I listened to many hours of video teaching, by Osho, by S. N. Goenka, by Ven Ajahn Brahm, by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, by Rabbi Erez Moshe Doron (Author of the book "The Warriors of Transcendence").
Cross referencing all the sources I mentioned above, and comparing them with my personal experience I concluded the following:
Meditation is about detaching consciousness from the senses. In the waking state, both the senses and consciousness are awake. In the sleep state, we lose both – our senses and our consciousness. What we try to do in meditation is to lose our senses, but keep our consciousness, and thereby break the identification of consciousness with the limitation imposed on it by the senses.
The five senses are sending us signals, each of these signals becomes a stimulation, meaning, it creates a sensation - pleasant or unpleasant. We react to the stimulation, not to the external object. As this lady says and I agree:
There is no problem in reaction to stimulations, as long as it is not an automatic reaction, or as Osho says - there is a difference between a reaction and a response, if you react, you are controlled by an external force. What makes the difference between a reaction and a response is the awareness. If you don't react immediately to a stimulation, you leave room for awareness; for mindfulness; for discretion.
If consciousness is attached to the senses, than a pleasure sensation imprints an addiction in the consciousness, and a painful sensation imprints a trauma in the consciousness.
Trauma and addiction are the reason why we react automatically to stimulations. How do we stop it? We let the light of awareness go into our consciousness. As Osho says, the light of awareness melts down all the negativity suppressed in our subconscious.
How do we amplify our awareness? We need to give it some room. If we don't leave room for quiet, between the time the stimulation hit us, and the reaction, we don't leave time for awareness to happen, and separate the consciousness from the senses.
Ven Ajahn Brahm says, the human being has two main aspects, the 'doer' and the 'knower', and we need to take the energy, or the attention, from the 'doer' to the 'knower'. Osho also says something similar, "meditation is doing nothing at all – just be the watcher on the hill. Contemplation is also doing, concentration is also doing. you can't practice it, you just have to understand it" I think that's way, in meditation, we put our awareness on one continues stimulation, like the breath, because moving the attention from one stimulation to another, is also a reaction. And even keeping the attention on one object forcibly, is a reaction – it is also a form of doing. You need to simply let-go, and sink into the object of meditation, effortlessness is the name of the game. Ven Ajahn says, you don't realy need an object to meditate on, if you are experienced enough, you can by pass this stage, and jump right to pure awareness. or as Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it: the main thing is not the object of attention, but the attentiveness itself. Eventually the object of attention drops down by itself; you don't wait for the right time to drop it, as this is also 'doing'.
I find that the main purpose of a mantra is to quiet the mind. Also S. N. Goenka said so. I see we have 6 tools of doing, 2 hands, 2 legs, the sex organ, and... the head. The head is doing the thinking and the talking. In the middle of all the action organs is the heart, where the attention /awareness is. In meditation you stop the activity of all the doing organs, and activate the mindfulness organ - which is the heart (spiritually speaking). 'Doing' is a distraction, and disturbs the 'knowing'. As Ven Ajahn Brahm says: "if you take notes on a lecture, you don't hear parts of the lecture". The 'doer' and the 'knower' don't work together.
S. N. Goenka said: in vipassana, don't use a mantra. it quiets the mind very easily, but ... and then he gives reasons why not to use it. None of those reasons made any sense to me. And from my personal experience, if you are not a monk, living outside of the action, it is very hard to quiet the mind without a mantra.
In the YouTube movie "Spiritual Reality - The Journey Within" we are introduced to a form of mindfulness meditation and the instruction is not to chant a mantra, because chanting a mantra is an activity of the mind, and there for it should be stopped. This makes sense, as in meditation we try to stop the 'doer' and activate the 'listener' or the 'knower', as mentioned above.
I once heard in a YouTube video by Abraham-Hicks: "the way to meditate is feeling for a vibration or listening for a vibration… until before you know it you'll feel a detachment from your physical environment, and the reason you feel a detachment from your physical environment is because you are tuning into your inner world, where there is not sight, and there is not sound, and there is not smell, and there is not taste, and there is not touch…" According to that, how can a mantra be a meditation object? It is not a sense object that keeps your attention active, while the 'doer' goes to sleep; it is a doing by itself. Transcendental meditation always made me wonder, what is the object of attention in this meditation technique? In transcendental meditation you don't mess with your attention at all. once the mind is quiet, the attention moves naturally inwards, the technique itself is a mechanical process of repeating a thought in the mind, as I heard Maharishi saying so himself.
