Same for me sig, and it’s saddening.

I sincerely hope that he will step out of it because at the basis I do sense a kind heart looking to help humanity.

Such a burden.

I can certainly see where you (facet and sig) are coming from wrt the red flags. Interesting to note that Shunya is a trained hypnotherapist and does indeed often speak in a hypnotic way. This leaves listeners more open to suggestion, and when in this state they get told about a coming end of the world, this is problematic.

On the other hand, the state of the world and where it's heading is also actually very problematic, and we tend to be too complacent about it. I'm thinking of the growing divide between poor and rich, and the massive stream of climate refugees that's probably inevitable at this point.

facet Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, it’s around the 20 mins in mark mentioning ego
> and then pertaining to the egoless state becoming
> a unified field.
>
> I’ve heard a few heralding this it is kind of a
> theme, Eckhart Tolle immediately springs to mind.
>
> The thing for me is that ego activity or not, we
> are all a unified field anyway, like it or not.
> Anything else is simply separation ideology isn’t
> it.
>
> That everyone must be awakened does not give of
> the vibe of freedom to me. It give off the vibe of
> control of how people should be and the utter
> denial of life just as it is.

On this point I disagree with you and agree with Shunya. Indeed Tolle talks about this too at length in his book New Earth and I agree with a lot of what he says.

In this paper about a model of spiritual awakening is postulated (and linked to supporting evidence): [www.researchgate.net]

We see a reality consisting of separate parts because this is the end-product of the perceptual and cognitive layers of processing, not because reality itself consists of separate parts. It doesn't. Ideally, these interpretive/conceptual layers of processing are transparent, so that we see more direct experience of undivided reality through it and recognize that as more fundamentally real than our projected layer of separation.

We're collectively not at that point yet. We mostly see the end-product of these separative processing layers as base reality, so that actual base reality is veiled and forgotten.

With that the relatively illusory nature of the separation between self and other is forgotten. We become totally identified with the self-concept and disidentified from the rest. So we act mostly for the benefit of this conceived self, with less care and attention for the impact of our actions on the rest.

The way Tolle sees this is that this delusion is an evolutionary stage. Unlike other species, we've developed the capacity for complex abstract thought and communication, but because this is still relatively new, we've not yet understood the true nature of this capacity.

Long time meditators will know that most people are oblivious to the fact that they think when they think, just like we often are oblivious to the fact that we dream when we dream. In meditation, you learn to observe thought as it arises, and you learn the skill of not diving into that thought but letting it float by without attributing any belief or importance to it.

When we're not even aware of the option of not diving into thoughts, we find ourselves diving into many thoughts (especially when they have strong emotional appeal). A thought dived into is perceived from the inside. The meaning of that thought is perceived as reality itself. The fact is lost on us that it consists of mere references to relatively arbitrary divisions of reality, and relations between these references. The thought-reality is perceived as actual reality.

Tolle postulates that this is not the final state of the human mind. Someone who has meditated a lot, and people that have had awakening experiences such as the ones described in the paper, develop a different relation with thought. They see thought more as tool rather than as reality itself. Thought becomes more transparent to the underlying reality. Hence they're less driven by identification with the idea of self (ego), since that's also recognized as consisting of thought and thus being relatively illusory.

In this state, the non-separation, non-duality, with all of the universe is recognized. I think Tolle calls this the post-thought stage of evolution or something like that. Not meaning that we don't think anymore but that we see thought for what it is.

Until we're at that point, thought is not merely a tool for us. It's also our master. Ideas are seen as real and that granted belief makes ideas very powerful. They can spread and multiply like viruses, especially now we're so interconnected by the internet. Richard Dawkins and Yuval Noa Harari have written about this power ideas have over us, and how much our behavior is ruled by them.

How can we collectively wake up from this veiling power of thought, so that we'll act less selfish? I'm not sure. I don't think just exchanging ideas will do the trick. But I do think it's necessary for a more awakened relation with thought to become widespread, if we want to have a better future for humanity and nature.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2019 03:42PM by zizlz.

Shunyamurti's Christmas talk: [www.youtube.com]

At around the 40 minute mark he goes into detail about the apocalypse. He seems to be serious about it happening soon, in the form of nuclear war. Imagine being there in his ashram, listening to him talk again and again every day, no dissenting opinions voiced anywhere, believing that the end is near. Pretty scary stuff. You're right, Facet, better to stay away from that place.

