Open Enlightenment

Wow, really enjoyed this Alan, informative, engaging and sincere. It’s so inspiring to hear the confidence of your own particular voice amongst the wider dialogue of awakening. You’re really articulating a novel and bonafide approach that’s at once both, unmistakably grounded in our rich history of spiritual traditions, yet true to the contemporary circumstances within which you live.

Huge kudos to you

@Alan: “… I was rather confusingly compared to Andrew Cohen.”

That’s hilarious. You’re no Andrew Cohen. Your facial hair isn’t nearly as epic

I enjoyed the video. As you know, I’m a fan of the freestyle approach. The key is to practice a technology that actually leads to awakening. The spiritual marketplace is filled with so much superfluity that it can be difficult for people to find their way to the good stuff. I think you’re doing well at pointing people in the right direction.

Thank you Alan. This was very informative.

It was particularly good to head about those different ways how the process of enlightenment can unfold. That helped me with some conceptual confusion I have had.

- Frater Jaguar / Fractal Based Life Form

Appreciate you keeping it simple!

Thank you Mr. Alan.

Great stuff. Here are some notes I took (with some of my own thoughts/interpretations) whilst listening if anyone wants to review etc.:

To become enlightened, we must express our responsibility to be conscious of the way things are.

The process of awakening can unfold in many different ways. i.e. dry vs. wet routes: un-interesting, every day normality and then sudden awakening, or a whole host of states, stages, mystical experiences, and fireworks before final awakening.

Find a teacher who will give this responsibility back to you when you try to give it away.

P.S. Alan, I’m leading my first group sit this weekend. We’re away on a massage residential weekend and we were all invited to put on any activities to fill our spare time in the evenings. Meditation was suggested so I volunteered. Should be with about 20 people. I’m going to do some loose guided pointing out, sitting, then a Q&A afterwards. Pretty excited.

P.P.S. It’s just occurred to me that I could stick an iPhone to my face and just play this interview. Hits all the bases!

@Alan-thank you for this excellent video! I am impressed to see how you have been able to cover so much territory with such depth and clarity within less than 15 min.

@Dan Bartlett-wish you great success in your new teaching role.

Was finally able to see this in its entirety – and it’s very, very nice. Great job, Alan. Looking forward to the next, and the next, and….

Dear Alan, after enlightenment, then what?

Is that it?

the gathering and placement of all the diverse elements and concepts out there into their correct context and relationship with each other (and the Ultimate) is the most valuable thing about this site – it cuts out so much unnecessary stress and confusion. thank you.

Dude. Outstanding! Best video about enlightenment ever made!

What Jody said.

I am thoroughly enjoying these videos. Your presentation is clear, thoughtful, and deeply congruent.

I will add though that while it is technically true that as long as you don’t give your power away, you are in no danger of being around abusive gurus, giving one’s power away tends to happen slowly over time and one can easily underestimate the power of coercive persuasion. I thought I was pretty well-versed in cult manipulation tactics yet was still sucked in to more than one somewhat abusive guru shtick. Unfortunately unenlightened people are in a bind when searching for an authentic, non-abusive teacher, as they usually cannot clearly evaluate whether a teacher is harmful or not.

Speaking of which, here is a recent episode of Primetime: Mind Games on James Arthur Ray:
http://abc.go.com/watch/mind-games/SH5572513/VD5574173/primetime-mind-games-629

Thanks everyone for your incredibly kind comments!

@Dan: good work with the notes, and good luck with the session!

@Duff: Absolutely! Sadly, I can’t watch the vid you linked to as I’m outside the U.S.

Hahahahahaha..so well put/said…so simply done/spoken…so effortless in presentation…hahahahah…so so so..its a joy to watch your video..thanks from all of me…do you think that you could shorten it somewhat…hahaha…again thanks…The laughter is welling up…byeee.

Ah, bummer.

Hi Alan,

I really appreciate your work and style.
It feels acertaining to hear your straightforward, open and authentic way of speaking about this topic that is often presented in such mysterious and shrouded ways.

So my question for a future videoreply:
What can you say about psychodynamic/shadow work and its relevance to how to experience enlightenment?

You surely know the integral life practice with shadow work being one of the core modules…

Thanks

PS Steve told me about your site; i’m on the amatsu course with him…

@Duff: “Unfortunately unenlightened people are in a bind when searching for an authentic, non-abusive teacher, as they usually cannot clearly evaluate whether a teacher is harmful or not.”

That’s true. I think it’s probably a bigger problem now than before, especially in Western (or West-influenced) cultures, where individuals want what they want, and want know when they want it (NOW!).

I’ve heard that in the past (if not also nowadays), Tibetan yogis are taught to closely observe their prospective guru for three years before taking on the role as their student. I think three years is more than enough time to find out whether any particular guru is bad news. But knowing us consumer-minded Westerners, we’re likely to have already given up the desire to practice with the guru due to falling head-over-heals with some other style of practice.

As Elvis sang, “Wise men say only fools rush in. But I can’t help falling in love with (guruji).”