Therefore I think a mantra is not an attention object to keep the 'knower' awake, it is activity, but an activity that eventually brings the mind to its rest. From my experience, quieting the mind, on the one hand, while channeling your attention to a soft stimulation - like the breath, gives me the best result, therefore, on the out going breath I think the mantra, while on the incoming breath, I put my attention on the sensation of the breath. This way I cover both aspects, I stop the 'doer', while channeling the energy to the 'knower'.
How does the mantra quite the mind? I heard a few explanations: One is that you disturb the activities of the inner chattering of the mind. Or that the inner chattering becomes regulated and disappears like a background noise, like the constant sound of a refrigerator. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is quoting a sutra that says, the only way to quiet a disturbed mind is by doing one thing, he says it has to do with creating boredom on the thought level
Maybe it's the boredom that is causing the attention to move away from thought, because by its nature, attention seeks for interest, and attention feeds the thinking process. Once attention detaches from thought, the minds activity is slowing down, even though you're not supposed to resist your thoughts, because that would be also a form of 'doing'. The byproduct is the quieting of the mind, even if it's not the immediate result. Anyway, whatever the explanation is, my experience is that repeating a mantra quiets the mind, and it is a very powerful tool.
Hope you find this interesting. You don't have to agree with me, but I like to hear your comments.
Regards,
Daniel
Certainly, I've felt it myself. Life experience itself, is the biggest pleasure of all, if you let it in without filtering and you are fully aware, colors are 10 times stronger and everything is sharp in full HD, tastes and smells are so powerful - it is the most joyful thing you can experience.
But without understanding there is no action.
why?
Because If you don't decode your experience, by giving it some kind of evaluation, how can you choose how to react to it? whether to embrace it or reject it? If we don't know what it is how can we decide upon a line of action?
Understanding is simply the first step towards action. If you don't have any intention to act, you need no understanding, but if you do, you must have it.
None of the Yogi's I have listened to, was ever against action. Osho says, "there is a difference between a 'reaction' and a 'response'" but he was never against action. He said explicitly that meditation is not against action. Meditation has 2 stages, he said, first we learn to stop reacting mindlessly to stimulation, for that we need to stop all action for a while to gain awareness. Stage 2 is going back into doing action, but learn to act without losing awareness, without being distracted by action - action goes on flowing on it's own, and you stay the watcher on the hill - he said.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says it's like going to the bank and back to the market and back to the bank and so on, you energize yourself by meditation, and then go back to activity. These 2 aspects of the self - the 'doer', and the 'knower' - are somehow feeding one another.
These 2 aspect of self - the aspect that is experiencing, and the aspect that does the understanding followed by action, are both 2 sides of the same coin, and are equally important.
So I don't know what you mean by saying: "but understanding is not as important as the main main thing which is the life experience itself", I'm not giving up on any one of them - to me they are equally important, down playing one of them is not a way to resolve the inner conflicts.
I understand totally what you mean by the 2 aspects of self.. But sometimes the observer/understanding aspect can see that no action is needed....unless you count just being as action. I DO get totally what Paul means. Unless you fully experience life, you cannot understand them...but without the life experience there is nothing to understand. It all starts with the life experience
It does not have to, meditation is something you practice to allow you to move beyond the constraints that you have placed upon self, so it is a medium which you can choose to utilise to heal the divisional conflicts once they come clearly into focus
So meditation only gives you eyes to see the conflict. Before you were in the situation of conflict, now that you are out of the situation, you can see it more clearly for what it is. So your healing technique has nothing to do with meditation, meditation makes it easier to see the problem but it is not what is solving it. To solve it you need to do something actively - in your words: you "assert a new intentional directive to replace it". What would that be in practical terms?
Let us say I see a conflict - I remember some event that happened in the past, and left a bad taste in my mouth, now that it re-emerges I'm bothered by it again, it is something I would prefer not to remember, it gives me a bad feeling. You say I have to do something about it, what would that be? would it be saying something to myself? would it be remembering something? Would it be simply to observe the memory in a non-judgmental way, I mean, how do I translate what you suggest into a particular action? Is it something I should do? or a particular thought I should think. You say I have to actively do something, the awareness itself is not enough, but action is something very concrete, so what would this action be?
