Q. Hello Gary...
...reading "Happiness Beyond Thought". I cannot thank you enough for writing "Practices - The Case for Practice in Awakening"...first heard of enlightenment...Eckhart Tolle's story...knew it was true and possible even though I had no idea what it was...delving into Ramana Maharshi/Nisargadatta/Papaji's teachings...feeling like I could understand ...I was informed that the reading and practices were useless, etc..."call off the search"...I did not need to do anything - that somehow I would magically...be done with compulsive thinking and all it brings.
I always felt...that the practices these teachers had done for so long prior to waking up had to have played a part regardless of their denials about it...
I have had some experiences of stillness, the first sitting with Adyashanti nearly 10 years ago...he asked..."Who cares?" and I could find no one who cared, no one at all.
...difficulties with...strong thought streams about practice..., making the time...bulimia & smoking...disturbing and consuming. I was advised by the same (ones) who said no practice was required...that these patterns would all just drop away...that has not been my experience (of course).
...I am finding your book so direct, and is resonating deeply as true - it's just great. THANK YOU!!...I strongly suspect HBT will be the most useful resource I have laid eyes on...
G.
Great that "Happiness Beyond Thought" has been useful...the one thing that really was not productive, IMHO, was the "call off the search" message. From where they were writing, no search was necessary, but that was misleading to the point of hypocrisy when you looked at their paths.
i met and asked several of them why they would say that, as they had serious practices, and how could they know it had no impact??? (we now know from our cognitive neuroscience work that those practices were necessary to functionally repattern the brain)... i never got a meaningful answer - some just sat on the stage, stared and asked for the next question, others stormed away, etc.
There is an emerging scientifically-validated
view on the necessity of practice...The traditional belief...was
that the brain was born with all of the neurons it was ever going to have...experience or training did not change their functional pattern...However...research on brain functioning...demonstrates...“neuroplasticity”,
or the ability of the brain to change its functional operational pattern with
practice or experience...experienced meditators have a very different mode of processing sensory inputs and
generating and controlling mental states than untrained, inexperienced people...
...very few can perform...at a transcendent master
level without extensive practice...w/o extensive reshaping of the neural patterns and functioning in the brain, the
mechanics are not sufficiently patterned (so) that transcendent creativity and
performance can emerge, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described in Flow.
Poonjaji said in the latter part of
his life “You do not have to practice any sadhana (spiritual preparation)...” However, few spiritual aspirants could match
Poonjaji’s own intense sadhana...
Poonjaji would chant daily from 2:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. before going to work. After work, he would chant until he went to sleep...do 50,000 recitations each day, synchronizing the chanting with his breathing...reciting the names of the divine (japa) as well as mantras and prayers “with great fervor!”
Harrison
described the recognition...that “Every experience, no matter how profound, was
collected by the ‘me’. The problem was
the collector”.
...Tony Parsons...author of the outstanding As It Is, describes how hard he applied
himself to “various disciplines, rituals and purifications”. Tony states that his awakening happened “almost
as if by accident” in walking across a park. Isn’t it possible that his spiritual work
laid the framework for the triggering event to occur?
...reading "Happiness Beyond Thought". I cannot thank you enough for writing "Practices - The Case for Practice in Awakening"...first heard of enlightenment...Eckhart Tolle's story...knew it was true and possible even though I had no idea what it was...delving into Ramana Maharshi/Nisargadatta/Papaji's teachings...feeling like I could understand ...I was informed that the reading and practices were useless, etc..."call off the search"...I did not need to do anything - that somehow I would magically...be done with compulsive thinking and all it brings.
I always felt...that the practices these teachers had done for so long prior to waking up had to have played a part regardless of their denials about it...
 |
| Adyashanti |
I have had some experiences of stillness, the first sitting with Adyashanti nearly 10 years ago...he asked..."Who cares?" and I could find no one who cared, no one at all.
...difficulties with...strong thought streams about practice..., making the time...bulimia & smoking...disturbing and consuming. I was advised by the same (ones) who said no practice was required...that these patterns would all just drop away...that has not been my experience (of course).
...I am finding your book so direct, and is resonating deeply as true - it's just great. THANK YOU!!...I strongly suspect HBT will be the most useful resource I have laid eyes on...
G.
