Let's enter unity consciousness

[hierophant]

Originally Posted by Anders Lindman

I thought jnana meant intellectual knowing rather than intuitive knowing? For example Jnana Yoga = path of the intellect, Bhakti Yoga = path of devotion, and Karma Yoga = path of actions/doing.

that's what you get from wikipedia. jnana is translated as knowledge but practically speaking (atma) jnana refers to self-realization which has got absolutely nothing to do with intellectual understanding.

[Anders Lindman]

Originally Posted by hierophant

that's what you get from wikipedia. jnana is translated as knowledge but practically speaking (atma) jnana refers to self-realization which has got absolutely nothing to do with intellectual understanding.

No, that's what I heard from a guru. Do you have any source that says that jnana doesn't have anything to do with intellectual understanding.

[Anders Lindman]

In duality consciousness the mind is motivated by fear and desire. In unity consciousness the mind is motivated by inner peace and excitement. Too much inner peace and the mind starts longing for some excitement. Too much excitement and the mind starts longing for inner peace.

[jconnar]

Some say fear and excitement are the same energy, just viewed through - and +

[hierophant]

Originally Posted by Anders Lindman

No, that's what I heard from a guru. Do you have any source that says that jnana doesn't have anything to do with intellectual understanding.

intellectual understanding is only the tip of the iceberg. hope this helps:

Jnana yoga, also called gyana yoga, is the yoga of true knowledge. It is based on the Hindu philosophy of nondualism, called advaita (nondual) vedanta (Vedic knowledge). A similar nondualistic view of reality is held by many branches of Buddhism, including Zen, by Taoism, by Islamic Sufism, as well as by some branches of Christianity that follow the Gospel of Thomas. Some of the best-known Hindu teachers of Jnana Yoga are Vashishtha, Adi Shankara, Ramana Maharshi, and Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Jnana yoga looks into the truth about who we are and what we are experiencing. The full realization of this truth brings enlightenment. Of course, all yogas offer a direct road to enlightenment if followed fully. Whether a particular road is suitable to reach this goal is a personal matter, largely depending on where you are coming from.

Jnana yoga can serve all people, whatever path they take. It keeps the true objective of yoga in sight and offers the blessing of truth getting closer at every step. But that does not make Jnana Yoga the only or even the best yogic path for everyone. Most yogis will combine jnana yoga with other yogic paths, such as bhakti yoga, karma yoga, ashtanga yoga and tantra yoga, as explained in what is the best yoga.

Jnana yoga is not based on any preliminary idea or dogma that you have to accept. It starts from direct experiences that anyone can have, even though these experiences may sometimes require deep contemplation and meditation.

But how to recognize truth? When we want to know the truth about something, we do not want to be fooled by appearances, by that which only appears and then disappears. Knowing truth cannot mean to know now that this is that, only to become something else later, depending on circumstance. So truth is that which lies beyond appearance and thus is never changing. If truth were changing all the time, how could it be truth? If a person tells you one day that he went on a vacation trip to China, only to tell you the next day that it was Switzerland, what can it tell you at all? Truth requires consistency. The path of right knowledge or Jnana Yoga means focusing on what is never changing as opposed to the illusions of Maya, which is ever changing. That includes the Ego or false self-identification and Jnana Yoga continually questions reality by finding "not this, not that".

Of course, appearances also have some truth, some reality. They may be called relative, temporary, or partial truth. In jnana yoga, however, the objective is to know the absolute truth about life, the truth that is never changing, eternal. To come to the absolute truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about yourself and your experiences, you have to look beyond the mere aspects of you and your experiences that change all the time. You have to find that which is essentially you and is essential to all your experiences. To find it, you may need to ask yourself a lot of questions, of which the main question is "Who am I ?".

Knowledge of the right and insight into the proper means of realizing the right in daily existence, are two essential attributes of Jnana yoga. One knows that the blocks that cloud the mind can be removed, that cosmic consciousness is an attainable goal. Jnana Yoga is the understanding of the laws of existence and the awareness of a means to synchronize with them. In Jnana Yoga one ceases to be attached to forms of expression and becomes drawn to the essence, the process of insight. The cause of bondage is maya. The cause of liberation from maya to bliss is jnana.