So meditation only gives you eyes to see the conflict. Before you were in the situation of conflict, now that you are out of the situation, you can see it more clearly for what it is. So your healing technique has nothing to do with meditation, meditation makes it easier to see the problem but it is not what is solving it. To solve it you need to do something actively - in your words: you "assert a new intentional directive to replace it". What would that be in practical terms?
Let us say I see a conflict - I remember some event that happened in the past, and left a bad taste in my mouth, now that it re-emerges I'm bothered by it again, it is something I would prefer not to remember, it gives me a bad feeling. You say I have to do something about it, what would that be? would it be saying something to myself? would it be remembering something? Would it be simply to observe the memory in a non-judgmental way, I mean, how do I translate what you suggest into a particular action? Is it something I should do? or a particular thought I should think. You say I have to actively do something, the awareness itself is not enough, but action is something very concrete, so what would this action be?
Your meditation technique is opening the door for you to get a glimpse of what is happening within your aspects of consciousness, so you are half way there, consciousness is creative in nature, we think something and that is acted upon to create an experience, with meditation you do it to become more aware and that is the experience you create with your thoughts.
An inner divisional conflict is set up by self usually following an experience, we decide how we wish to remember the experience and we tell self in no uncertain terms that from this moment forward I will always or I will never (whatever the conflict surrounds) and that sets up a directive. Consciousness is creative in nature, once a directive is set, our consciousness will set about creating experience after experience surrounding that directive, for we have declared to self that this is what I actually want to experience.
This is the beginning thought, it will continue to be acted upon until it is changed with an ending thought (everything begins and ends with a thought), so when you become aware of something that is in conflict within self, then give yourself permission to see the beginning thought in an open and non-judgmental way, that switches you into neutral so that you can assess what you want to do, if you no longer choose to agree with the beginning thought that set up the directive, then once more you need to tell self in no uncertain terms that you are now happy to end that thought and replace it with.........
Acceptance is the key, if whatever you replaced the beginning thought with allows you to accept the original experience in an open and non-judgmental way, then once you have come out of your meditation you can now think of that experience without any response like you would have normally done, then you have resolved that inner divisional conflict and are free to choose how you want to be as and when a similar experience unfolds.
and we tell self in no uncertain terms that from this moment forward I will always or I will never (whatever the conflict surrounds) and that sets up a directive.
This definitely sounds like a suggestion. Anyway, call it what you want, you are definitely programming your perception/belief/understanding.
The other option is, as you say: to stay in a meditative state all day. But now that I think of it, that is exactly what Osho is suggesting. He's not saying you should meditate all day, but the "flow mode" you acquired during meditation where thought and action are flowing as one, this type of action -- which now I know is a state where your action is guided by intuition (autopilot) -- is not distracting you from being the observer, and should be the type of action you should keep going all the time - the intuitive action. What do think about this solution?
That is what I have been trying to assist you to achieve, though as something which is normal outside of meditation. 🙂
So we have finally got it right.:) I really appreciate your help. The progress I made here would have taken me ages without your assistance. Now I really feel I know what I'm doing. I guess this post might be of help to others.
One thing I would like to clear. I said that watchfulness and awareness are not the same thing, observing is an action. I want to clarify myself on that. To observe something specific, follow it with your gaze, is an action, but to be observant, is a state of awareness. So in that sense mindfulness and watchfulness are the same.
One more thing, I don't think understanding by itself is blinding us from seeing the truth, like what seems to be the message in the Zen book I'm reading. I don't know if it's the notion of the commentator or really what the monks are saying, it's hard to tell because the monks speak in riddles, but even if it is, I don't buy that.
Understanding the knowledge you gather through experience is important. If you don't understand what you know, you can't use it to predict how reality will behave, and therefore your reactions are no better then those of the ignorant.
Having an ideology is the problem. Ideology seeks to change reality from what it is into something it should be, and therefore is a rejection of reality as it is by nature, but understanding what makes reality tick - what are the hidden reasons behind the way it behaves, is just a deeper knowing of reality.
God created reality as it is, it is your dissatisfaction with it, which creates an issue in your mind.
