Making awakening too complicated...pitfalls and barriers
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- Опубліковано 12 січ 2025
- Dialogue between Gary Weber and Rich Doyle on making awakening too complicated. What does "enlightenment/awakening" really mean? How would you define it? Why do we need "levels" of attainment? Why won't we let go of our attachments? Why are so few successful at fully awakening?
A complete transcription of this dialogue is available in "Into the Stillness: Dialogues on Awakening Beyond Thought" available on amazon.com and non-dualitypress.org in hardcopy and kindle versions.
An .mp3 of this dialogue is @ happiness-beyon...
Useful links for more information:
Gary Weber
Website: www.happiness-b...
Blog: happinessbeyond...
UA-cam Channel: / gudakesha7
MP3 Downloads: happiness-beyon...
Soundcloud Channel: / gary_weber
Facebook: / gary.weber.528
See happiness-beyon... for more links to interviews and articles and information.
Books
1) Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening
Free Scribd.com version: www.scribd.com/...
Paperback version available on www.amazon.com
2) Dancing Beyond Thought: Bhagavad Gita Verses and Dialogues on Awakening
Free version: happiness-beyon...
Amazon: www.amazon.com (Paperback & Kindle versions)
Video: • Dancing Beyond Thought...
3) Into the Stillness: Dialogues on Awakening Beyond Thought (with Rich Doyle)
New Harbinger Publications: www.newharbing...
Barnes and Noble: www.barnesandno...
Amazon: www.amazon.com (Paperback & Kindle versions)
4) Evolving Beyond Thought: Updating Your Brain's Software. Amazon paperback and free download @ www.scribd.com... . Blogpost @ happinessbeyond...
Panel Discussions
Science and Nonduality Conference 2013:
"Filling in the Details": • Filling In the Details...
"What is Enlightenment?": bcove.me/q81mq5iv
Interviews
BATGAP: batgap.com/gary...
Bloggingheads TV: bloggingheads.t...
Secular Buddhist: secularbuddhism...
VoiceAmerica Business: www.voiceameric...
Rich Doyle
Website: mobiused.wordp...
Email: mobius@psu.edu
Exactly, Sol. The body gets mistakenly caught in the ego/I's confusion, chaos and distress. Killing the body is so the ego/I won't have to confront the real issues it has created. The situation can only be solved by deconstructing the "thief who has stolen happiness", the ego/I. A strong and functional body is critical for being aware and present enough to do that.
Hi Mike Martian. Yes, it is a question of "ripeness". If you are "ripe" you know it by seeing if you were strongly drawn to explore these questions and statements. i have never seen someone who "had" to awaken, who didn't. Ramana compared it to the urgency one has while he is being held underwater and needs air. IME, i "knew" awakening was the most important thing in my life and that it was possible, despite no one else around me believing that or even knowing what it meant.
Hi Mark Martian. It's also worth remembering that "awakening" is a process, not a destination or a Gold Medal. Even a small amount of daily self-inquiry can significantly change the types of thoughts, how energy-charged they are, and whether they are in long, sticky strings or less-damaging individual chunks. If you get a chance, look @ the video "What types and patterns of thoughts do you have?..."
I have been meditating for a decent amount of my life and like what Rich said. In my experience when I have felt I have wanted to die, it was not me but something in me that wanted to be released. It was like a pattern in myself screaming to be let go of. When I did, the interactions I would have the next day would be different and better because this pattern was no longer interfering.
Such wonderful insight, thank you for this. Much gratitude 🙏🏽, all the best 🧘🏽♂️🌟🌞
Intellect has to rise up to a certain level in order to be transcended. It has to fail in understanding life and the world. Suffering and the pain of not knowing has to come. Then the seeker is born. It becomes opened to this most obvious, most simple, most direct nature of our self. It is a very natural process. With out us forming a separate self-ego, we dont have a reference point that would guide us to awakening and recognition of true self. It is all so simple when you know yourself.
To Mike Martian:
Your question is great but the answer is great too!
Answer: Not only was your 'ripeness' predestined, but your
self inquiry was equally predestined as well.
See, predestined awakening was not possible without predestined self inquiry.
Hope it helps.
Hi Mike Martian. Yes, that's correct, everything, including whether or not you awaken, or are interested in self-inquiry, or have the ability to recognize what occurs, or how to deepen it is predestined. Predestination doesn't mean you don't do anything, it means that you will (or won't) have the abilities, opportunities and inclination to awaken. As Ramana said "the successful few owe their success to their persistence". your persistence is also predetermined, as was watching this video.
My life is complex due to societal demands. Applying for jobs is now 15 steps instead of three. Balances of desire, want, need and spending the energy of money is pushed and pulled by advertising and colonization of the states. Keeping my life simple is a constant key focus. Another key is understanding my response to everything, everyone , every day.
Hi Ann. The most useful approach is to realize that "everything" is predetermined, so you're "off the hook" on trying to "manage" and "cope" with "your life". The playlist "Free Will, Control, Predetermination" @ ua-cam.com/play/PLuH37Fyz9VEOnY_lUcblS8aI0hF7oNMj6.html gives several videos on this.