@Jackson: I’ve heard “10 years” myself. I think 5 is about right from what I’ve seen. For instance, the pop spirituality movie The Secret cam out in in 2006. I recently did a recap of the scandals, frauds, and suspected homicide of the “teachers” involved for a presentation I gave at a skeptics conference (soon to be a video for my blog). 4 years was enough to watch these teachers closely and determine they are for the most part not exactly following the ethical principles I subscribe to.

@Alan:

Here’s a question that just came to me that may stir future videos. You already touched on this to some extent within this wonderful video, but I feel it could use more expounding:

How can we positively engage in devotion to a lineage, teacher (guru), and doctrine without succumbing to sectarianism, giving away one’s power and self-responsibility, and avoiding ideological thinking?

@Duff — wow, nice. Yet that’s sort of like asking how we can go faster than light, or how we can have perpetual motion. What strikes me about that question is it matters a lot when we can’t do it and then when we learn how to do it… it doesn’t matter.

Alan~~you where already ‘enlightened’ from the moment you were born. Yeah, if you only KNEW this all your troubles would be resolved dear One : )

@minimalist: maybe you are a child so I am refraining cursing at you.

Stop acting like you know something.

@Duff:

‘How can we positively engage in devotion to a lineage, teacher (guru), and doctrine without succumbing to sectarianism, giving away one’s power and self-responsibility, and avoiding ideological thinking?’

Crikey, that’s a tricky one! I don’t have any ready made answers, but it’s a question I’ll add to the list…

@Minimalist: Here we go, eh?

Please, by all means, tell me what my troubles are, and exactly how your assertion that I was born enlightened (as flattering as that is) solves those problems.

Minimalist -and he is not alone- seems to be saying that since we were enlightened since the moment we were born; pretending that one can become enlightened is the proof that we are not truly enlightened.

Beside the fact that this argument contains a self-contradiction, it shows a common misunderstanding that requires clarification.

In Advaita terms, the Self is beyond birth and death and therefore eternal. In this sense, we are and have always been the Self.

Nevertheless, enlightenment or Self-realization is not the Self, but the realization that we have always been the Self. It is the knowledge (Skt. jnana) ‘I am That’.

And it is this knowledge that transformed the young Venkatarama into Ramana Maharishi at a certain moment of his life.

I know that it doesn’t fit in a nice democratic ‘we are all already enlightened’ neo-advaita philosophy, but it is common sense, evidenced by the fact that all jnanis awoke to their true nature at a certain time of their life. It is just a fact. It is just the way things are.

Sorry to spoil the fun, but I should have spotted sooner that ‘minimalist’ seems to be someone we have previously banned.

The Billy Goat has been deployed.

Great videos Alan. After watching this one I’ve gone back to the previous one and that makes a lot more sense now. (I’m a bit slow).

You talked about partial awareness followed by complete awareness, and also evolution and grace. In which case, can you be sure that enlightenment as you describe it is really complete and whole? What if there is no endpoint to evolution, and your view of “whole” is simply contained within an isolated subset of an even larger structure, and so on and so on?

Is this something you’ve thought about? Or does your present awareness somehow vito this idea?

@MM: What is realised at awakening is not subject to change; but how it is realised most certainly is (after all, if it wasn’t, realisation wouldn’t be possible in the first place). So the medium of realisation (the point of consciousness e.g. a human being), the understanding, view, approach, models, culture and behaviours involved and associated with the phenomenon are all subject to development and further evolution. I hope my view is a demonstration of this.

Another way of describing this is: the path and the purpose are one. Evolution or development is realised as fundamentally whole; but this doesn’t mean the end of evolution – rather, it is the enabling and fulfilment of the ongoing process.

Thanks Alan, that makes some kind of vague sense in the outer reaches of my being

A big thanks to Jody for publishing my video on his blog:

http://guruphiliac.blogspot.com/

What’s of more interest however are the comments; very interesting reactions, no?

Those comments on Jody’s blog are interesting, indeed. My favorite is that Alan is referred to as a “honkatonk”. Alan, I think your new magickal name just dropped right into your lap!

Could one reason for the vitriol be that your video is being shown outside the context of your writing?
Just speculating.

Those comments are just the opinions of angry children.

A real jnani would have known directly, and would have clearly expressed this knowledge, that Alan is just like Andrew Cohen.

Cheers,
Florian

Ayup, Alan!

My feeling is that yourself and Jody should avoid going down the ‘they’re all idiots’ route and consider why those comments were so numerous and unanimous. This is a sweet opportunity to take some feedback, make some changes, and move on.

First off – the videos are too long. People have stated clearly that they are bored and so their minds are wandering off-message. Give them less ammunition by making the vids far shorter, editing them right down, and finding some means to vary the footage away from a talking head.

Put up some kind of banner or backdrop behind you to stop the comments concerning the décor of your bedroom. (Personally, I think it’s great what you’ve done with the flat – but obviously those with tiny attention spans are finding it a bit too fascinating.)