So long as the player identifies himself as an individual, independent being, he has karmas. And this is the cause of bondage. Jnana Yoga makes it clear that by reducing the scope and area of karma one can begin to establish oneself in bliss. This is insight into the game itself.

source: http://www.sanatansociety.org/yoga_a...ana_dhyana.htm

[Anders Lindman]

Originally Posted by jconnar

Some say fear and excitement are the same energy, just viewed through - and +

There is one important distinction. Fear is often experienced as suffering while excitement is usually experienced as fun. There are some exceptions such as people doing dangerous activities to get an adrenaline kick and things like that, but in general fear sucks and excitement is pleasurable.

[Anders Lindman]

Originally Posted by hierophant

intellectual understanding is only the tip of the iceberg. hope this helps:



source: http://www.sanatansociety.org/yoga_a...ana_dhyana.htm

Yes, I know. The guru said at all three paths, Jnana, Bhakti and Karma lead to the same realisation. So it's definitely not merely an intellectual learning, but that Jnana is a path that focuses on intellectual understanding as a tool for moving towards spiritual realisation.

[Anders Lindman]

Originally Posted by jconnar

Some say fear and excitement are the same energy, just viewed through - and +

This image I posted earlier illustrates what I mean:



Fear leads to pathology whereas excitement in a balanced state (the Love side in the picture) leads to health.

[Anders Lindman]

I forgot to mention that acute and short-lived fear is ok. It's when the fear is chronic or prolonged that it causes disease. And the problem is that the mind in duality consciousness has a LOT of chronic fear even when the fear is not conscious (subconscious fear).

Bruce Lipton talked about an excellent analogy where the body is a community of people functioning as normal and then the air raid siren goes off and people go into bomb shelters. That is an analogy of cells in the body going into protection mode because the mind signals fear. When the all clear signal comes everybody can come out and continue working and go to school etc. Chronic fear is like having no all clear signal so the people remain in the bomb shelters for protection. And they can only live in the bomb shelters for a limited period of time until the food and water is gone. Similarly, cells that have walled themselves off from the rest of the community of cells in the body because the mind signals fear can only remain in that state for a limited period of time, and when the fear remains for too long the cells die.

In the beginning of this video Bruce Lipton talks about that:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...79041736317218

[Anders Lindman]

Split mind sounds like a mental illness. Yet the fact is that the human mind is extremely efficient at separating mental content into different compartments. For example, when you think about someone you know, the mental pictures in your mind about the other person are experienced as clearly separated from the content of your mind that represents yourself.

Instead of aiming directly at some unity consciousness state, an alternative path is to first use the mind's power of separating things for making a distinction between the present moment mind and the time mind.

Both the present moment mind and the time mind are of course parts of the same person. However there is an important distinction between those two parts of the mind. The time mind contains fear when a person's identity is too much attached to it. The reason for this is that the time mind cannot fully cope with the future which means it generates fear.

The present moment mind is self-evidently real. Just observe your own breathing, and the part of your mind that is doing that IS the present moment mind. The nice thing about the present moment mind is that it is free from fear. Since the present moment already is there is nothing for it to be afraid about in contrast to the time mind which deals with a lot of fear.

The present moment mind is probably the same thing as Eckhart Tolle and other spiritual teachers are talking about. The difference here is that the time mind is deliberately separated from the present moment mind. Instead of becoming aware of the present moment as Tolle has talked about, this practice is about becoming aware of both the time mind and the present moment time at the same time.

Since the part of your mind related to time leads to fear when there is too much personal identification with it, the recognition of the present moment mind as another part of you lessens the attachment to the time mind. With some training you can consciously choose between these two mind. You are then no longer stuck in the time mind and that detachment results in a lessening of fear.

[lighthouse]

Originally Posted by Anders Lindman

There is one important distinction. Fear is often experienced as suffering while excitement is usually experienced as fun. There are some exceptions such as people doing dangerous activities to get an adrenaline kick and things like that, but in general fear sucks and excitement is pleasurable.

One is closely connected with the other,
and I don't mean like in bungee jumping.

World of duality functions like a battery,
+ and - fill one another with energy.
Like a giant swing, you can't have forward movement without moving backwards.

That's why only change constant is.

[Anders Lindman]

Originally Posted by lighthouse

One is closely connected with the other,
and I don't mean like in bungee jumping.