It all comes down to "surrender". IME, the most effective approach was given by Ramana Maharshi:
She/He knows what is best and when and how to do it.
Leave everything entirely to Her/Him.
Hers/His is the burden: you have no longer any cares.
All your cares are Hers/His.
Such is surrender.
This can be used anytime during a day when you get caught believing you "must" get this right, and NOW!
stillness
Tks for feedback, Craig. Great that it was useful. stillness
I love you two. Bless you.
Hi Saru Pas. Great that you found our spontaneous dances/dialogues to be so useful. It was always fascinating for us to see what emerged. stillness
Hi ebidbi. Yes, a powerful message. Great that you are finding the videos useful. stillness.
Hi Gary, I love your channel. Can you please comment: A couple years ago a maniac went to the Mandalay Bay in Vegas, rented out a 20th story room or so, was armed better than a small country, broke out a window, and in cold blood murdered something like 84 innocent people. From your discussions, I think you say this maniac had no control over his actions, that the Universe self inflicted herself. I understand non duality to be we are all one Consciousness, all one organism, if you will. How can we account for mass murders? Is it just, 'it is what it is?' Thanks for your comment : )
Hi Honestmicky, As described in response to a similar question you asked to another video, every action is the result of countless actions by countless folk previously, over which we have no control, which is the critical point.
It is like Albert Einstein said:
"Every action is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
Or like Ramana Maharshi said:
"Questioner: "Are only the important things in a person's life, such as their main occupation or profession, predetermined, or are trifling acts also, such as taking a cup of water, or moving from one part of the room to another?
To which Ramana replied:
"Everything is predetermined".
As this is such a difficult and important topic, there are many videos on the "Free Will, Control, Predetermination" playlist @ ua-cam.com/play/PLuH37Fyz9VEOnY_lUcblS8aI0hF7oNMj6.html.
Also if you go to my blogpost @ happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/ and put "free will" in the search box, you will get many blogposts exploring every aspect of the issue.
Trust this is useful.
stillness
Thanks so much Gary for taking the time and effort to point me in the right direction. I appreciate you sir : )
Did you guys coordinate outfits?
Hi Rodney. No, nothing about our discussions is coordinated, even what we talk about...it's totally spontaneous. BTW, if you look under "Show More" in any of my vids, you'll see links to all of my stuff, books, website, blog, interviews, etc. all free in some format. stillness
What a great question. Thank you for asking it so I could read that it was spontaneous.
if things are predestined then is waking up based on your ripeness spritually then what need is there to do self inquiry if ones ripeness is going to determine when waking up is possible through countless incarnations
Yeah, at least, not to mention Lagrangian mathematical engines, the Large Hadron Collider, Lorentz frames, Minowski-Feynman diagrams, relativistic quantum physics and quantum electrodynamics...Great to hear from you...stillness
I have experienced a few things spiritual like no-self, I went on a retreat with Roger Castillo and had an Awakening in the head, everything was rolling fine but it dwindled. I was experiencing spacious awareness, but it went. I was left with a mundane feeling of "this cant be it" once awareness was recognised, my true nature, that which never comes and goes, thoughts stopped sticking or if one did I soon saw it and let go. Now that's all I'm left with which is great compared to before I was a seeker. My main problem is I anticipate certain experiences other people have had. My journey was taking off so well then left me with a kind of head awakening. Not sure if this is even totally complete, can you help as I feel I don't have a compass or map to follow. I hope I made myself clear enough to follow. What do you suggest to do? Back to the drawing board? Many thanks and gratitude, Shaun.
Hi Shaun Dixon. The most important thing is to not "anticipate certain experiences other people have had". It is impossible to "guess" what someone else experienced, or to "recreate" the "spacious awareness" that you felt by "doing something".
Those experiences happened for others, and for you, because "you/they" weren't there. "you" trying to "do" something to get it back isn't going to work.
Just do the exercises described in the blogposts
1. "What is the 'Direct Path' to nondual awakening? What is self-inquiry?" @ happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-is-direct-path-to-nondual.html and
2. "surrendering the 'I', letting go of suffering" @ happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2012/05/surrendering-i-letting-go-of-suffering.html
It can also be useful to try the meditations in the Guided Meditation playlist on my youTube channel @ ua-cam.com/play/PLuH37Fyz9VEMrD8dcreiCNKGROGlOENhL.html .
Trust this is useful.
stillness
Really appreciate this one. Nice thoughts to parallel graduate school accumulation.
Whitman: Would you have in yourself the divine, vast, general law? Then merge yourself in it.
How can one practice and cultivate humility?
Hi Born upon a wave. As long as there is "one" practicing and cultivating humility, it will never happen. Find out what/when/where that "one" is, and it will fall away...then "humility" will arrive "all by itself. stillness
Humility...humility is not thinking less of myself but of myself less. :-) Happy day.
to live in the thought free state as ramana would say one would need to be ripe for it when would we know that. even though the real is shinning all the while we're not conscious of the real only the reflection
👍👍👍
Hi John Moss. Great that you found it so useful. JIC, if you look under "Show More" above, you'll see links to all of this work, all free in some format. stillness
enlightenment simplified: now + you + me = ONE
Hold onto the who am i thought