Bhante Gunaratana

Bhante Gunaratana: "You attain stream-entry fruition when you overcome the belief in a separate self. There is still lingering sense of "I" in the mind, but you don't take it seriously...With confidence, the strength of your faith, and the clear understanding that there is no self, you proceed. You pay attention to the impermanent nature of your bodily and mental experiences."

A better one

Awakenings does not help one to live a better life in the world. In fact, it could possibly make it harder. When Richard Rose was asked if life became easier after enlightenment he said no but it got funnier. Many people assume that awakening will be the end-all to their problems and that life from then on out will be a continuous joyride. That may or may not be actually true. Therefore, it's good to know exactly what you are after so that you can be clear it's what you are actually wanting! In the end, awakening happens or not and enlightenment comes as a gift. Every single person who has ever awakened will say the same thing. It happened on it's own, in spite of whatever someone was doing and often after a person had given up and no longer cared one way or another about ever finding anything. 

Name of the game

You see, the greatest lie ever believed is that there is such a thing as a person, a personal I, an individual self, a me, a you, a we, an us, a them. It is a lie. And it is this people are waking up to, all in their particular way, so that the mystery of life can finally be revealed and life lived fully, once and for all, through every single - what is commonly known as a - human being. I stumbled over many aspects during my process I wished someone would have written about. Mostly what wants to be communicated is that "waking up" and "being awake" is nothing extra-ordinary. It is how human beings are meant to live life. It is the natural state. There is nothing spiritual or mystical or extra-ordinary about any of it. That life is not lived this way, is actually extra-ordinary and quite astounding. Knowing that human beings have been doing life since thousands of years in an abnormal and unnatural way, based on a complete lie - that fact alone, should shake us awake rather quickly.

When you fully understand what Enlightenment is, what Human Adulthood really is, what Ultimate Freedom really is and what Following Your Bliss really is, you will not only know the name of the game but also the rules and the most masterful way of playing. 

Program free living?

Living program free is something that can be wanted and it can be had without an enlightenment experience. It can be worked toward and achieved in a deliberate and progressive manner. Sense that the whole seeking impulse as it manifests nowadays through millions of people all over the globe is really about the search for program free living, not enlightenment. Am saying this because living in a largely program free way emerged spontaneously when most of my programming was rubbed out. The freedom and deliciousness that was - and is - felt is enormous. Often have tears streaming down my face for no apparent reason other than just sheer gratitude for the aliveness and delight that is experienced from simply being. Think it is this that seekers are hoping to get out of enlightenment.  

In my research back in 2007, came across three teachers who were making similar assertions, saying that the vast majority of seekers are not after enlightenment. 

Jed Mckenna calls (what he believes people are after) Human Adulthood, Eddie Traversa calls it Unity Consciousness and Bernadette Roberts calls it the Unitive Stage. They all say it's a stage to be lived out fully before one eventually comes to no-self. Don't know about that but it is the thing one can want and go after.

A 100 %

Look, what is still interesting for you to explore? Maybe its a relationship, maybe its work, children, friendships, art, creativity - its is very easy to see what is interesting, just follow your attention. 

If you really want to wake up, this intention should take all your time, be your life - this has to be the only interest, 100%. If you are interested in relationship and something else and it takes 50% of your attention, 50% of attention is not enough to wake up from the dream. Its just like in a night dream. Notice how hard it is to wake up if you are watching the dream? If you are interested in what is going on and where its all going, and if alarm wakes you up, you turn it off and go back to watch the dream.

This life, aliveness will try everything it came here to try. And interest, the pull of attention is only points what else is to explore. If you try to deny, it won't work anyways, this interest will remain until explored. At some point this interest will drop as explored and then only one interest to see beyond the dream, to wake up, will remain. It will take over all being and nothing will really matter, even the most precious human attachments. Then one is ready for Revelation, for experience beyond name and form..

Dogville

Jeg undrer meg over om Lars Von Trier vet hvilken bombe han har skapt med denne filmen, en bombe på linje med Descartes sin "jeg tenker altså er jeg" (cogito ergo sum)bombe- Descartes forsto ikke at han hadde laget en bombe, han forsto at han hadde funnet svaret men ikke på hva. Om en forstår svaret til Descartes; -cogito ergo sum- så sprenges en i fillebiter. Spørsmålet er, hva er jeg/hvem er jeg? og svaret? du finnes bare i tanken, eller -jeg tenker altså er jeg.

