AM) Thusness: however due to the block of insight of DO, the mind can only rest on phase 3.
(12:41 AM) Thusness: the experience is already stage 5.
(12:41 AM) Thusness: But misunderstood stage 3 as ultimate.
...
(12:55 AM) Thusness: It is without the experience of 'I' but still rest in the Subject.
(12:56 AM) Thusness: U will see stage 4 onwards is all about resting in transience and nothing on Subject.
(12:57 AM) Thusness: all those practitioners even after non-dual experience if insight of anatta has not arisen will have the tendency of towards the stage 3.
(12:58 AM) Thusness: all those practitioners even after non-dual experience and still sink back to the Subject, will have the tendency of skewing towards the stage 3.
...
“[22/4/18, 8:40:51 PM] John Tan: Lately I kept seeing articles and conversations relating to "nothingness" wonder why. The mysterious gate of taoism.
[22/4/18, 8:42:31 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. maybe you should write something about it.. lol
[22/4/18, 8:44:36 PM] John Tan: Lol...Taoist valley spirit is the opposite of clarity...it attempts to express the depth "source" of life.
[22/4/18, 8:47:18 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. sounds like Christianity? Was reading some Christian mystic website I think based on Father Thomas keating. They are aware of I AM and witnessing but states that the goal of Christian contemplation is beyond that, is the source of that and will and doing
[22/4/18, 8:47:21 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Or something like that
[22/4/18, 8:47:45 PM] John Tan: Nothingness. Even nisargadatta
[22/4/18, 8:49:22 PM] John Tan: There is nothing to contemplate as it cannot be approached through a known mind. They call it contemplative prayer
[22/4/18, 8:49:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: More like prayer.. or meditation.. dunno what is it. Maybe surrendering
[22/4/18, 8:50:08 PM] John Tan: Yes. The tao is the way. The way of always in Union with the "source". Or even yoga. One has to be aware of this dimension but nothing to seek. It is rather only in daily encounter and manifestation
[22/4/18, 8:55:00 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Union with source is like divine happening? Not my will but the source
[22/4/18, 8:56:12 PM] John Tan: Yes but we cannot approach the "unfathomable depth" through "knowing". only moment to moment gnosis in seeing, feeling, thinking, tasting, hearing and smelling.
[22/4/18, 8:57:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Knowing as in intellect?
[22/4/18, 8:58:51 PM] John Tan: Yes intellect. The way to understanding the nature of aliveness and clarity is to fully "live" and "express".
[22/4/18, 8:59:00 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Ic..
[22/4/18, 9:00:01 PM] John Tan: Taoism is unique in this sense in expressing this dark illumination
[22/4/18, 9:03:33 PM] Soh Wei Yu: How is it unique?
[22/4/18, 9:09:19 PM] John Tan: it is not really interest in presence. But what is behind presence...when in deep sleep, where is awareness? So the valley spirit is often described as dark. How is this different from anatta?
[22/4/18, 9:24:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Anatta does not see something behind presence but source is none other than manifestation
[22/4/18, 9:25:10 PM] John Tan: What does source is none other manifestation mean to u?
[22/4/18, 9:26:41 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Means when hearing sound, I don’t see it arising out of a nothingness but sound springs from right where it is fully aliveness and full expression of life
[22/4/18, 9:27:59 PM] John Tan: First you must differentiate between experiential insight that there is nothing behind and directly experiencing presence as the 6 entries and exits. From seeing through conventions and how the mind mistaken. How the mind mistakes and reify conventions. How the mind attempt to fix and fit and explain in a "known" pattern according to its existing paradigm. What r the difference? And only when these 2 insights arise, practitioner can clearly understand and experience.
[22/4/18, 9:34:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Insight that there is nothing behind is realising anatta, directly experience presence is all six senses is just PCE”
Session Start: Monday, 21 June, 2010
(7:41 AM) AEN: http://www.naturalstate.us/pointers.html
what do u think of this:
(7:41 AM) AEN: When consciousness dawns upon arising from sleep, it is simply pure
"knowing that I am". It is not individual, and is in fact, impersonal
and unlimited. The notion of a limited self or "me" spins up in the
subsequent conceptualizing in the mind after consciousness has already arisen.
But
don't forget that your real position is the
ever-present reality on which waking (consciousness) and sleep
(unconsciousness) both appear.
(8:26 AM) AEN: A lot of people come up to the level of consciousness or recognizing
the sense of being and take that as the absolute. Here they get stuck and
mistake the dawn for the noon, so to speak. The "knowing that I am"
or state of consciousness is the first eruption or modification on the
absolute, eternal state. People generally miss the fact that
consciousness is an intermittent
appearance. It is the first modification on the absolute and the beginning of
duality. What people are often expounding as reality is really the root of the
illusion! What is prior to consciousness — which is what you really are —
cannot
(8:26 AM) AEN: properly be named. Whatever term is used is only a pointer. Sure, it
may be pointed to as consciousness, awareness, being, emptiness, etc. but these
are provisional pointers only. In the end, even these are discarded. Even
statements like "I am consciousness",
"consciousness is all there is",
"there is no one here", etc., are only mental concepts. So don't
settle for pointers! Let the pointers go and BE what is being pointed to.