Include more jokes and humour in the vids. Show that you don’t take yourself over-seriously, and are not merely dispensing the truth in order to take complete control over other people’s lives by taking the piss out of yourself a bit more. Unless you are seeking to take complete control over other people’s lives – in which case ignore that last one!

Do these vids need to be vids anyway? If the content is only going to be yourself talking, then why not write your replies? (Remember writing, that old thing…) It’s very easy to watch a vid. Less easy to read an article from start to finish. The easier the medium the more idiots it will attract. The more idiots the more noise.

Maybe it’s my failing that I can’t take anything seriously, but I don’t think we should take enlightenment too seriously either – it’s a legitimate target of humour, just like anything else. I think this website runs the risk of taking itself too seriously at times. Myself included, of course. One of the good things about The Baptist’s Head, I always thought, was its humour. I’d like to keep that going if possible.

I wouldn’t bother arguing with the posters on Jody’s blog. You’ve obviously not got through to them in the way you intended, so it’s probably better just to think about why and move on. Jody’s support for your work is great, but I think he too might take the feedback and think about why he’d advocate the work of one teacher above any other, given the remit of his blog.

Take the feedback. Refine the message. Get even better results next time. ‘You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine…’

@Duncan: I think you’re insane if you think I should respond in anyway to anything said by that crowd. It’s not feedback; it’s the reaction of a teenage culture that has accrued around Jody’s blog.

As for the length of my videos, I’ve dealt with two very dense topics in as short a time as I could. Other vids will be shorter. Written material will follow from the vids.

As for humour, I find everything you write funny, so no worries on that front.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

I presumed feedback wasn’t wanted after the last thread, but at least I watched the video all the way through, unlike Jody who says he only watched a bit of it before deciding to post it on his blog.

If you want feedback it is simply that you are not speaking from where you are trying to help people to get to (using clumsy location words). You are just providing the standard fare of ways and means, which might be considered helpful but nothing you actually say suggests you have got there yourself, except for a brief moment when you muse on a possible mechanism for transmission. That was suggestive of knowing what you are talking about, the rest was just a dummies guide. You’re not going to be taken seriously until you actively demonstrate ‘your enlightenment’ as a tangible reality that is self-evident.

As I said before, you probably had some enlightening experience in the past, but you have not absorbed it to the extent that it is your self-evident reality now. That takes far more time than you are obviously willing to give it. I’m sure you mean well, but you have jumped the gun, and the only people who will acknowledge you the way you would like are friends who don’t want to offend you and others who similarly think they have made some progress in ‘experiencing enlightenment’. Take this for what it is, honest feedback. Frankly, you need to get enlightenment out of your system. Duncan has the right approach with his back-pedaling on enlightenment, which he doesn’t appear to be claiming any more. I was always amused by notion of Siamese twins getting enlightened at the same time. ‘I’ll have what he’s having.’ You’ve crossed the abyss, you’re got enlightened, what’s next on this heady path? This is why I think death is an admirable spiritual experience, since it shoves a gag in the mouth and we don’t have to sit around listening to all the cock-and-bull stories about what death is like. They try to get around it with their near-death experiences, but it’s just not the same this is it? Good luck to you anyway.

Hi Joseph -

Just to be clear, I still make the claim – until something else happens to convince me I’ve got it wrong. Still waiting on that happening…

I’m not as interested as Alan is in giving other people the benefit of my experience through teaching. I just write about what interests me, that’s all. Which includes near-death experiences, by the way…

Waiting is still seeking, Duncan.

But your claim sounds more like sticking a flag on a mountain and forgetting it. You don’t sound troubled by all this nonsense, like most of the human race aren’t. I don’t know what worth your claim is to you. I know I used to make such a claim, to myself at least, and I know now it wasn’t worth anything. I was merely framing a delusion. Nothing will happen to convince you you’ve got it wrong, save growing older and wiser, and boredom with old stupidities.

@Josehp: Still, I can’t remeber why are you so sure Alan has “not absorbed it to the extent that it is your self-evident reality now”. And yep I’ve read that enormous comment discussion entirely. I thought it was about you don’t recognizing the value of the very concept of “enlightenment”, but it seems I’m wrong, as you recognize there’s something to be absorbed. It’ very possible I’m confusing you with other people that were discussing. I have the feeling that your problem is with talking openly about attainments of paths. If it is so, then you’re against the very existence of this blog, and the whole “hardcore dharma ” scene, a position wich is not uncommon at all, and easily sovable by ignoring the scene and the blog. I think it’s useful to remember that Alan and Dunc claims to be able to “see emptiness 24/7″, wich is different from the first fruition (a peak experience of emptiness), and of course you can doubt their claim (wich still leaves me with the question: why so? and why think that they actually had any enlightenement experience at all?). My question is: what’s your criteria for judging other people’s experiences?

@Alan I think that you showing your face on the vids give a more personal and humane tone to the whole conversation on this blog, which is nice. But in terms of pure, direct information, nothing beats the plan old text.