Great that "Happiness Beyond Thought" has been useful...the one thing that really was not productive, IMHO, was the "call off the search" message. From where they were writing, no search was necessary, but that was misleading to the point of hypocrisy when you looked at their paths.
i met and asked several of them why they would say that, as they had serious practices, and how could they know it had no impact??? (we now know from our cognitive neuroscience work that those practices were necessary to functionally repattern the brain)... i never got a meaningful answer - some just sat on the stage, stared and asked for the next question, others stormed away, etc.
Excerpts from The Case for Practice in Awakening (complete .pdf)
There are some reputedly
enlightened folk who have taught that there is nothing to be done as we are
already enlightened. They further
contend that all practice is meaningless and a diversion. Others...believe that practice is done only so that
we become so frustrated that we simply surrender our ego and its attempts,
after which enlightenment just happens.
These viewpoints are reinforced by
the lack of any apparent...consistency to the situations in which enlightenment
experiences occur. Some have been
enlightened walking across a park, others...kicked a stone against a
bamboo...visited a house of prostitution...stepped
off a curb or...were waiting for a bus...'i' was doing
a yoga posture...clearly beyond
any plausible cause and effect relationship...taken as proof of the
impossibility of making enlightenment happen.
Similarly, the...practice that preceded awakening is in some ways always different...Any student...is going to be different...in conditioning,
experience, age, genetics, family history, bodily and mental capability, etc. How could something as complex and comprehensive
as awakening not be a personally-tailored process?
 |
| Active brain regions before (above) and after (below) 2 mos/45 min/day meditation Farb, et. al. |
fMRI studies on violinists...brain regions that control fingering movements grow in size; longer and
more intensive practice produces bigger changes...training is required to generate
meaningful changes in the brain leading to extraordinary capabilities in...chess, Olympic
sports, sculpting, etc. While there will always be...Mozarts, for the vast majority...it is necessary to do lengthy and
intensive practice...
...violinists...at the
top level had practiced for about ten thousand hours...next lower
level about 7500 hours...meditator in the most detailed neurophysiologic study had...over 10,000 hours.
Surprisingly, decades before...sophisticated tools to demonstrate such a controversial and unexpected
possibility, J. Krishnamurti often claimed that there was an “organic” change
in the structure of the brain that accompanied enlightenment...
...my journey
started with a totally unexpected...unprecedented (for me) dramatic spiritual
experience with no preparation or practice.
However, because there had been no preparation or practice, I just
couldn’t hold it; I was clueless...much practice was ultimately necessary.
 |
| Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Claremont Graduate University |
This transcendent creativity...described by...Cezanne... Picasso...Einstein,
Crick, and Kekule...were extremely proficient...in their craft before they could be
conduits for the transcendent insight and creativity. Picasso’s and Michelangelo’s early work
demonstrated...consummate skill at crafting that would pave the way for
their later expressions of transcendent creativity.
...few skills that
do not require functional mastery before...the
activity can become so automatic that something extraordinary or transcendent
can occur...riding a bicycle, we start with a tricycle, graduate to a two wheeler with
training wheels before removing the training wheels, riding with one hand and
then no hands. Why would enlightenment be
a chance occurrence made no more likely through some preparation?
Virtually all truly self-realized folk
who proclaim that there is nothing that can be done in preparation for
enlightenment, and who give adequate biographies, went through years of
spiritual disciplines before the apparently serendipitous triggering event
occurred...
...students who, with little practice or training have apparent enlightenment experiences...their experience soon fades as there was no preparation of the neurological structure nor understanding...to support the experience. The field had not been tilled so the sprout ultimately overwhelmed by weeds.
...students who, with little practice or training have apparent enlightenment experiences...their experience soon fades as there was no preparation of the neurological structure nor understanding...to support the experience. The field had not been tilled so the sprout ultimately overwhelmed by weeds.
 |
| Ramana Maharshi |
Ramana Maharshi...awakened at
the age of 16 with little prior spiritual training or inclination beyond casual
exposure to some Hindu texts and temples and education in a Methodist
school. Ramana achieved his awakening
through inquiring into what his own death would be like.
...those who
have enlightenment experiences with little apparent prior preparation...there is a settling in period of several years...before realization is stable and clear...
...Ramana had little
preparation...spent many years after...meditating and remaining silent apparently grounding and stabilizing the
realization...described this as
“Jnana, once revealed, takes time to steady itself….the Self remains veiled by
vasanas (latent impressions or tendencies) and reveals itself only in their
absence.….To remain stabilized in it, further efforts are necessary.”...