World of duality functions like a battery,
+ and - fill one another with energy.
Like a giant swing, you can't have forward movement without moving backwards.

That's why only change constant is.

Yeah, but notice the shift of polarities from fear-desire to inner peace-excitement. I think it's a clever shift. The mind in duality consciousness needs fear as a polar opposite to desire. Unity consciousness removes fear by creating a new polar opposite between inner peace and excitement.

[hierophant]

Originally Posted by Anders Lindman

Yeah, but notice the shift of polarities from fear-desire to inner peace-excitement. I think it's a clever shift. The mind in duality consciousness needs fear as a polar opposite to desire. Unity consciousness removes fear by creating a new polar opposite between inner peace and excitement.

not to forget that the higher good (beyond our good&bad) has the tendency to make everything that has lost its center whole again. when you have a bright room and a dark corridor and open the door to the room, the light will come out, it's not the darkness coming in!

[jconnar]

The mind is for or against and everything in between. The mind separates.

Awareness just is. Awareness incorporates.

[lighthouse]

Originally Posted by hierophant

not to forget that the higher good (beyond our good&bad) has the tendency to make everything that has lost its center whole again. when you have a bright room and a dark corridor and open the door to the room, the light will come out, it's not the darkness coming in!

Great example.

Originally Posted by jconnar

The mind is for or against and everything in between. The mind separates.

Awareness just is. Awareness incorporates.

State of my mind started to be different when I made it a "servant" to awareness.
I don't know what other word to use.
I let in my mind everything I come across,
inhale it, and I'm not trying to do anything with it.
Make it right, judge it, change it, stop it, reject it or hold on to it.
I absorb it, I let the whole experience happen as it is,
and then release it.

I used to struggle so much, it was completely useless.
A prisoner of my own thoughts, or better to say,
whole thought patterns that would always ruling my world...
Trying to "produce" the right ones, to "make" something happen.
What a strange idea, considering the evidence to the contrary...

[kitabatake]

Originally Posted by hierophant

not to forget that the higher good (beyond our good&bad) has the tendency to make everything that has lost its center whole again. when you have a bright room and a dark corridor and open the door to the room, the light will come out, it's not the darkness coming in!

Yet black holes devour light. What is your point exactly?

[Anders Lindman]

Originally Posted by kitabatake

Yet black holes devour light. What is your point exactly?

Even black holes radiate, scientists believe. It's called Hawkins radiation or something like that. And also, some scientists believe our own universe could be the inside of a black hole! And that the black holes in our universe contain other universes and so on in a whole tree of black holes where each black hole is a universe. And then the Big Bang is only the start of a fairly recent 'branch' in this tree of universes.

The point is that when there is darkness and light in the same place, light wins.

[hierophant]

Originally Posted by kitabatake

Yet black holes devour light. What is your point exactly?

oh, never thought about that! but who knows what the hell's going on there. i was mainly referring to the laws on planet earth

[hierophant]

Originally Posted by Anders Lindman

Even black holes radiate, scientists believe. It's called Hawkins radiation or something like that. And also, some scientists believe our own universe could be the inside of a black hole! And that the black holes in our universe contain other universes and so on in a whole tree of black holes where each black hole is a universe. And then the Big Bang is only the start of a fairly recent 'branch' in this tree of universes.

The point is that when there is darkness and light in the same place, light wins.

thanks for corroborating my statement the idea we're living in a black hole and the black holes in our universe are universes again is absolutely fantastic! reminds me of the fractal principle in mathematics!

[Anders Lindman]

Originally Posted by jconnar

The mind is for or against and everything in between. The mind separates.

Awareness just is. Awareness incorporates.

And the mind is very good at making separation. Like super powerful. That's why I thought it would be a neat trick to use that power to recognise the separation between the time mind and the present moment mind.

Past and future exist in the now, as Eckhart Tolle almost rant about sometimes, lol. Yet the time mind is only aware of past and future and misses the present moment. So even though the time mind is also aware in the now, it misses it completely!

When I think about what I shall do tomorrow, then that's the time mind. And when I observe my own breathing then that's the present moment mind. Often when a person is trapped totally in the time mind, then he or she is not consciously aware of the breathing which then is totally taken care of by the subconscious mind.

With some training it's possible to choose between keeping paying attention to the time mind or to pay more attention to the present moment mind.