Also, I’ve found it funny that people complained that you sound too regular and boring, and at the same time threw rocks on the barroque hindu gurus for being so barroque.

ps.: it’s not my dharma if I’m not allowed to laught.

Pied Piper — Why am I so sure? Because it’s obvious. To me. Obviously not to you. Self-evident means recognisable to one who knows what it looks like. There is an old Sufi saying: ‘If you know what the kernel tastes like, you can dispense with the shell.’

I have no problem with anyone talking about anything. Do you have a problem with me talking about what I’m talking about?

In fact, I enjoy listening to people talking about this matter, when they have something to say. I’m interested in how various people who sit in the highest lotus seat of their own backside express this message such that it stirs excitement and genuine joy. What I am less interested in is people who think they have something to say about this just spouting a bunch of shit, and if it happens in my earshot then I point it out, as a kind of honouring of my own years of being led astray by a bunch of shit I, like you now, thought helpful at the time but which lacked all finesse in pointing to what it was actually all about, with their stupid insistence on ‘attainment’ when they could have just said look there really is nothing to attain whatsoever the whole problem is that you think there is. They could have said that, couldn’t they, if they were really ‘enlightened’? But they didn’t, and that’s because they only had an ‘enlightenment experience’, a blip of light vastly closed in upon by darkness again, and instead of just saying away with you, darkness, you mere temporary dark cloud, they fell into the enlightenment delusion whereupon they placed a second’s worth of direct seeing on the 12th of March at 3.33pm or whatever it was on a towering pedestal and worshipped it and said everyone else could have one just like it.

As for ‘seeing emptiness 24/7′, sounds like hard work, nightshift too, what a vigil they are keeping. What is emptiness but a word? Show it to me.

@Joseph: So be it! What I write here is informed by my insights – or indeed my delusions, if you prefer. The reader will make up their own mind.

The web is not a passive medium. What you read on the web you yourself have sought out. So those that read shit – whatever their reasons – have sought out shit.

@Joseph: So which is it Joseph? Have I experienced enlightenment and ‘enshrined it’, or have I not experienced it, as you believe my video demonstrates? Please make up your mind.

As for not ‘looking/talking’ enlightened, exactly what ideal of enlightenment have you ‘enshrined’ in order to pass judgement?

If you like, I can make a video where I talk in a very slow and quiet voice, surrounded by flowers, and I can tell you that there is nothing to do, you’re already awakened. Would that ‘prove’ my enlightenment for you?

But wait…anyone could do all of that stuff without being enlightened, couldn’t they?

As for video vs. writing: I’ve written a book on magick, numerous e-books, and co-authored 3 books of collated BH material. I’ve maintained a regularly updated blog in some form or another for 4 or 5 years. I’m currently writing course/teaching material, and I hope to have my view of awakening published early next year. That’s plenty of writing, no? So I’m experimenting with video for a few months, with a flip HD, no budget, no editing/film skills, and no studio. Gimme a break; I’ll revert to writing more regularly in a month or two. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the process of hammering out my view in real time.

Duncan — It’s all shit it’s all gold, I no longer pan.

Alan — I am happy for you that you’re satisfied. Your impression of what you think I think you ought to do — Eckhart Tolle impression — is addressing someone who isn’t here. If that’s what you think, then you’re just reacting, not listening. My criticism isn’t coming from that direction. It’s not whether you experienced something commonly called enlightenment in the past — I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on that, since it has no bearing on what I’m saying — but where you are now. It is this that I’m saying doesn’t measure up, I don’t give a toss what may or may not have happened in the past. You are stuck in a conceptual model of enlightenment as a result of something you think happened to you, you think you ARE enlightened. Imagine, the ludicrousness of that, yet here we are. You cannot break out of that delusion while you feel the need to defend it, thus everything you say lacks conviction, because you are merely speaking from a collection of passing states striving to maintain an illusion of continuity. ‘You’ as the ‘person’ who ‘experienced’ ‘enlightenment’. So far you have addressed criticism by attempting to fight it off with a toy sword, but you have not answered it in a way that can possibly be satisfying to any who may look to you for guidance. You are just creating factions of thought, for and against, you don’t know what you’re for or against you’re just lining up on the other side against the criticism, but as far as addressing it with honesty and integrity, the nail remains to be hit squarely on the head.

Maybe all the fuss is over the word “enlightenment”. i know that you’ve gone and called your site that but i am kind of leaning now to the word “awakened” to mean arahatship/4th path where for me it has been a more physio-energetic development within the body which has seriously left the perception, meaning the way the mind feels withint the body, and the fact that everything, all phenomena is seen as equal status, even the formation of the sense of self.

I think many people think enlightenment may mean the whole non-dual awareness “you are already enlightened stick”. At KFD, there seems to have been a switch in the semantics and everyone is calling 4th path to be “awakened” as the Buddha was, and “enlightenment” to mean the whole primordial awareness thingy.

