Non-duality and Ignorance

Wow, this is a really thoughtful post. I am impressed by your questions. I'm going to answer this in two parts. The first is an example. The second is instructions. Don't spend so much energy trying to refute what I say. Instead spend your energy trying to understand what I say. Let it sink in.


1.
Non-duality is not intellectual. It is experiential. So in this since, anyone who hasn't had sex is ignorant of sex. If they have sex once a major chunk of ignorance disappears and will never return. If they have sex 100 times, another chunk is gone. If they have sex 1000 times, another chunk is gone. At some point, at no specific number, they are no longer ignorant about sex at all. They may know they need to work on intimacy, or stamina, or foreplay, but they are in no way ignorant about sex. They may have not had gay sex or a threesome but still, they are not ignorant about sex.

If someone tells you about sex who says they have had sex and you disbelieve them or only take it as intellectual, you have not taken a chunk out of ignorance nor have you tried. If you say, sex is not for me and then deny the existence of sex, then you are doubly an ignoramus. If you say, sex is not for me but I have an intellectual understanding of it, then you've made your choice.

One can have sex without having any preconceived notions about it or one may consider him or herself a master without every having had sex. One may have a few ideas formed about sex. One may be fairly knowledgeable. One may consider himself an anal sex master. One may consider herself a cunnilingus master. Or even as having some knowledge of the subjects and feel pride and correctness about their knowing, without ever having had sex. They may make battle against other sex tribes. Make laws, advertisements, churches, propaganda, nations, on the proper way to have sex and the evils of other sexual methods and tribes. All without ever having sex.

If interested in having sex, one may ask how do I have sex? They may read books by people who claim to have had sex. They may join a group or find someone who has claimed to have had sex. They can learn how to have sex. Then, in those moments of the first copulation. They know. They are illuminated to the nature of sex, experientially. Before they were not illuminated, afterward they are illuminated.

Do you believe it's experientially possible to have sex?

Do you believe it's experientially possible to awaken?


2.
There is a part of your mind beyond experience. Let's keep it simple with 7 senses (touch, taste, smell, hear, feel, see, think, and aware).

You take this whole 7 sensed mind/body experience and you chuck it in the trash. You will not find your answers here. Next comes the impossibility of finding an answer in this situation of having no way of experiencing. You poke around experience looking for ultimate reality. I did a lot of trying to find the center of my mind. And then one day- it happens. You know.

It took me probably half a year to get to my first experience of ultimate reality. A couple months of seriously believing it was possible and trying to figure out how to do it. Then, wham. I had an experience that was more incredible than any experience I'd ever had before. If ultimate reality is the ocean this was stepping on the beach. Before, I was in the bushes going "that seems cool, how do i get there?" Then after more months of searching and magick and mindfulness, I finally had a satori. I'd experienced ultimate reality and it was beyond anything I could think it would be beyond.

You see, awareness is special. It's not here or there, in or out, up or down. Is it produced by the brain or does it produce the brain? But it's not ultimate reality. Most people are not even aware. They are mindless drones pushed about by circumstances. When we are mindful we take a step closer toward awareness. This is a good thing. But mindfulness alone will not bring you to awakening. Now, I had the added push of Magick, but you certainly don't have to use magick to become awakened, it merely sets the inevitability of the circumstances arising. What you will have to do in addition to mindfulness is investigate. You are looking for something solid. You won't find it, but once you start investigating phenomenon you won't be able to stop looking. Seriously. A word of caution. Investigation causes insight. Insight can be very disturbing. It can also be illuminating. You've heard of the Dark Night of the Soul. It's not just being sad and junk. It's a result of insight. You lose your familiar concepts of self and reality. They become something much more. Something... non-dual. Then through more investigation you'll find that everything you've ever experienced is non-dual. Then you come back down the mountain, back to duality-land to show off your new skills.

And bada bing, you're a Buddha, a Christ, an enlightened person, awakened to the true nature of reality.

This is basic premise of Aleister Crowley's branch of magick, Thelema. The idea that within humans, there is potential to become Christs or Buddhas. Buddhism makes no bones about this and the "Buddha", was just the first in his group. There are tons of Buddhas. Some are better at certain skills than others. They're all different, but they're all Buddhas. This is of course heretical to exoteric Christianity. People can become Christ-like by following Christ's example but they never actually become a Christ. That's esoteric Christianity. Which it seems is what you're interested in. Christ was a title they gave to Jesus just as Buddha was a title they gave to Siddhartha. Let's not make claims as to what this all means, let's just become aware that it is possible. That's all I'm concerned with here.

