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BrendanFlock
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: redgreenvines]
#25228909 - 05/25/18 10:00 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: nothing is eternal, both are transient phenomena.
Yes it seems like nothing will be around for a long time..
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Yellow Pants
Registered: 05/14/17
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: creativsaur]
#25228969 - 05/25/18 10:43 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
creativsaur said: I might have an unpopular opinion but the difference between our observers is that there is none. The only thing that differs us is the accumulation of information our brains have accumulated, and the illusion of separation from our bodies. Personalities are cultivated through your mind experience bodies are just a point of the universe that have gained a consciousness of itself
So what is it that makes us the same? I agree that it is indeed an illusion of personality and separation from our bodies. However the illusion is more real than anything that might make us, um, one?
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sudly
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: Yellow Pants]
#25229140 - 05/26/18 01:30 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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The processes by which we feel and perceive sensations within our environment are the same.. our personality is probably born through adaptations and accumulations of experience, nurture, and nature etc.
It's easy to say that we are one over the interwebs but I've never heard someone so brazen to say it in person.
Cept one time I was tripping and some chick said we were both roots of a tree.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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BrendanFlock
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: sudly]
#25229202 - 05/26/18 03:02 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Maybe that tree is the tree of life?
Kabbalah?
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Enkidu
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: Yellow Pants]
#25229209 - 05/26/18 03:13 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Yellow Pants said:
Quote:
creativsaur said: I might have an unpopular opinion but the difference between our observers is that there is none. The only thing that differs us is the accumulation of information our brains have accumulated, and the illusion of separation from our bodies. Personalities are cultivated through your mind experience bodies are just a point of the universe that have gained a consciousness of itself
So what is it that makes us the same? I agree that it is indeed an illusion of personality and separation from our bodies. However the illusion is more real than anything that might make us, um, one?
We all come from the same exact source snd go back far enough the same ancestor.
Just a single life form divided into multiple life forms.
The illusion is just that, illusion. For the most part we all have the same type of feelings, same type of desires. We are the same in so many ways, yet different in subtle ways, thank God, this place would get hellishly boring.
-------------------- Within You , Without You
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Yellow Pants
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: BrendanFlock]
#25229686 - 05/26/18 10:19 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
BrendanFlock said: Maybe that tree is the tree of life?
Kabbalah?
Trees are cool
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Enkidu
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: Yellow Pants]
#25229883 - 05/26/18 12:19 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Im quite fond of trees as well
-------------------- Within You , Without You
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BrendanFlock
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: Enkidu]
#25232090 - 05/27/18 02:33 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Enkidu said: Im quite fond of trees as well
Especially the Tree of Good and Evil!
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: GeorgiasOnMyMind] 1
#25232228 - 05/27/18 03:40 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
GeorgiasOnMyMind said: There is nobody experiencing anything, the ego is the experience, the ego cannot witness its death. There is no way to know what death of ego is. If ego is gone, you are gone; the experience is no more, your question no longer exists. But your question is still here, therefore you are still alive, therefore your ego never died.
Logic would suggest this, however, in the non-rational frankly ineffable Experience that changed my life in December of 1974, all referents to ego vanished including discursive thinking, varied emotion, memory, sensory input, my very name. An Eternal Plenum-Void of self-effulgent transparent radiance, "Unbearable Compassion," and Pure Identity (non-linguistic 'I AM-ness') of Itself characterized this 'place.' It was in a word, omniscience. When it ended, the Infinite Expanse of "Unbearable Compassion" instantly became a sharp point (like the angelic lance penetrating Saint Teresa in Bernini's sculpture) of "Unbearable Compassion" in my heart. 'I' was back. The Infinite became the Infinitesimal, an Infinite Expanse became an Infinitesimal Singularity. Transcendental Awareness continues in egoless states like this: Rigpa, Nirvikalpa samadhi, Asamprajnata samadhi, depending upon the school. Lama Govinda describes 'OM and HUM as Complementary Experiences.' On the 'Ascent Towards Unification' (OM, Brain Center), "the dewdrop slips into the Shining Sea." On the 'Descent Towards Realization' (HUM, Heart Center), the Infinite 'incarnates' the finite. The Western alchemical correlate is "Solve et Coagula."