Maybe if Alans talked about some of the more obvious differences between those two views of enlightenment. It seems Joseph is coming from one of those views. Not sure as I haven’t read all the posts on the other topic. Joseph, are you 4th path/arahat? Has your perception of reality been permanently changed by a developmental vipassana -like process that cleared out all the clingy stickiness of the “self” and left the perception one that seems not to have a center point? Just curious. I believe both these guys are arhats by what they talk about.

Sorry, I type like a 2 year old. Lots of typos and bad grammar. My bad

hilarious stuff joseph…

“that’s not a finger pointing at the moon, THIS is a finger pointing at the moon!”

and i’m a finger pointing at a finger pointing at a reflection of the moon.

i really don’t care anymore.

“that’s not a finger pointing at the moon, THIS is a finger pointing at the moon!”

In a Crocodile Dundee voice, yes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01NHcTM5IA4&

Joseph, this is really old ground. Read this:

http://openenlightenment.org/?p=114

Please, get on the same page, acknowledge my responses, have a conversation, instead of repeating yourself over and over. It’s really boring.

If you can’t be bothered to read it or perhaps acknowledge that not only am I aware of everything you are saying, but I rejected your position a while ago, then at least consider this: the proof is in the pudding. How many people have I helped awaken?

Sooner or later, the silly posturing over your precious ‘enlightenment values’ are going to seem infantile and besides the point. Not all fingers pointing at the moon point with the same degree of success…

Alan — I read that post before, and I’ve now read it again. I do give you the courtesy of listening. As far has having a conversation, it has been you, so far, who has been fending that off. As for the proof of the pudding, I don’t know how many people you have helped awaken, nor do I know how many the wind, a tree, or the cheeping of a sparrow has helped awaken.

I stand by what I have said, and nothing in the post you refer to addresses it. All that post addresses is an argument in words. But what you do again and again emphasise, yet seem not to take on board the consequences of, is that you became enlightened in the past, and have memories of this event (or non-event), and that therefore you have every right to refer to yourself as an enlightened person, because some entity still persists known as Alan Chapman. You say ‘Since my enlightenment I know that I am not this person, Alan Chapman.’ Okay, that is saying the right thing. But anyone can say the right thing. The point is that you are still speaking from an obvious identification with this entity. You can say you ‘know’ you are no longer Alan Chapman until the cows come home, but that doesn’t mean that you actually know anything of the sort. I would say that you say you know you are no longer Alan Chapman because your deeper knowledge is that you know Alan Chapman should no longer be there, yet he is. You have turned this around to argue for a new model of ‘enlightenment’, but are missing the fact that actually this model predicates even on your own terms that you are NOT enlightened, Alan Chapman merely has an enlightening experience, which subsequently passed away, leaving… Alan Chapman.

“Joseph, are you 4th path/arahat?”

I don’t know what ‘fourth path’ means. Sounds like bullshit. I don’t identify with ‘arhat’. I used to identify with ‘bohdisattva’ but now find any identification irrelevant. I have put away my toys.

I think you’ve merely thrown them out of the pram.

“I think you’ve merely thrown them out of the pram.”

Ha ha. Very good. I’ll set them up you bat them back.

And the light spoke, “So exactly which part of me is pissing you of today” and I collapsed in laughter..

Ok, Joseph, so you don’t like naming things. ok, but can you please explain how your continuous perception of the reality within your own mind/body process is? How is the relationship of your “sense of self” with the rest of the mental and physical phenomena within your body?
I’m very curious as to how you actually perceive things.

Do you know anything of developmental enlightenment, Joseph? Do you know what stream entry is? What it means? What the physical and mental changes are that occur as you go through the 4 stages of what the Theravada schools of Buddhism consider to be “enlightenment”? In my experience it is very much a phyio-energetic development which seriously changes one’s perception of reality.

“You” DO experience these stages, and you DO experience the 4th stage which is arhatship. I think though you are getting hung up on the use of “you”, “I”….yes? This is understandable. There really is no “I” that gets enlightened. this is just a conventional way of trying to name what happens. One who is 4th path realizes that all phenomena, mental and physical, is just that, phenomena…including the phenomena that make up the formation of “self”. At 4th path, which is a developmental stage of “enlightenment” although i prefer the term “awakening”, everything is seen as the same arising and passing away phenomena. The sense of self is brought down from it’s previously illusory high status and seen for what it truly is. The king of the hill is no longer the king of the hlll, as the hill has been leveled. But the formation of self still arises as does any other phenomena, and we live in a conventional world and we use conventional language. Why are you so full of negativity that you need to spend you time here spitting out venom?

Nikolai — I had just written you a nice response to your first enquiry of me that you may have found interesting, then I come here and read in your next comment: ‘Why are you so full of negativity that you need to spend you time here spitting out venom?’

Examine your own venom, it has cost you my answer.

I see no venom..I see no spit..but thats proberly cos I is asleep..O well..

No, there is no venom in anything I have said. Just a mirror, and some people don’t like what they see in it.

A persons words are like dead leaves blowing in the wind..and then the listener/reader will energise those words, and to make them what they want to hear..its all to funny to take seriously…and then the person gets upset at what they “Heard”..I could go on but you have proberly heard enuff..Laffter,and more laffter is the way to sumwer, I know not where..

