Category: Uncategorized

Initial Gary Weber Thoughts

11/23/22
Initial thoughts about the Gary Weber bit.
I think it could serve as a rational scientific basis for why I am practice works which might make it more acceptable and accessible to some.
But ultimately it’s not a pill it’s not a quick fix. You have to remember to do it. It can be very difficult to stick with. Progress can be slow
it’s not a drug.
And there may be a real practical reason why the deeper practices use the spiritual terms.
Also noticed that Gary continues to use the spiritual terms and symbols to describe what he did and how he does it.
And I don’t know that his technique is all that different from the spiritual practice but again the scientific basis may help others access it or be ok trying it.
Monday morning, November 21.
Fully started the practice of focusing on the sense of I
I was sitting in meditation this morning.
Very difficult to keep attention focused on I
thoughts would come up and pull the attention away or bodily sensations.
There is a feeling of the I thought being just behind the third eye.
I have some concerns about focusing on what appears to be a physical sensation. Is it just simply mokya or is it useful mokya- to be dropped later?
Although if I’m not focusing attention there there is no sensation there.
Focusing on the sensation does make it easier a bit To keep the attention focused.
I think I can see where this practice is going.
If letting attention go outward into the mind’s thoughts and body sensations in the external world, I can see the idea of pulling the attention back, not having to go so far out
Instead, focusing inwardly, and yet I could see where the body and the being could still exist and function, without needing this intense amount of attention put into it
It does seem a bit like, abandoning oneself to the mind its thoughts in the external world.
The question becomes is that level of attention and concentration needed for daily life.
I can also see the  direction of attention is a learned habit and habits can be broken.
I have heard it takes up to two weeks to break a habit but that’s probably practicing not doing the habit or creating new behavior constantly.
A learned behavior that is self reinforcing as we’re going on for probably 60 years it’s probably gonna take longer than two weeks to break.
Right now I can’t really do the focused attention internally when eyes are open or in activity like walking or driving or on the elliptical. For that I’m using a chant Om, Mani Padme Home (sic) to give the mind something to do while the rest of the external activity takes place.
But that’s temporary I assume until I develop the skill and strength of attention and focus and don’t need to repeat a mantra.
I can see dropping it (and out!) at some point.
On a scale of 1 to 100 I initially thought 0 to 100 but I’ll give it one to 100 I would say I’m probably like maybe 1.01.
Which may not be much but it’s more than one.
And after one or two days of this stuff that’s pretty good progress.
There’s also a renewed sense of earnestness and commitment and relentlessness to this practice.
I’m really curious to see where this is going to go. Will it eventually lead me to my true nature,while  the body and worldly things take care of themselves, and all or even part of my attention remains fixed in the formless
I could see that occurring.
I would say I got a glimpse of what this could mean mostly conceptually that there is that .01 experiential we’ll see what tomorrow looks like.