Understanding the knowledge you gather through experience is important. If you don't understand what you know, you can't use it to predict how reality will behave, and therefore your reactions are no better then those of the ignorant.
Having an ideology is the problem. Ideology seeks to change reality from what it is into something it should be, and therefore is a rejection of reality as it is by nature, but understanding what makes reality tick - what are the hidden reasons behind the way it behaves, is just a deeper knowing of reality.
Our life experience is a singular experience, one life = one experience, it is only when we start to create judgmental perceptions of separateness that divides it up and compartmentalises each thing we experience as being separate from the next thing, we orchestrate our own life experience (reality) based upon the way we choose to judge, perceive and understand our life experience, so if it we are not happy within our own chosen life experience, then we need to change self so that a different perception and reality can be created to reflect the changes we have created within.
Everything begins and ends with a thought, what are your underlying thought patterns and beliefs surrounding your current understanding of your life experience creating for you right now????
So far we followed the idea that one should let his understanding reflect his experience as it is, now you say your understanding has an actual effect on your experience. aren't these 2 notions contradicting one another? Self is not your perception, self is your inner reality, it is what you really are, you can't change it just because you don't like it. and it is good at its core, trying to change it is creates distortion and corruption. Evil things people do because of fear of pain, or lust for pleasure, I don't see them as an expression of their true self, I see them as a distortion of the true self, not as a choice to experience something. We can project ourselves on the outer reality, but it can only reflect our self not our perception. Perception can sometimes hide the truth, but it can't change it.
Unless we say that just as our perception can hide reality from projecting its true nature on 'self', so can perception hide 'self' from projecting its true nature on reality. The disguise goes both ways.
So far we followed the idea that one should let his understanding reflect his experience as it is, now you say your understanding has an actual effect on your experience. aren't these 2 notions contradicting one another?
It is the way we choose to judgmentally perceive things including self that sets up the way our life experience unfolds, our life experience is simply a reflection of that which we perceive to be self.
Self is not your perception, self is your inner reality, it is what you really are, you can't change it just because you don't like it. and it is good at its core, trying to change it is creates distortion and corruption.
We cannot change what we actually are outside of our judgmental perceptions and beliefs surrounding self and reality, nothing we do, say or experience here will have any bearing upon what we actually are.
A self perception is whatever we judge self to be in relation to our own personal life experience, what we are outside of our judgments and what we perceive self to be is seldom the same thing, hence the inner divisional conflicts, by letting go of our judgmental perceptions we stop trying to be this or that and can just simply be. 😉
Evil things people do because of fear of pain, or lust for pleasure, I don't see them as an expression of their true self, I see them as a distortion of the true self, not as a choice to experience something. We can project ourselves on the outer reality, but it can only reflect our self not our perception. Perception can sometimes hide the truth, but it can't change it.
A nice idea, but the reality is that people are living their judgmental perceptions and beliefs, everything they think and do is a direct reflection of their underlying thought patterns and beliefs, in this reality truth is simply what we choose to make it, one person's judgmental beliefs empowers them do something which another person's judgmental beliefs disempowers them from doing, they both judge each other to be wrong, but our true nature is not judgmental.
Unless we say that just as our perception can hide reality from projecting its true nature on 'self', so can perception hide 'self' from projecting its true nature on reality. The disguise goes both ways.
There is what we perceive to be reality and there is 'what is', they are two completely different things, a judgmental perception of reality can always change, but 'what is' remains the same irrespective of our beliefs of reality. 😉
Whilst you are trying to be something, you cannot know your true nature, whilst you are trying to judge yourself and your life experience, you cannot know your true self, whilst you are trying to compartmentalise and understand self, you cannot know your true self, if you want to know your true self, stop trying and start being. 😉
in this reality truth is simply what we choose to make it
There are facts and there are actions, your actions reflect your perception, but the facts are not influenced by it, even if they are sometimes hidden by it, and I think you can get the perception out of the way, and experience reality directly, to synchronize yourself again with reality - take the red pill, so to speak - and that is meditation.
It is true that our future experiences depend on the actions we send out - reality is responding to our actions - but it's not like each and every one of us is experiencing a different reality, we all influence the same reality, and we are effected by the choices of others as well. The nature of reality is such, that it is sending you back everything you send out, it is the way reality behaves, but if something came into existence, and has materialized in some form, it is an objective truth for everyone.