Exactly. Threatened by shadows. It’s all down to what people feel they have to lose. If they have nothing to lose, what does it matter to them? But when it does matter to them, they should listen to what it’s showing them, because it’s surely showing them something. But many just try to fight it, particularly those following some ‘spirtual path’. It’s all rather pathetic, really. You’d think they’d have understood by now that it’s all happening in them.

Hehe. Ok, ok. You have to admit, that you do “come across” as slightly cocky and not very nice. The intenets…..what are you gonna do? I apologise to you Joseph. My bad. Can we get an anwser then? Pretty please? If not, then I retire form this discussion and wish you well.

“You have to admit, that you do “come across” as slightly cocky and not very nice.”

To the black and white cat that visits my garden I come across as scary and he runs off. To the tabby that visits my garden I come across as someone she wants her belly tickled by. I remain the same.

You say “boo”! We jump. We say “boo”!, you jump. I don’t see any difference in the way you are communicating your “supposed” enlightenment over others. But maybe I’m reading into the internets a little too much. And maybe you are too? I could be wrong.

For me, the habitual tendencies that were apart of “Nikolai” still remain strong, gathered it hasn’t been long since the last permanent perceptual shift.. But there is no “clinging” or “stickiness” , no second arrow now as the Buddha talked about. And that makes a world of difference. One can i a sense, choose to “run with” the intentions and habitual tendencies, OR watch them arise and pass away. For someone 4th path aka Arhatship, this is much, much easier to do as there is no “stickiness” there anymore. No clinging. Freedom from a specific misery indeed. But , like I said, there still are all the habitual tendencies to supposedly burn up. Time will tell in that regard..But I can see it going in that direction

This is where I am coming from. You can still act a certain way which may seem “unenlightened” to some, as we all seem to carry around these funny ideas on what it really means to be “enlightened”. there seems to be a lot of projecting going on here from both sides. I admit to projecting things on to you, Joseph. And for that I apologise. But it seems, and I could be wrong, you are projecting big time a model of nI hope we don’t need to enlightenment that may not fit what Alan and Duncan are talking about. I see it fitting my experience of 4th path very well. That is why I ask you to talk about your perception of your own reality. We wear rose coloured glasses and for us it is all , rosey, rosey, rosey. You wear blue coloured glasses and for you it’s all blue, blue, blue. We are gonna bash heads till the cows come home. Hopefully that wont continue to happen. We’ll see.

Sorry, the word enlightement got cut, somehwere there it should read “model of enlightement, but seemed to be only the letter “n”. Aplogies.

The last paragraph sould be read like this….
This is where I am coming from. You can still act a certain way which may seem “unenlightened” to some, as we all seem to carry around these funny ideas on what it really means to be “enlightened”. there seems to be a lot of projecting going on here from both sides. I admit to projecting things on to you, Joseph. And for that I apologise. But it seems, and I could be wrong, you are projecting big time, a model of enlightenment that may not fit what Alan and Duncan are talking about. I see it fitting my experience of 4th path very well. That is why I ask you to talk about your perception of your own reality. We wear rose coloured glasses and for us it is all , rosey, rosey, rosey. You wear blue coloured glasses and for you it’s all blue, blue, blue. We are gonna bash heads till the cows come home. Hopefully that wont continue to happen. We’ll see.

Nikolai — I have no stake in anything here. I am simply pointing out a mistake I see being made. I am not necessarily pointing this out for Alan and Duncan’s benefit, I am pointing it out to anyone who is listening. Let them see it, or not. It doesn’t matter to me.

There are many ways to describe experience. You, for instance, talk of ‘the last permanent perceptual shift’. This is merely tinkering with the phenomenon, looking for evidence of understanding in your life. It is an illusion you’re talking about. There is no permanent perpetual shift, there is only reality. It requires no ‘shift’ to see it, it is right before you all the time. You are bothering about things that are here today gone tomorrow, if you think you have made any kind of permanent shift. There is no permanence in the world. What is permanent is what the world or universe is contained in. It does not shift or change. If you detect a permanent shift in your life you are fooling yourself. Go to sleep, wake up, one day that so-called permanent shift will be no more. The only permanence is reality. It is non-loseable, it is never not here. Shifts are in the changing, always the changing. You cannot have a shift without change, and if you have a change it’s not permanent, so you don’t have it, you only think you have it, and that very thinking is what is getting in the way of you seeing it as it actually is.

Joseph,
I don’t think you threw your toys away. You’re here playing internet discussiong among all of us, employing your own models for judging stuff, even when you don’t aknowledge them.

“(…) they could have just said look there really is nothing to attain whatsoever the whole problem is that you think there is.”

This would be nothing but another model, that can have specific causal consequences on you or any person, leading to different results – different from other models and different from person to person.