Hello zszlz,

Thank you for your replies, and about the new Christmas talk which I’ll watch after posting this.

Hehe, Shunya might not have me anyway after my bringing up of things !

Another potential factor has popped up, Costa Rica happens to be a tax haven.

Also, apologies for the typos and repeats in my last post, my concentration was in two places :D.

I’m not so sure in myself about the evolutionary aspects, and for the awakening bit... whilst I would point out strongly that I don’t discredit the experience of awakening for any one, for me it hasn’t been so even though the description of it fits.

I would not consider myself an awakened person, though I felt that because for me it isn’t in my belief set, I seem to have understood (devoid of any outer input as a child) awakening as realising something, though for me that wouldn’t mean that everybody else had to realise the same.

Anyway, for me, the idea of a Sleeping people and awakened people makes a them and us situation, which of course goes against the oneness that we’re mentioning in this thread.

I still don’t see that a field of egoless persons is an answer, though it would be nice if it was, wouldn’t it?

And as for thought, thought for me is a wonderful thing... it’s the people who tell you not to think you have to watch for I found, thinking is kind of like our personal processes, and yes the non thinking state is absolutely beautiful, I loved and savoured every moment but thank goodness that I did because it is transient and I believe it is meant to be so, not a long term state at all. Very dangerous in reality.

I can tell you, lots of people turn up to drive an abandoned Ferrari if you just leave it there unattended :D

It costs a fair bit to attend with Shunyamurti, and I get that costs of running the place and maybe that they are maintaining the structure so that they will have chance of survival if nuclear fallout apocalypse does occur, though it still does not sit well. Knowing today of the tax haven, it comes across more of a business.

The end of the world? No, humanity at some point maybe... it seems to go that way if we’re looking at the ages Earth has been through, but to speculate and predict on that? For me this is a manipulation. I wonder if Bramah Kumaris gave this fear to Shunyamurti, (since it is also what they teach) or, he is a manipulator himself, the latter being the one I’d like to not be the case :D.

Ps I am sorry as I do not wish to offend BK’s, it’s just that large proportion of it doesn’t seem quite right to me.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2019 03:12AM by facet.

facet Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And as for thought, thought for me is a wonderful
> thing... it’s the people who tell you not to think
> you have to watch for I found, thinking is kind of
> like our personal processes, and yes the non
> thinking state is absolutely beautiful, I loved
> and savoured every moment but thank goodness that
> I did because it is transient and I believe it is
> meant to be so, not a long term state at all. Very
> dangerous in reality.

I'll write bit more about what I was talking about with regards to thought, because if you think I was talking about a thoughtless state, I must have not expressed myself well. If you've done meditation where you focus on an object such as the breath, you've probably experienced a moment where you suddenly realize you were thinking and you forgot about the object you were trying to focus on. At that moment you woke up from the thought. The fact that you were thinking without realizing that you were thinking illustrates the veiling power thought often has over us.

The veiling power of thought is often so strong that we cause misery for ourselves and others, just because we're stuck in certain ideas we can't wake up from.

Attaining a more awakened relation to thought means being able to think without your thoughts putting you to sleep. You see that a thought is representative of one or some of the countless ways of interpreting reality, instead of it being the absolutely true way of interpreting reality.

I have seen some people develop this altered way of relating to thought to some extent, and it makes sense to me that this vector of development is possible on a larger scale, especially as our scientific understanding of thought and consciousness grows, and meditative introspection practices become more widespread.

When you're identified (as we are) with a mental self-image, which essentially consists of thought, and your relation to thought is such thought has lost much of its veiling power over you, then you'll be much more free from the limitation of that identity. Our identification btw isn't restricted to a self-image as a person. We identify with groups (often in opposition to other groups, which we disidentify from, leading to all sorts of conflict), we identify with status, succes, possessions. Often parents identify with their children also, seeing them as extensions of themselves almost. Because of this, the unique personalities and will of children is often not respected enough by the parents.

Our relation to identity (which depends on our relation to thought) has a lot of impact on our lives, on society, and families. There's a lot of room for improvement here.

To bring my remarks back into context, I was replying to:

Quote
facet
No, it’s around the 20 mins in mark mentioning ego and then pertaining to the egoless state becoming a unified field.

I’ve heard a few heralding this it is kind of a theme, Eckhart Tolle immediately springs to mind.

The thing for me is that ego activity or not, we are all a unified field anyway, like it or not. Anything else is simply separation ideology isn’t it.