Jeff/Joe First Conversation – Gary Weber

Joe/Jeff first conversation 11/22/22
Thank you for doing this with me my friend , I very much appreciate this.
To recap the early morning hours are best in a darkened room with very little noise and other distractions.
Sit quietly in an open body posture whatever is comfortable for you.
And then focus on the idea or thought of I.
And watch what happens
pay attention
don’t get caught  following the thought stream
if your attention starts to get pulled away to other thoughts, ask the question internally, “who am I” and see what comes up and then bring your attention back to the I
You can repeat, saying I a little more slowly than we did on the phone.😉
Sit for at least five minutes and as much more than you want after that.
And then feel free to do whatever you want after that.
But at least five minutes
make note of what comes up in your body and mind.
Also, see if you can detect a place or location within your brain where the thought I is located.
Have fun!❤️
Love experiments and the article gives me some background on what’s going on in the physical neurons.  Life IS an experiment… or experiments make life more interesting and productive (assuming you run the experiment well and don’t skew the results in the direction of ‘what is best for me’.
Wish I had some way to monitor the DMN to see the pre and post activity.
I’ll need a bit of time, post experiment, to give you a behavioral analysis… or maybe there’s not one (at least that I know about now), but it’ll be interesting to see if there’s anything out there written about it.
So the question arises for me around the DMN: is that the complete explanation for all the spiritual stuff that has been taught over the years.
Or is there something more or less 😆
Is there a mystical/spiritual aspect to it?
What does that mean anyway?
Or is it just the way that they could talk about it before they had the models and the psychology and the chemicals and understanding of brain physiology.
Like the humors in the body possession, exorcism, and other things before we understood, schizophrenia and brain chemistry.
It is actually kind of nice to know that this is just something i can do and practice and produce over time.
But there’s also part of me that likes the mystical woowoo part – but I think that’s just a personality thing, as I like clairvoyance and divination.
I like tarot cards and runes and stuff like that and that has nothing to do with anything he’s talking about.
And the spiritual guys say the same thing those are separate powers you can gain and practice has nothing to do with letting go of the mind talk and identification thought.
From how he describes it is. It maps almost Word for Word from a lot of the enlightened guys that I’ve read Maharshi, nisargadatta, people like that, in terms of experience, once you take the ‘spiritual orientation’ away. I admit to having a little difficulty letting go of that, but if this is approachable, accessible and doable by everybody and it just turns off the ruminate of mind that’s great and again maybe that is just the language that they had at the time.
Like coming back to Jesus and the way, he talked about things at that time, which today we would describe differently.
I would say that I’m actually living proof of this –
– that a lot of the internal ruminate narrative that he talks about really has dropped away, less anger, and when it comes up, goes away really quickly and much more even tempered and as he says a better response to situations.
For example, discussing with Donna last night what I want and don’t want with her bringing parents furniture to the house. I’d never have brought that up before as cleanly and directly – but I felt a lot more space and was comfortable and I didn’t make her wrong and there’s no ruminative narrative getting in the way.
I’m actually very glad that you’re interested in doing this with me.
Does the type of explanation make a difference in understanding how to ‘work it’? Maybe, maybe not… Are you into understanding it or working it?  The explanation is interesting from the aspect of how to determine a ‘path’ or ‘process’, but in and of itself, I’m not sure how I get there, just that I arrive.
I agree completely.
No, I do not want to turn this into a flow experience, which is when somebody ask you what time it is in you explain how the clock works.
And per what Gary Weber says by reducing the ruminative narration we don’t need to know how it actually works
if it works and you get the results do you actually care?
I imagine a lot of people would be really bummed that it’s not the spiritual God thing that they really want it to be
that I don’t care about at all.
Not to be greedy, but I’d like to experience the oneness, the nothingness, the non-duality the lack of separation, and all the other things he talks about and if it’s really just a matter of brain function and meditation in the right way and breathing great bring it on, and I don’t have to reincarnate a bazillion times to have it.🙏🏻👁😂
I think a lot of that stuff is strictly control like any religion.
Oh yah, you might enjoy this
so as I go vegetarian because I am feeling arising of non-injury as I mentioned.
On the list of things to not eat were mushrooms, onions and garlic, which would’ve created a real issue around the house.😥🫣
When I did the research about why those things are on the no-no list it comes down to religion and caste. 😳🤯 in India.
Ha! as soon as I read caste – I’m done!
I just made a lasagna went great and has onions, garlic and mushrooms.
This is three weeks in.
Could be a novices view point, but it’s a more interesting discussion that a dry one about how Verbal Behavior works.
What I was thinking about is the ‘Useful’ internal dialog and how it fits into the whole paper.  thinking about problem solving is a useful bit of internal dialoging.  Gives you a chance to examine multiple ways things could work, without spending the time with an option that could fail.
The internal dialog represented by the DMN, being in the off in Lala land, oblivious to what’s happening around is what we are trying to reduce or eliminate.
How it pop-up is very interesting.  Leads me in the direction that ‘verbal behavior’ isn’t required to make things work.
Evolutionarily, we may have moved away from that model, because we opted for a more ‘social’ existence.
Exactly, and actually gets in the way and decreases the quality of the response.
Tis true that the longer the delay between Stimulus and Response, the weaker the response and the more undirected it is… says The Behavioral ME 😃
Let’s see how it goes with you
if there anything there and you can validate even some of it then I would be up for trying with some other people and eventually writing a paper and who knows maybe we can work with corporate America to actually start training their people like this, that we put it in the strict psychological terms “confirm or deny” – keep the religious stuff out of it and we get the results that we want – that would be amazing.
And a great way to end our careers no?
Was in a doctor’s office today for a routine check up and had 5 minutes to wait for the visit.  Sat and concentrated on saying “I” to the exclusion of all else.  After 5 minutes or so, when I stopped, I was much less interested in ‘sharing’ anything about myself other than the questions he was asking.
What I mean is that there was a picture not eh wall of the office that we have here in the family room.  Initially, when I went in the office, I noticed it, thought about the one in our house and wants to share that with the doctor.  After waiting and concentrating on “I”, there wasn’t the same interest in sharing anything other than what he wanted to know.
Any sense ??
Yes, I think you hit it on the head. I love that approach of bigger the delay between stimulus and response, poorer quality of outcome.
If we can reduce the gap or even get rid of the gap and we’re getting even better results. That’s gonna be pretty hard to argue with – nothing succeeds like success.
This is starting to remind me of the movie Limitless (Bradley Cooper) which I’ve loved since the very first time I’ve seen it, and if we can get into that realm, – basically turn off the parts of the brain that are actively working against the rest of the brain then effectively we’re getting that kind of result and experience. And it’s available to everyone.
And it’s not drug related back the  issue that Skinner had with using neural chemicals to change behaviors.
Yes, your experience maps to mine. I didn’t want to give you any hints, but like yesterday when I was walking the cats, and focusing on, I
I notice a definite switch for a few seconds to kind 2d, surface-y plasticky sense to what I was seeing
I wasn’t caught up in what was going on. I was walking the cats for sure, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t emotionally and mentally pouring energy into that
by holding back a certain amount of energy in the center of my mind. It freed me up from that.
Superb. I’m really pleased.
Hey, keep it going, if you can focus on i and what am I in other areas and activities.
I would be very curious to see how your experience of golf would change with this
It would be pretty funny if you actually watch your scores, go down.
Do you have any idea how much money we could make if we could actually produce a usable, viable simple practice for golfers and sports people and sales people – it wouldn’t even have to be 100% . even an increase in performance a quality of 20% would be amazing
Not that I’m about the money Of course that drops away with this.
Hee hee
Love Limitless and was sorry to see that the behavior under the influence, had no strength what so ever, in the absence of the drug.  I kinda wanted Cooper to have picked up some of the skills he had while under the influence and emmet them in the absence.  I never saw the TV series to see if they explored that any.
Like At the end, when he has to keep all the different labs going.
And now that I’m thinking about it more and more I’m letting it in and LIKING this!
I really prefer this being a rational scientific testable provable repeatable technique that anyone can use to increase their concentration, performance, and quality of experience. And relationships.
And with the diminishment of narrative thinking, of course you get the compassion you get the love, you get the patience you,  get the happiness all that comes along as well.
Watching some of the Weber videos he does talk about the fact that compassion doesn’t come up for him. He just does right action and it’s perfect for the moment.
Fine. Whatever.
Yes, the ending made me feel like all he experiences was a sham and he could only accomplish anything when he was chemically, under the influence.
Chemical substances expose you to stimuli and contingencies that you weren’t aware of.  When the chemicals go away, the stimuli and contingencies are still around… granted more difficult to discern, but still there and able to exert their control on behavior.