Lars Von Trier sin bombe er av en annen type men med samme mengde sprengstoff. Filmen viser oss hva som faktisk foregår i verden. Den har fjerner mange av "lagene" som spinner det vi kaller virkeligheten (Maya) og filmen gir oss en sjelden muligheter til å faktisk se uten filtrene vi vanligvis omgir oss med. Når vi blir frie fra kulissene som vanligvis omgir oss, uten å bli påvirket av vårt eget personlige drama kan alle se ingentingheten/ tomheten/ meningsløsheten vi spinner rundt -og ikke minst hvordan vi spinner…  Når kulissene er så strippet kan alle se hvordan vår egen skyld, skam og vårt trang til å være separate /egne individer gjør oss til ufrie slaver og fyller oss med lidelse. For den som har våknet så er møtet med virkeligheten som en tur til Dogvill, dog i en mer og mer "strippet" forstand.



Se filmen her/ Dogvill full movie:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml96PyAOB_o

What´s there?

Close your eyes. What's there? Awareness… Look, what else? sensations arise and fall, what we label "my body" and our visual images in our head. If you stay and calmly look fore what's there, its only sensations. Open your eyes. What's there? Awareness and some visual in it. Close your eyes. What's there? Awareness and some sensations in it. Awareness is always there, everything else is arising and falling in it. Easy to notice, if you only give it a try

Is it true to you?

Try to see personal beliefs as agreement,- nothing is true to you unless you agree that it is. If, in your eyes, you’re no good, you have agreed at some point that you are no good. You will live this truth until you stop agreeing. We typically don’t realize we’re constantly making these agreements, yet they define your personal world, which is the only world you’ll ever live in.

You must identify and challenge the agreement you’ve accumulated, and toss them out in favor of agreeing to four commitments: Be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best. If you make those agreements it’s almost impossible to let yourself down, feel guilt or give in to fear. They short-circuit virtually all self-defeating human behaviors. These days, rather than trying to be perfect each day with each agreement, I work the agreements backwards when things seem to be going wrong. Any time I feel stuck, it takes about five seconds to identify which of the four agreements I broke to get there. Either I’ve been untruthful in some way, I’m making assumptions, I’m taking something personally, or I’m cutting corners. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten myself into trouble in any way other than those.

Open to the flow

When you -realize- you transcend material limitations and everyone but the " system" wins. The system rely upon having the monopoly- that everyone support the illusion of finite resources. It is also posing as the sole providers of those resources. When you transcend material limitations by aligning your inner and outer world with a higher reality, you no longer feed the control system. This starve the "control system" (Maya) and it actually removes money (and all other forms of energy) from the occasion. Knowledge of how to open the flow is heavily suppressed and for this reason, not by overt suppression against the availability of this knowledge, but rather covert programming of the masses to be unaware or willfully ignorant of it. 

This is not some mystic statement. We put ourselves into the world we want most to see- most expect to see. Do you expect a miracle, or a disaster? Either way, you will be right. When we move to a better reality internally, we automatically take everything and everyone we have ever perceived up the ladder with us. Your choices grow as your vision does. You are the only person in the room, no matter how crowded you feel.  Every image, every person, every thing you see is a reflection of yourself in essence - you may understand that the changes you make internally have no choice but to manifest externally.

The Layer of Drama

Sometimes people talk about how we should not be attached to possessions, experiences, the body, places, people... But there is a natural attachment, or a being touched by these things. It is natural to feel touched being with someone you love, or enjoying a new outfit, or new house. It is natural to feel hurt when someone leaves you, or annoyed when your favourite object breaks. It is not this natural 'being touched' that is the problem, it is the layer of drama around it. It is the story of 'me' around it that builds up this drama and makes it all seem, and feel, very serious and meaningful to 'me'. When the thinking turns an experience or feeling into a 'story of me', or identity, it starts to feel dramatic and exciting. It starts to feel all about 'me' and how special I am. Then the natural 'being touched' is so overlaid by the story that the original feeling is no longer really felt. 

Being without attachment, means being totally utterly touched by life again and again to the point that it cracks your heart open, and at the same time knowing that it is all totally and utterly meaningless.
The thinking can not do this. You can not try to make this happen. It is simply in acknowledging the awful truth of this paradox that you see that this is how life is already, whether you like it or not.

Oh la la ..