Now, subsequently it occurred to me over these decades that every time we refer to 'me' or 'I,' when we are referring to our individuality, if one traces this mistaken identity back to its metaphysical source, we would discover that the divine "I AM" is the ultimate source of our consciousness and self-consciousness. Based on this experience, shorn up by mystical writers from Meister Eckhart to Ramana Maharshi, the permanent Realization of ego-death in physical death could be of the same type of Experience. All relative referents fall away, our life evaporates like a dream does when we awaken from it, and incomprehensible familiarity arises as the last human Realization dawns that we have always been the Eternal I AM in the guise of an individual. The Red Bindu at the Root center rises to the Heart Center, the White Bindu at the Brain Center descends into the Heart Center, and this 'spiritual zygote' rises up the Central Channel through the Brain Center. "The dewdrop slips into the Shining Sea." All our fear of death was for nought, we were never who and what we 'believed' ourselves to be. The Markos dream will end, but the Ultimate Dreamer who infused Markos with the sense of 'I' will remain the Eternal Verity. This is Eternal Life. It is not personal immortality, it is the momentary Realization of one's True Nature, an Eternal Moment that does not pass. Resurrection in and as I AM.
It is always tragic at death (yet hopefully equally ecstatic) when we Realize that our identity is actually borrowed from The ONE, and that ultimately there is only One Being in Reality from which we derive life and self-awareness. Human can be great by human standards, but God is always greater when it's Realized that is where the greatness originates. We get very attached to our aging selves and fear our death. We're like a wave which grows, peaks and declines, only we only seem to see ourselves as individual waves, we fail to Realize we are not separate from the entire ocean. Very few of us experiences what Freud called "Oceanic Consciousness
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (05/27/18 07:21 PM)
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pineninja
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: MarkostheGnostic] 1
#25232471 - 05/27/18 05:35 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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That's just an excellent post.
I don't think its tragic when I don't think.
-------------------- Just a fool on the hill.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: pineninja] 1
#25232675 - 05/27/18 07:17 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
pineninja said: That's just an excellent post.
I don't think its tragic when I don't think.
Thanks, and thanks for responding because I now see that I was unclear. No, losing my personal identity was neither fearful or tragic. Please re-read that sentence after I edited it.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Enkidu
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#25232946 - 05/27/18 10:43 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Yeah amazing posts always...
Curious, that first paragraph, do you remember what you took and what the dose was...?
I've been thinking about desth and fearing it a bit ever since my last trip and even though I have heard some of what you have said before, for some reason you saying it gave me some comfort.
-------------------- Within You , Without You
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: Enkidu]
#25234505 - 05/28/18 04:31 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Oddly enough, that life-changing experience occurred when effects from the tiny blue or yellow microdot I had taken to energize me to read all day had waned. My father had come home from work, I was on break from college and I had been reading Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism by Lama Anagarika Govinda, and Mysticism by Evelyn Undersell. After supper I went upstairs to my room to meditate. I was not tripping, not even high really. I got into half lotus and sat against my golden oak bureau. There was a large Japanese style ceramic Buddha in meditation mudra on top that my Aunt Edith had regifted to me and I had painted 'flesh' tone and white from its original black and gold.
I closed my eyes and focused inwardly, probably not for very long. I don't know how much chronological time elapsed, but the experience occurred instantaneously, I do not recall any transitional changes. 'I' was gone and a self-aware Plenum-Void shown forth. There was no observing ego during this event (no thinking mind going "Holy Moly!" or anything else), but the 'place' seemed to 'transfer' to MY memory immediately after it ended. This is the paradoxical nature of being and not being simultaneously. I would say howsoever crudely to attempt at making the ineffable, effable, that the existential Mark had vanished leaving the ontological Emptiness, Rigpa, the Primordial Ground, that is all of us at bottom.