You seem to be confusing thought and action, it is thought that is directing our life experience right now, our actions are the things we do within our chosen life experience, but before we can choose to do something we need to think. 🙂
it is thought that is directing our life experience right now
Are you saying that we are totally responsible for our life experience? OK, you can say anything you want, you can even say we live in parallel universes, but the burden of explaining, such a far fetched claim, is on you - so explain how? If, for example, I go down the street and suddenly there is a dead end, I can't go any further, there is a high wall in front of me, did I choose this experience? Is it all in my head? it is when you go down to the details that the truth is revealed - but I'm listening... :rolleyes: I always listen, if you have something good to sell, I'll buy... 🙂
If, for example, I go down the street and suddenly there is a dead end, I can't go any further, there is a high wall in front of me, did I choose this experience?
LOL, I certainly did not tell you to go down a dead end road, it was entirely your own choice to go that way, so you need to own and take personal responsibility for that choice. 😉
Yes, but our choices are limited by something we call reality, something we need to realize, in order to know what the scope of our choice is... our range of choice is not infinite, you know...
We don't have to experience everything that exists. We can choose what to experience, from a list of things that actually exist on the menu - the menu that reality is putting on the table, but we can't pick something that's not on the list. 😉
Sometimes we think we have no choice, because we were conditioned to think we have no choice, even though we have a choice, but not every limitation is imaginary - not every limitation is imposed by our perception - some limitations are real. We can choose, but only within the framework of what is possible, and not everything is possible.
We are obviously not designed to fly, but someone wanted to overcome that natural limitation so created a means to do it, people are not designed to breath underwater but people have designed things to allow them to move beyond that limitation and make it possible, so although we do have things that appear to limit our choices, our biggest limitation is always our underlying thought patterns and beliefs, the only thing that allows one person to tight walk across the grand canyon and another not to, is down to if they believe they can do it or not.
Rather than using the word reality which brings up different perceptions in each individual, I usually use the words 'what is' because irrespective of what we believe things to be, there is always what is underpinning it. 🙂
Fine, so we are more or less on the same page on this one. I thought you are going to come up with some interesting explanation, on how thoughts can manifest themselves into existence, bypassing the need for action...:rolleyes:
Our thoughts are something which are little understood, the mindless chatter which is our underlying thought patterns and beliefs shape our life experience as well as our general state of health and wellbeing, they create and manifest experience, not everything that we experience requires a direct conscious action on our part, how many times have you experienced something and thought 'that's strange, I was only thinking about that' or 'what is the chances of that happening', or you think of someone and the phone rings and it is them, or you receive a letter or text from them or bump into them on the street etc, this is what people call coincidence, luck, chance, karma, synchronicity etc, but this is how we actually function within consciousness for self and others. 🙂
Hi Paul,
You say that the inner chattering, and the noisy mind, is the result of conflicts between our perception, and our actual experience, and I agree with that, if there is a conflict, and our perception rejects an experience, by criticizing it, or even repressing it, the inner chattering is very loud, but don't you agree that even if there is no current conflict between your perception and your experience, and you are at peace with reality, still, as long as your perception is active, there will always be inner chattering, because having a perception, means, you are constantly defining and explaining your experiences - you are analyzing them to fit them into your perception, and that inevitably creates some chattering, even if there is no conflict, don't yo agree?
Not really, there is a vast difference between being at peace with self and having the ability to think something through in a clear and concise way without distraction, as opposed to not being at peace with self and not being able to think something through because there is so much divisive chatter going on within us that we can't think clearly enough to focus our thoughts properly.
It does not matter if we are not currently experiencing something which is triggering an 'existing divisional conflict' or not, if any conflicts are active within us, then we will have constant background chatter unless we either remove the conflict or use a diversion tactic to divert our everyday thinking aspect of consciousness so that it cannot focus upon the inner chatter.
We either have self acceptance and its associated inner peace and harmony or we have divisional conflict which robs us of our inner peace and harmony, if we are attempting to utilise something to allow us to experience inner peace and harmony for a time, then that simply tells us that we do not actually have peace and harmony. 😉
if we are attempting to utilise something to allow us to experience inner peace and harmony for a time, then that simply tells us that we do not actually have peace and harmony.