Having partially taken your advise to try not to refute what you wrote and just try it (I don't remember exactly what you said), I didn't reply right away but gave it some time and lived with it for a while.

First, I would say I want to be careful lest I fetishize experience over intellect. I think that has happened in some parts of culture as a reaction to the ironically named "enlightenment" in Europe in the 18th(?) century during which time myths and non-verifiable beliefs were dismissed outright. Myth is important. Metaphor and analogy are important. They allow us to reach for the inaccessible experience of ultimate reality while not losing hope. Jung said that symbol is the bridge cast out toward an unseen shore; Jung experienced a lot of personal terror searching for reality. I don't think he would have claimed to have found it, but he made a lot of insights as a spiritually-oriented human who happened to be a scientist. The symbols and myths we use in our search for that which is unknown allow us to pass through intellect and into an experience that is not/less filtered through our everyday reasoning capacities. Using myth and symbol is how we perceive without relying on the 7 perceptual faculties you mentioned. Saying we should throw out those capacities, however, would be like saying we should throw out our soup bowl because the soup is all that really matters.

It's interesting to me that the symbol you and I are consistently using is that of an ocean. I love it. That and the cosmos are my two favorite visual analogies.

In order to search for something, the desired object being searched for (be it an experience or whatever) is always already defined at least at the gross level. To define something is to contain it and self-prescribe the search. To investigate is essential. I do not believe this is separate from mindfulness. Is is an integral part of mindfulness - "mindfulness" is a misnomer because it seems to limit its usefulness to just the mind. Mindfulness is more about presence and awareness of consciousness to me and less about ONLY exercise for the mind (which it definitely is).

One last little thing. I know I have defined my sought after object by calling some part of it "Christ", but I would distinguish that I believe Jesus was not called Christ because of what he achieved; rather, Christ was called Jesus to give form to the process of life filling the dried river bed of Christ's archetypal nature. To that end, I don't see my Christianity as esoteric. the real esotericism that I abhor is that which is marked by an admixture of experiential-focused spiritual pursuits (not bad in and of themselves) and a militant evangelism that demands allegiance.

So glad you asked these clarifying questions.

Full disclosure: I misread "exoteric" in your previous post as "esoteric". Honestly, I was not even familiar with the word. I'm glad I am now, because it makes it easier to conceptualize my own thoughts about "esotericism".

You're right, I typically do not like esotericism in the sense of a religion, for example, fully depending on certain key members' experiences of what they find to be "true" and, by definition, also fully depending on those members' ability to explain something "unexplainable" (usually purposefully cryptically because of their claim that it is "inexplicable" to all but themselves). It seems to be a haughty and commercial way of sharing good news.

On the other hand, the concept of "exoteric practices" seems to be what I have hitherto thought of as "the ideological" - the things that esoteric folks feed the dumb, spiritually illiterate masses in order to keep them well-behaved and starving for nourishment that can only be provided by the oligarchs of "belief". That sort of thing pisses me off (which in itself also challenges me to just observe what is and let it be what it is without being wrapped up in aversion of it); but I wonder if it actually is necessary. Maybe I needed it to even develop a modicum of interest in trying to care about anything but what my next meal will be.

All that being said, your viewing eso- exoteric as simply being within or without changes the whole game. In that case, it seems to be just two facets of the same effort. One in which maybe humanity has not quite gotten the hang of efficient exotericism like they have esotericism.

Less time than thoughts for now...

So, that's the only honest reason I have ever found to pursue anything relating to non-ignorance. There is also the social-cool-factor consideration that I can admit only because I have worked hard to overcome it. Gurus are cool. Prophets are cool. The mysterious figure who "knows himself" is cool. Natural human tendency to seek out acceptance and approval - helpful to survival and basic social integrity, but can also hinder general personal development. My original question might be clarified by asking why the cool is what we pursue. Is it mechanistic? If so, and it seems to be so, teleological investigations (which, in my opinion, begs the question of theology) are relevant.

Teleology THEN theology...

If dead matter evolved to see itself, the cool-factor of pursuing insight is "mechanistic" (due to and caused by physical stimuli and precursors). If dead matter does present the essential stuff for something like... whatever things we've been talking about... that begs the question of purpose. saying "dead matter evolved to see itself" is not a purpose or reason, it is the result of something; some process; some motion with meaning - even if only meaningful in the retrospect. The humanistic activity of attributing the findings of the meaning-finding-train that is the human mind as the ultimate PURPOSE of reality is a dangerous anthropomorphism (a phenomenon I believe is almost if not definitely impossible to avoid).