Random Thoughts -2

Tuesday November 22, 2022
Going to Costco and TJs was like walking into a firefight. But my interaction with staff was good- Costco membership lady, clerk at TJs
Also, when dealing with others on the path, on Reddit and Discord, specifically
Feels like being in a super crowded train station.
I’m heading directly to my platform and train.
While most everyone else is milling about aimlessly or going to the wrong platforms or bumping into each other, or the walks, or whatever.
And they are really worked up about it.
Better analogy
We’re all on the cruise ship
And I’m heading to my cabin to get dressed for supper
And everyone is milling about and stressing over and trying to control the ship to make sure it  gets to where it’s going anyway.
Asleep at 9 -ish
Awake at 11:30
Laid awake until 12:30 and got up to eat.
Really thought I could think myself back to sleep
Counted down from 10 a couple times.
Pfffft nothing.
I can hear bob l. giggling from over here about that counting stuff. Oh, just stop it!
Maintaining weight still a challenge.
Moved to rice+honey+cinnamon
D thinks it’s gross,
But that’s how my parents got me to eat rice when we’d go the The Rice Bowl in Chicago for Chinese food on Sundays.
And I think like 1/2 the world eats rice like that as a form of pudding.😆
When I awoke at 11:30 I deliberately did not go into meditation since that tends to wake me fully.
However, my meditation practice of focusing attention seems to be bleeding over into non-meditative times and seems to be ‘taking over’.
I’ve never experienced anything in 38 years of ‘meditation’. Must be making up for lost time 🫥😆
So I went from having to consciously focus my attention on the feeling of I in my head to it being easier to attend to  to it being drawn to that and started to feel like a magnet, drawing my attention to actually not have to  even think about doing it – it was just there in the attention, and I would have to actually consciously pull attention away which I could not do.
That’s what I call the practice taking over
I and who am I are not mantras
And
This is very different, fundamentally from a mantra.
A mantra becomes just another thought and occupies the mind while we do other activities.
I and who am changed brain physiology:
It it don’t stick, it ain’t worth shit.
‘Course, we can’t put that on the cover
Wolf- The Current is less when doing objective tasks.
This would probably be his way of explaining the reduction in the DNM Center
He would have loved this.
Many explanations from the past got rewritten with current evolved understanding
Exorcism, hysteria breakdown of consciousness in the bicameral mind.
Self-referential internal narrative (SRIN)
Don Juan stopping internal dialog

Random Thoughts – 1

It seems all the enlightened guys are young
Meaning it seems to happen to younger folk.
Is it because they have less to unlearn?
I’m 63…will I get out on my own before I’m thrown out?
I’m getting to be more like my cats having to eat every two hours
And interestingly, they are responding to me differently
Thoughts as nuclear control rods
I find sometimes I have to turn thinking back on just to control this.
That’s working right now but I’m not quite sure how long that will continue to work.
Buy the ticket
Hst’s guide to spiritual enlightenment
Nizzy quote
Quote from nisargadata: quiet mind, focus on I
Rest happens spontaneously

Self-Inquiry done right?