I see it a bit different, It's like rebooting your computer, you get a fresh start with a clean slate, but then after a while, new complications are accumulated, so you need to reboot it again.
But let's go with your notion, you say meditation is just a "diversion tactic". And you say I should use suggestions, to fix the conflict? or what do you say? I still didn't hear how you define your technique in clear terms - can't you simply give it a name? You do seem to be using suggestions, is it not NLP? Even if it's not exactly NLP, does it resemble it in some way?
I see it a bit different, It's like rebooting your computer, you get a fresh start with a clean slate, but then after a while, new complications are accumulated, so you need to reboot it again.
Whilst a lot of people would agree with you and in the past I would have do so myself, but these days I do not need to reboot myself as I do not have any inner divisional conflicts, I am happy with self all of the time, that does not mean that I am living in utopia, things happen but I just deal with them these days and they are sorted out as they occur.
But let's go with your notion, you say meditation is just a "diversion tactic". And you say I should use suggestions, to fix the conflict? or what do you say? I still didn't hear how you define your technique in clear terms - can't you simply give it a name? You do seem to be using suggestions, is it not NLP? Even if it's not exactly NLP, does it resemble it in some way?
I call what I do 'self acceptance healing' as it transforms rejection into acceptance, conflict into wholeness and unhappiness into happiness.
Suggestions are what we give to other people in the hope that they will help them, we do not use suggestions with self, we have to tell self in no uncertain terms exactly what we are choosing to do, that is what we did when we set up our inner divisional conflicts.
I work mainly through self, I apply the conscious changes within myself and they are applied to both of us at the same time as we are functioning as one being (there is one aspect of all of our consciousness which are all connected together which forms the oneness of consciousness), this aspect of what I do is purely done on a conscious level, I am not saying anything unless it is a guided meditation and even then the self acceptance transformation is not verbalised, though the results are verbalise to check they have been activated.
At this point in time I'm only interested in meditation, which is a well rooted practice in many cultures.:)
At this point in time I'm only interested in meditation, which is a well rooted practice in many cultures.:)
That is fine, meditation is one way into self discovery and acceptance. 🙂
Hi Paul,
When we bypass our critical mind (which determines our perception, and our belief-system, and all that we consider to be write and wrong) then we become receptive, this state of receptiveness effects us in many ways, one of them is - we get intuition, intuition is this internal knowledge we know from the inside, not through the senses.
Question 1: this intuition, where does it come from? does it come from us, or is the state of receptiveness, making it possible for higher forces, external to us, to inhabit us, and work through us?
Question 2: If intuition is a higher force that is working through us, isn't it potentially dangerous, because we might become a vessel to a negative force? Shouldn't we have some control, to determine what will inhabit us, in this state of receptiveness?
What do you think and why do you think so?
When we bypass our critical mind (which determines our perception, and our belief-system, and all that we consider to be write and wrong) then we become receptive, this state of receptiveness effects us in many ways, one of them is - we get intuition, intuition is this internal knowledge we know from the inside, not through the senses.
Intuition is a form of inner guidance or knowing, unfortunately this also has to pass through our core beliefs, so we limit ourselves as to what types of intuition we are prepared to acknowledge and it is often interpreted, so we are just as likely to convert the information to suit what we think it should be rather than receive something which is completely at odds with what we believe.
Question 1: this intuition, where does it come from? does it come from us, or is the state of receptiveness, making it possible for higher forces, external to us, to inhabit us, and work through us?
Have you ever come across the term 'the observer' though it is more commonly known as our 'higher self', we have an aspect of consciousness which is not influenced by our physical senses or the judgmental beliefs we set up for self within this life experience, it is describes as the observer as for the most part it just observes in an open and non-judgmental way and helps us to achieve the life experience we are focused upon. It does alert us to immanent danger if we are not to preoccupied with other things to perceive the warnings as well as giving us a form of knowing or understanding as long as we are open to receive it.
At this level as consciousness, there is no us and others as this is the oneness of consciousness, our intuition is not only for us, we also receive guidance to help others fulfil their chosen life experiences as well through our actions or the way we deal with others. 🙂
Question 2: If intuition is a higher force that is working through us, isn't it potentially dangerous, because we might become a vessel to a negative force? Shouldn't we have some control, to determine what will inhabit us, in this state of receptiveness?