After teleology is established as even a possibility (the consideration that something other than "me figuring out the universe" is possible if not likely), beliefs of the significantly stereotypical "beyond" or "higher power" are called in to stand for that which we don't know. No matter what anyone says, the subscription to or faith in or following of ANY given (even loosely fluid, ever-changing, and non-static) system of beliefs IS religion. When it's mistreated, it goes horribly and ironically becomes popular and easy to follow. When it goes well, it's probably not talked about that much and is endlessly varied.

My interest in this particular thread is this: when teleology and therefore religion (e.g. spiritual beliefs, or any other term to describe a life living doing something other being overwhelmed with the desire to eat, sleep, screw, and fight) occurs, we unconsciously decide as an emergently self-conscious species that God, the beyond, ultimate reality, etc. is understandable and describable by us. This leads to the inevitability of an anthropomorphically toned set of descriptions; no matter how meaningful, subjective, mind-blowing, space/time-warping, long-lasting, life-changing, or toe-tingling it may be.

Re: no peers.
It doesn't matter. people you don't know are peers. people that don't exist are peers. you are peers. the default habit of the mind is to scan the inner and outer environment for interactions. Non-duality does not contradict this. One can have a relationship with one's self. Taking the "self" out of it, the non-dual reality (to the extent that it exists as we have discussed) can have a relationship with it's non-dual self. To say it can't is to rely on Aristotle's law of noncontradiction ("A" cannot equal "non-A"); an action which itself contradicts the claim that human logic/mind is irrelevant, can be trashed, or at least cannot be trusted when approaching and experiencing the ultimate non-dual reality. If this is accepted, there is no way to move past the influence of the Other (even if one doesn't believe in "the other" on a non-duality principle). This leaves me still asking myself the same question: what makes it better to care? Why is making something better good? Why is good desirable? Why do I chase the desirable (especially when the desire is merely cloaked by the veil of "enlightenment" - desire for non-desire is the same)? If it is already as it is, there is no doing, no effort, no caring; there just is. If something gets in the the way of that (e.g. suffering), why care? Ignorance? Why avoid it; especially when we have been taught (by others and experience) that attachment, desire, craving, and aversion hinder full living; i.e. they cause ignorance...

Ending with a loose circularity of self-aimed questions. Not looking for answers to them really. Just using them rhetorically to show my position. Trying not to make a clear statement about what I believe because I still where a tightly-fitting pair of postmodern underpants...

Which is a great thing, by the way!

I² 

Intelligence Increase

It's a Tim Leary thing!

Nonduality has been something I've been really interested in these past 5+ years. I really wanted to explore it, find out what this Zen thing was all about, become it, practice it, live it.

I believe that every person has a little piece of divinity in them and it is this spark that is congruent with the big divinity living in beyond-experience-land; which is also where our little piece of divinity lives. They know each other and "vibrate" at the same frequency. When this little piece of divinity is recognized as the big divinity we "achieve" nonduality. I prefer an achievement model because there are ways to activate the "honing mechanism" to tune in and achieve this nondual recognition. I've read about people having awakening experiences spontaneously, through exoteric religious practices: faith, holy books, service, and of course by esoteric means: meditation, ritual, inquiry. But a key feature is that most of the time, even if they claim it was completely spontaneous, the people who this happens to were involved with some kind of inquiry, study, or meditation around the topic.

When I was younger, in college, I gave up on exoteric means and practices. I lost my faith. Choosing esoteric means -which, really, fell in my lap- has been a new learning process. One that I've been deeply involved in. So it was nice to hear you say, or at least infer, that I had faith: because I think I do but I don't really think about it! It always feels like something I have to hide. So on a free forum like this I can really let loose! Maybe a little too much.

The methods I keep harping on I feel are important because you can activate your inner divine spark and let it lead you to big divinity. You don't have to wonder about big divinity- you can learn first hand. It's just a shame for me to see you who are obviously interested in this to let these practices go by. This has been a big learning experience for me. If I can't convince you to test out my reality tunnels, which I accept are approximations of the truth and not the truth itself, then henceforth I'll respect this as your own free will. "Every man and every woman is a star." - Liber AL vel Legis I:3.

I'd like hearing your take on nonduality some more. I'd love to hear your opinions on this. I'm really interested to hear how Christianity interfaces with your therapeutic methods as well as your mindfulness and yoga practices. The therapeutic vector may be over my head but let it rip. I'll quit pestering you and let you have your forum back!