Because the experience was simultaneously Clear Light (or a omniscient Void of unmeasurable transparency)/"Unbearable Compassion"/Pure Identity of Being (awareness of awareness), I have pondered all of these years whether the defining essence of God in the Torah, Identity, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" ('I will be what I will be') usually translated as "I AM" or "I AM THAT I AM," and depicted as a theophany (the so-called 'burning bush' that was not consumed), is reference to this same psychospiritual or psychocosmic experience. The Perennial Philosophy, while admitting of cultural filters, still insists on a singular Experience of Reality, Rudolph Otto's "Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans" ('Tremendous [in the sense of the root Trembling] and Fascinating Mystery'). So, is the Buddhist Primordial Ground (Nyingma), the Christian "Ground of Being" (Paul Tillich), and the Jewish Kabbalistic Ain Sof Aur (Eternal Light), all the same Reality? THAT is the question!
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Enkidu
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#25234528 - 05/28/18 04:41 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Very interesting, thanks for sharing
-------------------- Within You , Without You
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redgreenvines
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#25234633 - 05/28/18 05:42 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism by Lama Anagarika Govinda was so exciting at that time for me too, the words and images circulated in mind after reading and conspired nicely to make the after-reading-glow a 'religious' one.
-------------------- _ 🧠 _
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: redgreenvines]
#25235285 - 05/29/18 01:59 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism by Lama Anagarika Govinda was so exciting at that time for me too, the words and images circulated in mind after reading and conspired nicely to make the after-reading-glow a 'religious' one.
I'm fairly certain, given the Constructivist School of mystical experience, that my experience was shaped by that book. The Great Mantra OM MANI PADME HUM, 'The Infinite is a Jewel in the Lotus of The Heart,' was that piercing singularity of what BE HERE NOW called "Unbearable Compassion," when the Infinitely large was then experienced as the Infinitesimally small. "OM and HUM as Complementary Experiences."
I once read that Lama Govinda never really grokked the teachings he learned UNTIL he took LSD, despite his Lama status, his 10 hour meditations, etc. It's no wonder he wrote a preface to The Psychedelic Experience.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (05/31/18 01:58 AM)
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redgreenvines
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#25235511 - 05/29/18 06:53 AM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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it is quite possible that the content of his writing was less meaningful than the overall effect of his writing.
-------------------- _ 🧠 _
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: redgreenvines] 1
#25236636 - 05/29/18 05:02 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: it is quite possible that the content of his writing was less meaningful than the overall effect of his writing.
I might agree with you about other books of his that I read, but the content which taught me that the 'seed syllables' were just that - shorthand for whole mind-blowing experiences - was huge for me. So was the shepherd-crook paths of ascent AND descent which differed completely from the Tantric Hindu Kundalini model. Foundations served as the meta-structure for my doctoral dissertation wherein I arranged Western theorists on the ascending-descending, pre-post enlightenment experience, and illustrated how western theories need not be seen as competing but assigned to levels of the psychic centers. For me the content was essential.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Enkidu
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#25236918 - 05/29/18 07:07 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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I think I'll have to pick that book up...
-------------------- Within You , Without You
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redgreenvines
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Re: If ego death is real, who's experiencing it ...? [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#25237087 - 05/29/18 08:44 PM (5 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
Quote:
redgreenvines said: it is quite possible that the content of his writing was less meaningful than the overall effect of his writing.
I might agree with you about other books of his that I read, but the content which taught me that the 'seed syllables' were just that - shorthand for whole mind-blowing experiences - was huge for me. So was the shepherd-crook paths of ascent AND descent which differed completely from the Tantric Hindu Kundalini model. Foundations served as the meta-structure for my doctoral dissertation wherein I arranged Western theorists on the ascending-descending, pre-post enlightenment experience, and illustrated how western theories need not be seen as competing but assigned to levels of the psychic centers. For me the content was essential.
I think you are talking about the nadis how fun to do a thesis which brings that into question or focus.
-------------------- _ 🧠 _
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