Negative and positive are judgments, we utilise our judgments to stay in control of the way we think we should be, outside of those judgmental constraints we are set free and are at peace, intuition is nothing more than guidance, it is not a controlling force, if our intuition suggests or warns us of something, then we are free to accept or reject the suggestion or warning much the same as we do when someone else suggests or warns us of something.
If someone suggests we do something, then we are free to choose to do so or not, if we choose to do it, then we are personally responsible for that choice, attempting to blame someone else for a personal choice just creates an inner divisional conflict within self, what you are calling a state of receptiveness is nothing more than a different form of awareness, awareness does not make us anything but aware. 😉
What do you think and why do you think so?
I can only speak from my own personal experience, I have studied many things over the years to understand how we function as human beings and how we get into a mess etc, it was only when I switched from studying our physical being and embraced consciousness that I got a different understanding as to how our underlying thought patterns and beliefs form our general state of health and wellbeing and direct our life experience.
By definition, If we choose to be guided by something, is it not a choice to give away our freedom of choice, and rely on choices made by someone else for us?
You keep emphasizing we choose to do it, and I agree, but once we choose to trust someone, and give it control over our lives, then he is the one doing the choices for us, as long as we are willing to give our trust. It's a choice not to choose, and the fact that it is also a choice, and we are responsible for it, is not changing the fact that for the time being, something else is guiding our actions. don't you agree that this situation can be dangers, and we should be careful? even if this thing that is guiding us, is only giving us suggestions.
One more thing, choosing one thing over the other is also a judgment, so choosing itself has to stop if we want to go into the receptive state, like any other judgment. We can't be making choices in the receptive mode, the same way as we make choices in our every day consciousness, that's way I say it is more of a default choice, when you choose to let something or someone else make choices for you.
The bottom line is, when we stick to something, and letting it guide us, we are not actively doing the choice, even if you can argue that we are fully responsible for it. Can't you see the difference between our every day decision making, and the way we act when we are on "autopilot"?
By definition, If we choose to be guided by something, is it not a choice to give away our freedom of choice, and rely on choices made by someone else for us?
No if we allow someone to guide or teach us, then we still need to assess what we are doing in relation to self, we can stop following guidance or choose to ignore tuition any time we choose to do so, receiving guidance and tuition is something we have complete control over. 🙂
You keep emphasizing we choose to do it, and I agree, but once we choose to trust someone, and give it control over our lives, then he is the one doing the choices for us, as long as we are willing to give our trust. It's a choice not to choose, and the fact that it is also a choice, and we are responsible for it, is not changing the fact that for the time being, something else is guiding our actions. don't you agree that this situation can be dangers, and we should be careful? even if this thing that is guiding us, is only giving us suggestions.
Your are actually talking about choosing to be irresponsible here, in that you will without question do whatever someone tells you to do regardless of whatever impact the ramifications of that choice and its associated actions permeate, but as I have already said agreeing to do something one moment does not mean that we will continue to do it in a different moment, we choose our action according to the situation we find ourselves within and our life experience is unfolding all of the time.
One more thing, choosing one thing over the other is also a judgment, so choosing itself has to stop if we want to go into the receptive state, like any other judgment. We can't be making choices in the receptive mode, the same way as we make choices in our every day consciousness, that's way I say it is more of a default choice, when you choose to let something or someone else make choices for you.
No again, judging something to be good or bad, right or wrong, is not the same thing as making an open choice, doing what someone tells you to do is a choice which we need to own, just the same as telling them no is, why do you not think you can make choices when you open yourself up to self?
The bottom line is, when we stick to something, and letting it guide us, we are not actively doing the choice, even if you can argue that we are fully responsible for it. Can't you see the difference between our every day decision making, and the way we act when we are on "autopilot"?
No there is always a choice just like everything begins and ends with a thought, the choice is one thought, the change occurs with another thought that ends the first one.
Our autopilot is exactly what we have told it to be through our past choices, you will not find yourself doing anything as an automatic process that you have not gone through a learning process to achieve the auto status, you are just not seeing the whole picture, you hare in the driving seat, you have always been in the driving seat, you will always be in the driving seat. 😉