That everyone must be awakened does not give of the vibe of freedom to me. It give off the vibe of control of how people should be and the utter denial of life just as it is.

I can't find Shunya or Tolle making the sort of discriminating remarks against "unawakened" people that you seem to have heard, and I don't remember them saying that everyone must be awakened. I would agree statements like that wouldn't give off the vibe of freedom. But seeing it as beneficial for mankind that we become more awakened and hoping that this will happen seems reasonable to me, for the reasons explained in my previous posts. Sorry for getting so verbose.

Hi :-)

Thank for explaining to me, I understand what you are saying.. I’m ok with the non identification and yes it relieve a lot of stuff.

It’s a theme, I’ll have find examples so that I can share more clearly, though even in this new Christmas one again Shunya mentions in it that the more people are a certain way, others will follow because of our ‘presence’. I’d say to everyone with this idea to go and take that into reality, it doesn’t work.

I used to believe the same based on what I was taught, it really doesn’t work tried and tested.

I found the nuclear section, it reminds me of the framework of 144,000 or so that Jehovah’s Witness give isn’t it? Of a special few who make it because they adhered to some strict rules.

I’m sorry that I have no examples to post at the moment though I’ll find some.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2019 04:34AM by facet.

Well, it’s the same clip you shared with me initially, around 24 mins in talk of ego being problematic and the unified field of egoless people having access to magic (creation with illusion etc)... and only those egoless unified people. So, if you understand oneness and you’re fake tanning right now whilst eating a bag of salt and vinegar crisps forget it, you’re in ego and you’re out. You have no power :D.

Youtube

I had started to search through some of Eckharts YouTube stuff and found the air of it very depressing, I’ve given up on that one for my own well-being. I don’t know how I used to be able to sit and watch this stuff.

It was one of the very last talks I listened to going a few years back now, and I was literally sitting there thinking this is so not what I’d want to support in the world, simply because of its outcasting of those in ego, or ‘asleep’.

Shunyamurti has been the last one I have had to look at, I hoped it would be different though it seems not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2019 06:36AM by facet.

facet Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It’s a theme, I’ll have find examples so that I
> can share more clearly, though even in this new
> Christmas one again Shunya mentions in it that the
> more people are a certain way, others will follow
> because of our ‘presence’. I’d say to everyone
> with this idea to go and take that into reality,
> it doesn’t work.

Ah yes, in the Batgap interview they talk about this also, about something like a phase change of collective consciousness once a critical mass of awakened people has been achieved. They also refer to the "100th monkey effect" (a hypothetical phenomenon in which a new behaviour or idea is said to spread rapidly by unexplained means - [en.wikipedia.org] ). That effect was supposedly discovered by a researcher but he turned out to be mistaken. It would be nice if they are right though, but like you said, it hasn't been shown to work this way.

In the interview, they related this phenomenon to the Maharishi Effect ("one percent of the population practicing the Transcendental Meditation Program in any city reduces the crime rate, accident rate, and sickness rate"). Unfortunately, this effect also turns out to be based on false data, see [web.archive.org]

> I found the nuclear section, it reminds me of the
> framework of 144,000 or so that Jehovah’s Witness
> give isn’t it? Of a special few who make it
> because they adhered to some strict rules.

Yes, that's very similar! I've been wondering: how do his followers think Shunya knows these things about the apocalypse? I assumed they think he has special powers to see into the future. But in the Christmas video (at 44:03) he tells that he knows the details about the number of people that will survive the apocalypse because "they say" it. He doesn't say who they are, and no one asks him.

>
> Ah yes, in the Batgap interview they talk about
> this also, about something like a phase change of
> collective consciousness once a critical mass of
> awakened people has been achieved.

I hadn’t heard of the 100th monkey effect, thanks I’ll look that up.


But in the
> Christmas video (at 44:03) he tells that he knows
> the details about the number of people that will
> survive the apocalypse because "they say" it. He
> doesn't say who they are, and no one asks him.

I’ll have a re listen on that bit!

Yeah, I wondered about how he had these specific details too and it’s usually beings or inter dimensional energies etc if the patterns going that way, I didn’t notice that he had said ‘they say it’ great spot I’m glad you’ve brought that out.

He’s free as anyone to believe in whatever he wishes I guess, at least for me I’m more definite on where I am with my choice in it.

It’s probably going to be plenty of people’s cup of tea still and I accept that. Sheesh. I always wish it would be different !