I don’t think you’re really discussing openly until you open to us what were your pratices, what were the consequences of those pratices, the insights, the perceptual shifts, etc. I also think it is necessary to have an open discussing that you disclose clearly and sincerely what are your models. For an example,

“I would say that you say you know you are no longer Alan Chapman because your deeper knowledge is that you know Alan Chapman should no longer be there, yet he is”

Reading this gives me the feeling that you think enlightenment should erradicate physical presence, erradicate the phenomenal world. If this is right, peraphs we’re talking apples for oranges, because erradicating the relative in favour of the absolute seems a very dualistically-structured model; and this apparent contradiction you pointed is the very stuff of non-duality that we’ve been adressing as “enlightenment”.

I still don’t understand what you are saying, no matter how many times I re-read what you write. Peraphs it’s because my perception is clouded or something, but peraphs it is because you aren’t expressing it clearly enough or sincerely enough.

Anyway, your presence is troublesome to me, but I have no problem with this troublesomeness.

I’m intellectually interested to find out if you fit in my models; if so, my bets are on you being a chronic dark nighter; but it’s also possible to read you as an stream enterer that understand experiences through another linguisic lens and holds them vigorously (while denying them). Or peraphs you have something to say that really is off my maps, and then, I may have something crucial to learn.

Holds,
Pied Piper

So now it becomes glaringly obvious you are not speaking from a 4th path view point. The permanent shift I talk about is more the completing of a physio-energetic development in the body. it is the completing of an energy circuit in the body. It is not something someone can just “choose” to have in a moment . They have to work at it. And many can get there through many different methods. I chose the method of Mahasi Sayadaw vipassana noting technique of meditation.

This took me down a road where the energies(kundalini?..not sure) within the body did their thing, unblocked this, unblocked that, and in the process seriously changed the perception. Now reality is reality. But for someone pre-path, they will see it in a certain way. The sense of self is strong. it is king of the hill. It is a separate entity. They are very immersed in the illusion of it all.

Someone who “sets off” the developmental awakening process at stream entry and puts it into automatic will, as they continue to investigate as they did, progress further through the other paths, with the blockages getting more unblocked and the perception permanently shifting some more. The permanent perceptual shift is actually reducing the tendency for the mind to cling to mind states and other phenomena. The mind does not get as immersed and embedded in the illusion so easily and then completely dis-embedded at 4th path. If you have not experienced stream entry/1st path, I understand where you are coming from. If you have then I am slightly puzzled why you don’t agree with what people have said here. I think you haven’t even gotten stream entry. I could be wrong of course. This is the internets after all.

The perception or clearing up of perception, the righting of it, the synching it up to what reality reall is, so to speak, DOES occur. It occurs for this illusory seperate entity, this “I”. The “I” is seen for what it is, and something, some energetic shifting in the body leaves the way the mind (or awareness or whatever you wanna call it) feels and “sees” reality. it sees it as ever changing phenomena. But there is no “sticky” self getting in the way now. The sticky “I”, is no longer sticky. This is a permanent shift. I hope you have experienced it. If not, I hope “you” one day do. It seems you had some “enlightenment” experience yourself. But it doesn’t seem permanent. And that is where you are seemingly speaking from. Internets and all.!

Such a searching need to box me into your models. One talks of his ‘I’ no longer being sticky, but it is sticking all over the place. Another says he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, thinks it may be because I’m not clear enough, or sincere enough, but as a last option grants that it may be because he has something to learn. I am content to remain an enigma if your ‘I’ is sticking on it, if your models don’t compute. Sounds like you’re both struggling like flies in treacle. Bet among yourselves about what among the various things from stream-enterers to chronic dark nighters (whatever that is) to fourth pathers you would most like to deny me. This is all Meccano for the mind.

Alan, parts of this thread really demonstrate how each of us needs to find the way that works with our own understanding. Like Joseph, I tried a variety of ways that provided little benefit. Then I found one that cracked it All wide open. Is it different from yours? Maybe on the surface. But it makes no sense to try to cram the square peg into the round hole and then judge it as untrue because it doesn’t fit.

In my understanding, we are the ever-changing phenomenon of the unchanged Absolute. We cannot experience the Absolute because we ARE the experience of the Absolute. A “way of understanding”, or “model” if you will, can help us understand our experience, and thus, the Absolute. If we can find a teacher that speaks to our experience, all the better.

To liven up your videos, I would suggest you spinning on a wheel while various blindfolded people throw knives at you, but you get enough of that in the threads. My personal video will be part Western, part Bollywood porno, and about three hours long. There will be lots of slapping, lots of sticking. The only dialogue will be me saying “Taste and See” with the moans and groans of my devotees.

We cannot experience the Absolute

Huh? It really frightens me, this discussion and the general trend among some of the people who come here, to believe that everyones opinion is equal in its validity and accuracy, that there is no progression of understanding and the ability to see how things are… it ends up with people who really dont get it mindlessly arguing about things they do not understand, do not have the ability to see and yet are somehow certain that they see and understand all there is to see and understand /given that what they see now they assume to be the be-all and end-all/(and base their opinions and judgments on their incorrect/partial understanding of how things are).