Among Ramana’s close followers, the
one best known in the West was H.W.L. Poonja, or Poonjaji. His clear teaching and understanding...were a critical element in my journey...straightforward
and direct...
 |
| Poonjaji |
Poonjaji would chant daily from 2:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. before going to work. After work, he would chant until he went to sleep...do 50,000 recitations each day, synchronizing the chanting with his breathing...reciting the names of the divine (japa) as well as mantras and prayers “with great fervor!”
...the turning
point in his practice was when he realized from Ramana that he should have been
asking the question “Who Am I?” all along.
...Were all of those hours of practice of no
value in developing the concentration and detachment that allowed his
transcendent understanding to emerge?
Stephen Harrison...In his excellent book Doing Nothing: Coming to the End of the Spiritual Search...detailed how he “sought out every mystic, seer and magician” he could find
anywhere. He described his twenty-five
years of study of philosophies, severe austerities, periods of isolation and meditation. He concluded “… it was all useless.”
Was that extensive preparation
really useless just because it was no longer necessary? Isn’t it possible that the practices gave
him the ability to concentrate and detach so that he could recognize that the
problem was the “me” and to then hold that understanding?
 |
| Tony Parsons |
Spiritual teachers rejecting
earlier practices as unnecessary seems no more reasonable than an Olympic high
diver saying that since she no longer jumps off the side of the pool as she did
as a beginner, that it was unnecessary...
In response to questions about the
necessity of effort in a practice to gain enlightenment, Ramana said “No one succeeds
without effort. Mind control is not
one’s birthright. The successful few owe
their success to their perseverance.”
Thank you for this message. Looking back, it seems like to be told "call off the search" is another way to be told "you're still not doing it right." A lot of people have heard this message and used it as yet another way to feel inadequate about the way they are moving on their paths. However, as you emphasize in this post, there are so many different experiences of enlightenment; the universe has an infinite number of facets, an infinite number of ways it can experience its own unfolding. It seems a more all-encompassing edict could be something like: if you are drawn to action, then by all means, act; and if you are drawn to non-action, then, you know, don't. Anyway, as this blog has discussed at length, it's not like "we" have any control over how it all goes, really. :)
ReplyDeleteshanti
A blog response:
ReplyDeletehttp://deckchairenlightenment.com/calling-off-the-search/
Gary, is it correct that as long as there's thoughts that claim "it's time to call off the search," or "there's no need to practice anymore," then the thought-by-thought "looking" for if there's really a separate self that could stop searching or doing practices is still needed?
ReplyDeleteThere's been some shift in perspective over here lately. For some time it wasn't convincing that there is no separate self perceiving things. Now, it's experimentally clear that this is the case. There are still periods during the day when thinking assumes the role of the doer, and many moments where it's clear that that was just a thought.
Hi Anonymous,
DeleteYes, that's correct. The presence of problematic self-referential thoughts is the best marker for where anyone is in this process as it indicates that the "Is/egos" (there are hundreds of them) are still there, creating stories, issues, debating, etc.
There is great resistance to this self-inquiry process as it threatens the very existence of many of those "Is/egos".
The recent blogpost "Self-inquiry vs the egos/Is - how it works - the neuroscience" goes through how all of our decisions, including practicing self-inquiry or not, are done "off line" in the "elephant", the huge processor with 500,000X the power of the "on line", "conscious", "riders".
IME, only self-inquiry can successfully deal with this problem. No other kind of meditation has been shown to completely remove the suffering caused by self-referential thoughts.
The blogpost "What is the 'Direct Path' to nondual awakening? What is self-inquiry?", can give some excellent guidance on how to conduct the practice. my first book, Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening, is well worth reading as background.
If you look under "Show More" in any of my youTube videos, you'll see links to all of my work, all free in some format, including my books.
Trust this is useful,
stillness
gary
Hi Sergej,
ReplyDeleteTony Parson is popular because he tells folk what they want to hear...that all they need to do is listen to him...as religions have done for millennia.
Diligent, persistent, self-inquiry is the only way to get persistent non-duality. The details of how to do that are shown in the reply directly above to "Anonymous". It's not enough to "do it in the middle of doing something else".
stillness and good health to you as well in these difficult COVID times.
gary