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## Guest (Apr 17, 2008)

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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

I dont think permanent enlightenment exists not in the sense of a permanent state of non duality anyway, who have you or anybody else ever met who lives in a permanent state of non duality without an ego? sure there are many people who enter temporary states where their limits and mind structures drop away and experience Samadhi or other type unification experiences, infact I think it is possible for anybody to have such experiences with enough meditation, but nobody lives in that state permanentely well nobody I have ever come across anyway, I think such a permanent state is infact a con by gurus looking to make money and so people put them on a pedistool and worship them. There are people who have more access to spiritual states in their lives and there are people who have less karma so can see reality more clearly but my interpretation is that on the whole they are just regular people who are healthy and have dealt with their issues and been allowed to grow and develop into who they really are.

Many spiritual people say all there is to do is to realise your no-self and your non dual nature but infact we are individuals as well as part of the whole, so we have a self with individual skills and qualities which can be nurtured and developed as well as being a non self part of the whole, some of us are naturally good at art and others science and politics and I dont think the world would be in a better state if everybody layed down their individuality like Ramana Maharshi and other spiritual people and solely focused on being a nobody, you can find meaning in life beyond non-duality which makes life worth living, its not up to Byron Katie or anybody else to tell you what life is about, you could find meaning in writiing books, being an actor or being a mother could be enough to provide substance to your life to make it all worthwhile . Obviously I am not wise enough to know any of this for sure but this is my take on this at the moment.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

interesting! it's funny, in one article on her waking up, she said that she would walk out of the hostel and go up to people and say "don't you recognise me!"...and that we are all in a trancended state all the time but we just won't admit it, that we are living a lie, by believing our views of ourselves.
I have to say that when I've been doing the work, it has cleared and opened my mind's eye, quite a bit. I used to think enlightenment was going to be like a permanent orgasm/tantric/blissful state or something...hahaha..but I think I'm starting to get the idea, more firmly planted in my head, that it is just peacefulness and rest. I can't imagine what it must be like to see the whole of Nature and life contained within this peace, is that called noetic?


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2008)

We cant say that there is a "perminant" state of enlightenmemt,because in the fourth dhyana time is already transcended before "enlightenment.Its not like theres a perminant ego who is enlightened,if we said that it would not be enlightenment.As you go through the stages-bhumis towards enlightenment and the perfections its not that youre heading for something called enlightenment,its more like clouds of illusion are removed and we see reality for what it is,its not that some people have less karma its that they have purified there karma and perfected it with the six perfections and sublimated into the path as their means to enlightenmet.
In the end even meditation is transcended,there is no one who is meditating,the doer and the doing are transcended.
There are no special states required and yes alot of so called gurus promote cirtain states of conscioussness and charge people ridiculous ammounts of money for teaching them.The only things required are concerntration-samadi and mindfullness....as you go on the path cirtain states do naturally occur inevitably -the four dhyanas but they are not to be clung to ,they are also imperminant as such as mind made ideas..
And yes even non duality is transcended as I said because here and now already there is nothing to acheive ,there is nothing that isnt already buddha nature.....We never had a ego as such in the first place to do away with but equally true is not no self.We are not the same nor are we differant because we are the same in all our differances and we could say we are differant expressions of that sameness which is not sameness and not seperate either[really hard to put into words]-not no self..,we are not individual/differant but nor are we the all/samesness or both or neither.....We are ineffable...We can say there is no duality ,no self ,but once we see that actually there is no non duality, not no self,Even not no enlihghtenment....there may be nothing to attain but also there is not no attainmenmt ,One we see not no attainment the path is seen......and how to aproach it...the middle path bewtween all ideas...
There are three poisons of the mind ..-greed,hatred,delusion.....which manifest as .attachment,aversion,ignorance..or on the path......self,no self,nonenlightenment.....greed is selfish ideas/attachment ,hatred is aversion and non self ideas....once these are overcome and we find the middle way -the noble eightfold path ,ignorance is gone and enlightenmenmt manifests as it allways was.