(8:38 AM) AEN: "many practitioners cannot know the difference and see the
exact cause of arising and simply blah that there is no cause to it...
u should be clear about it." - lol i
just found a post that did the exact same thing by saying there is no cause and
whatever u do is useless :P
http://beingisknowing.blogspot.com/2010/06/nothing-works-never-did-never-will.html
(8:41 AM) Thusness: When we say cause, we are really saying predictable patterns,
not a metaphysical something behind.
(8:41 AM) AEN: oic.. yah, this guy is saying there is no predictable pattern or
cause of an insight... and whatever u do is useless :P
then i wonder why he wrote that for :P
(8:42 AM) Thusness: ic...that is advaita...
(8:42 AM) AEN: ic.. u mean advaita generally teach that?
they teach self inquiry rite
(8:45 AM) Thusness: yeah...overwhelmed by the taste of presence, we wanted so
much to make it 'independent' to suit our 'free will' and 'absolute' model of
our dualistic paradigm, that is the mind created such a notion of Absolute
Reality.
(8:46 AM) Thusness: This will only hinder our progress from further experiencing
presence.
(8:46 AM) AEN: oic..
(8:46 AM) AEN: btw did u see this article - deepak chopra seems to be talking about
the maha experience here http://www.anhglobal.org/en/node/591
(8:49 AM) Thusness: imo, that is more theoretical then experiential.
(8:49 AM) AEN: icic..
(9:03 AM) AEN: http://www.prahlad.org/disciples/premananda/essays/NISARGADATTA%20CONSCIOUSNESS%20AND%20AWARENESS.htm
(9:03 AM) AEN: 3. Then I realize that if I subtract all the above, what is left?
Only my sense of existing itself, my sense of presence, my sense of being here,
the consciousness. I realize that I am that consciousness only,
(9:03 AM) AEN: the feeling of existing. I must be THAT. What IS that? It is very
subtle. But now I am coming closer. This is the realization of the mystical
phrase "I am that I am." And along with this stage of realization
comes the realization of my universality.
This realization of the "I am" brings with it the explosive
understanding that there is no such thing as an individual, the "I
am" is universal, everyone and every
living thing is feeling it the same way. We
don't ourselves create our sense of "I am." Rather we inherit the
prior existing sense of presence of the original beingness which spontaneously
first appeared on the background of the void, or the object-less pure
awareness.
4. When I am thus established in sense of
identity with this universal sense of presence, or the "I am," I am
at last poised for the final realization. Remember, the realization of the
"I am" is already a very
high state, and many will simply stop here
to enjoy living in the universal personless beingness. This is the knowledge of
God and the knowledge that I am God. But some rare ones keep going and keep
questioning deeper and come to the
breakthrough realization that ALL beingness, even the beingness of
"God" is still a form of illusion and duality, and they will realize
and move into and "become" the
(9:03 AM) AEN: pure awareness only, giving up even that last and very high identity
as the universal "I am." The consciousness will continue on no doubt,
and the all the activities of life, but the identity of myself will now be
(9:04 AM) AEN: fixed back at its original home, the pure awareness which was prior
to consciousness.
This last step is still incomprehensible to
me but I love to think about it again and again. Many can give up the lesser
false identifications, casting them off like tattered old clothes and stripping
naked down
to the singular universal consciousness.
But who can give up that very sense of beingness itself? We LOVE to be, and
fear terribly not being anymore. It is frightening! Looked at from a lower
level the final
realization seems like absolute and utter
annihilation itself, and who on earth wants to be completely annihilated? Thus,
very few rare souls ever realize the final realization! Above all, I WANT TO
BE!
(9:05 AM) AEN: Buddha became the Void itself and entered into the great nirvana. A
friend of mine called it "The Great Suicide." Then one realizes the
final incredible and terrifying reality: there is nothing. And though
really and truly there is absolutely
nothing, at the same time that nothingness is inexplicably filled to fullness
with an indescribable "something which is not a thing," the pure
awareness, the absolute,
unaware of itself. That is the one and only
"thing-which-is-not- a-thing" which is truly real. All else is false,
a fraud made of spacetime, of things which begin and end and come and go, the
Great Maha
Maya, the dreams of the universal mind.
-
is this talking about transiting from I AM
to impersonality?
(9:08 AM) Thusness: no
(9:11 AM) Thusness: this is phase 3 in terms of thoroughness and willingness of
giving out even the sense of Presence... a phase to eliminate the ultimate
block. Whatever experience that arises
becomes secondary... it is an inner development to eliminate the last trace of
'Self/self' or clinging to the sense of 'I' but without any arising insight of
non-dual or anatta.
(9:12 AM) Thusness: that sense of 'Self', that knot, that ultimate clinging, that
ultimate attachment... we do not have to do away with it this way, it can be
dissolved by the right view of emptiness.
(9:13 AM) AEN: oic..
(9:13 AM) Thusness: with that clinging to Presence, 'effortlessness' will not be
truly understood.
(9:14 AM) Thusness: any form of clinging, be it Self/self or Presence, will
prevent a practitioner from correctly experiencing 'effortlessness'. This is the 4th aspect I want u to realize.
(9:15 AM) Thusness: However this person only sees the 'void'.
(9:15 AM) AEN: icic..
(9:22 AM) AEN: btw what i pasted just now by john wheeler on top is also on the
void?
(9:40 AM) Thusness: john wheeler is speculating with the attachment of Presence.
(9:40 AM) AEN: oic..
(9:43 AM) Thusness: that is, he wants to talk about the 'void' without giving up
the sense of Presence.