Given that this trend has been somewhat growing and is getting to the point where its rather unpleasant, not to mention that it seems to prevent any meaningful conversation from occurring, are there any measures that could be brought into place?

Is anyone finding this discussion helpful? (in which case, by all means, keep it going)

As a sidenote, perhaps the only benefit of this conversation that I can think of is that Joseph Parkins spends his valuable time here and does not bother other people elsewhere. I think that we can take it but, hell, some people have to meet him/talk to him in person. (thank you in advance for your enlightening reply to this, I am sure to find what you say of much help!)

@Pavel: “Is anyone finding this discussion helpful? (in which case, by all means, keep it going)”

Not really. The signal-to-noise ratio in the comments has descended to the general internet level. Its been said a million times, but it bears repeating: if you don’t moderate your comments, the attention-whores will set the tone, and that’s what’s happened here. Which is too bad, because the comments used to be useful. Nowadays I usually read Alan and Duncan’s stuff and skip the comments. If I see “Joseph Parkins” in the “latest comments” queue, it’s the kiss of death. I like a good debate, but this ain’t that. It’s just more internet noise — the ethics and aesthetics of Youtube comment threads applied incongruously to the topic of spiritual insight. I think Oliver Wendell Holmes said it best when he described “the hydrostatic paradox of controversy:

“You know, that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way—and the fools know it.”

Sorry Pavel and others, it is only my expression and I cannot claim to be articulate, as my words have proven I am not. I have found it impossible to express my understanding in anything other than a partial way. Even though I have used words such as “All” and “Absolute,” I certainly don’t think that I understand all there is understand. If anything, I’ve only just begun. Nevertheless, I am trying to be as honest and accurate as I can, where I am. I think that alone makes my opinion valid, though not necessarily helpful.

@Joseph Your arrogance and refusal to put yourself in check (by opening your own experiences) talk for themselves. You only approach people looking from top to bottom, you try to make points about the others but keep yourself and your intentions outside the scrutiny of the same you scrutinize. Also, I’m suspicious of anyone that don’t consider the possibility of themselves being wrong. You’re a troll in my opinion, be it your intention or not.

@everyone I’m done with this conversation. After all I’ve read here and in that other comment section, there’s nothing to be gained from giving Joseph attention. I would prefer him to be banned (because I bet people will keep feeding the troll), but I can live with just ignoring every conversation related to him.

Holds,
Pied Piper

@Donn “To liven up your videos, I would suggest you spinning on a wheel while various blindfolded people throw knives at you, but you get enough of that in the threads. My personal video will be part Western, part Bollywood porno, and about three hours long. There will be lots of slapping, lots of sticking. The only dialogue will be me saying “Taste and See” with the moans and groans of my devotees.”

LOL! Wonderful!

This (thread) is good stuff I reckon, if frequently frustrating. If I may meta-comment for a moment -

While it’s not clear, if it ever is, how well people are grokking what others are trying to get across, I do think that the conversation would be less useful and interesting without Joseph’s voice.

That said, I’m not sure why JP seems to have an issue with AC referring to himself as an ‘enlightened person’ when AC has written there is no such thing and so presumably does not refer to himself as such.

Alan’s descriptions of how he sees this all working seem pretty clear and un-dogmatic to me. I don’t see where he’s suggesting anyone get hung up on particular practices or ideas, but rather that they concentrate on experiencing for themselves. Seems to me that the words in this video have been chosen really carefully so as to minimise the possibility of being misleading.

JP, is it your basic contention here that it is daft to talk about enlightenment at all, that there is no such experience? Doesn’t this itself depend on understanding what is intended when the words ‘enlightenment’ and ‘experience’ are used in this context?

Of course it’s hard to talk and write about but there is something which happens, or maybe it’s better to say, un-happens. Something is dis-identified with / seen through / dis-embedded from. There is a time before this, and there is a time after this, and an understanding is conferred, or allowed. Maybe you think the authors of this site refer to something else, maybe they do. Of course the truth remains as always, but it’s possible to understand and remain ostensibly ‘convinced’ of this while subtly missing it. Which I suppose is what JP is claiming some others are doing…

How about what Duncan just wrote –

“Awakening isn’t a state, but more like an understanding of how your experience falls into the scheme of things.”

Sounds like some people whose opinions we value are getting irritated by the noise, so I’ll close this thread for now, because it’s unlikely it’ll get any better. (Get in touch, Alan, if you want me to open it again.)

I’ll say one thing for Joseph, though. He doesn’t half give our webstats a boost when he drops by!

All those old guys who talked a load of enigmatic bollocks or did confounding things – they of course had many conversations like this one and at some point came to the conclusion that trying to convey the nature of the absolute using standard rational tools in the dualistic world would mostly just lead to more dualistic thinking. Only experience works.

I think one problem is that some of those for whom the truth is or has become blatantly self-evident find it hard to understand the ways in which others cannot see that. Maybe because the conditions that made it easy not to see have been removed. It can seem perplexing until you realise that the absolute will only appear as a concept subject to all kinds of projections and distortions until it is seen.