Its a myth that buddhism is about escapism ,it is not ,not at all.In fact you feel more alive but alive in a real way not a reactive mechanical way.The perfection of right livlihood is how we express dharma in our lives be that through writing,healing,painting...its all an expression of that truth that we have/can experienced.Buddhism is not about just becoming a nothing and not having personality...riding ego is just riding harmful selfishy motivations....There is a love ,the univerese is born out of it with every breath ...actinbg in tune with dharma is just expressing that love in WHATEVER we do.
The best place to find the truth is in yourself ,studie yourself ,I wouldnt ask some guru for advice and the buddha never said that we should,he said "look into thyne own mind"....

Before you go off looking for "enlightenment"etc.. its easier to just first learn to be yourself ,learn to be happy with who you are ,show yourself some acceptance and love.....thats not seperate from "enlightenment" infact its very very important.
Everything you see around you now as it is ,is an expression of truth and beuaty ,born out of love.But with a veiw of ego it only appears as bad or imperfvect and so from that we inturn act ouyt of ego and create bad,rejection ,imperfection...hatred etc....all you have to do is remove that veil,but you dont litterally have to lose yourself or your story.Your story Rozanne is perfect the way it is..it is only self doubt ,self rejection and self hatred that are to got rid off.....your story is your own,its precious and unique but its not seperate or possible with out everything else in the universe ...as nothing is..everything has at least two opposite causes or it doesnt happen,thats because everything is interconnected.One thing I love that the buddha said is that buddha desciribed reality as "a woven net of jewels"..each jewel is precious in itself but each jewel is conected to the web of life and every other jewel.
In the end you just see that theres nothing special about being special.....

Spirit.


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Spirit said:


> There are three poisons of the mind ..-greed,hatred,delusion.....which manifest as .attachment,aversion,ignorance..or on the path......self,no self,nonenlightenment.....greed is selfish ideas/attachment ,hatred is aversion and non self ideas....once these are overcome and we find the middle way -the noble eightfold path ,ignorance is gone and enlightenmenmt manifests as it allways was.
> 
> Spirit.


Thanks for providing this information, it makes a lot of sense. Because some people are really hot on "ending separation", "reducing attachments" and others "overcoming ignorance">...I suppose they are all rooted in the same spiritual awareness ultimately, but I often wonder if/what I should be focussing on, if anything at all. The main thing I try to do now is just use my imagination a bit more to try and get past ideas about people. That's the best I feel I can do. I believe that will end ignorance and separation, and lead to spiritual awareness, although it is still just mental yoga, an exercise to challenge perception. Aversion is the problem which I feel hurts me the most. The feeling of being cut off or lonely, I feel is the worst kind of suffering, so to be connected, existentially aware and not interested in the thoughts of the brain...seems like the only solution. It just always seems like there is something good "over there", when I can see...obviously...I'm only ever going to be here, even to my death, only ever HERE...yet over THERE always seems like the place I wanna be at, cos it looks more interesting! Coming home isn't easy in this world of maya!


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## Guest (Apr 22, 2008)

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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

Spirit said:


> healing those things will lead to spiritual awareness naturally,knowing you need to do that is spiritual awareness....... Spirit.


Thankyou for your encouragement...I have to admit I get guilty, when my eyes become more open and I see how I used to think of things, it is actually hard to come to terms with it. One of the main things which keeps on coursing through my mind is why the Creator made igrorance, cos for the life of me, in the past I wanted to do good for others, to help their suffering, but didn't have a clue I was messing things up all the time. Now I'm getting a bit more awareness, an the old anxiety seems silly...stupid even...I am ashamed of my past ego, even though I'm moving on. One of the things in the past, also, that made me suffer was precisely that, being ashamed of ego, embarassed...yet unable to improve it because I didn't know enough about attachment or even social norms...co-dependance and all. Being co-dependant is awful and very low on the kind of awareness one looks for, equality of spirit and so on.


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2008)

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