November 23, 2022

Q: You never had a sense of “I am”? If someone asked you, “do you exist?”, you would have said “no”? If so – or, rather – no matter what your answer – how could you have possibly answered that question, if you had no sense of “I am”? What would you have referenced?  Secondly, who is noticing the “I” spot?

A: In answer to “do you exist” my answer would be Yes. I don’t know what I am but there is something going on here.

I am aware of the feeling of being and feeling of being aware and conscious – and I distinguish the two. Awareness comes first. This feeling of being and being aware and conscious have been the same all my life regardless of the content of the awareness or consciousness. Reading I am That he asks that question and I can confirm that to be true. The feeling of being aware and conscious is the same regardless of the object.

Maybe what your question asks is too subtle of me to pick up on, or maybe I don’t need to.

When I started with inquiry: Who Am I a long time ago it quickly changed to what am I and then I am and then Amness. There was no sense of “I”. I don’t know what that means. Maybe I’m like tom cruise character in the movie Days of thunder – a ‘natural’ race car driver but doesn’t know what all the lingo points to. I never had a living teacher – all this was done on my own with reading and practice such as I could piece together.

Now, I’m writing this after 20+ years of ND study and some practice and few experience.s I don’t know what I would have answered prior to that study. Not trying to be difficult. If you can describe it more precisely I can confirm or deny if that is true for me.

But, really, thank you – the first time anyone has really asked me that. Clearly I’ve been hanging out with the wrong folks!

Yes, there is noticing separation and boundaries and there is usually some form on ongoing narration in my head, though that is lessening.

 

Gary Weber – Brief Background

November 23, 2022

Brief background: I recently started practicing I/Who Am I as described by Ramana Maharshi in his “Who Am I” paper. I’ve had conceptual clarity into Non-Duality (Ram Dass, Tolle, Nisargadatta, Parsons, McKenna, Wolf) for many years and that helped. I have also had awakening experiences. But nothing stuck – they eventually faded. And it was also Mokya, but I did not want to accept that.I think for me that is because I did not have a practice to focus the mind and break the thought stream and nothing was going to change until I learned to do this. While I meditated – really sitting quietly with my thoughts – I “failed mediation 101” and did not force myself to let thoughts go and not follow them and rarely brought them back to point of focus..

Recently I found a way to do that and once I started getting control of the mind and breaking the thought stream, things stared to happen quiet spontaneously. Much old stuff dropped quickly: sadness, anger, worry, fear. In place – coming to foreground was what have always been there – love, compassion, calmness, direct access to deeper knowledge.

Then, finally I started reading Who Am I. Nisargadatta talks about focusing on the “sense of I am” (and still the mind – I kept leaving that bit out) . But I never had a “sense of I am” and so did not know what that meant or how to do it.

Reading Ramana make it very clear – focus on the thought “I” and then other thoughts arise, ask the question “Who Am I” and the mind introverts and I go deeper inside. OK, that I can do.

As I started to do this I noticed – not an answer of course – but became more aware of awareness. A Vast, Vast field that enveloped/contained “me” thoughts, and sensation and “existence”. I would say I was appearing within that field and yet was the field -if that makes sense.

Then I noticed a feeling or “spot’ or “area” in the middle of my head behind the eyes. That is where the thought “I” seemed to be. I could focus attention on I and that spot. Initially could not do this other than in meditation. But then I started to focus attention on that spot while doing activities. While taking the cats for a walk, I found that focusing on the spot of “I” withheld a small amount of attention from the mind-thought generated external world. And while doing that, there was a brief, but noticeable change in the feeling of perception of the external world. It became somewhat ‘flat’, 2-d-ish and plastic-y.

I did have to remember to do it! LOLAnd I could see, per Ramana’s description of end state: Sahaja nirvikalpa, could work this way – eventually all attention is withdrawn from the external world and internal thoughts and resides on the and yet it all works.

Very recently – 2 days ago – I noticed my attention was going to the I thought and spot more easily and eventually without my having to remember to do it. Then the I spot started to feel like a magnet actually pulling my attention there until it was harder and harder to remove it and it just remained focused there without will or choice. That has faded, but may be due to having a severe cold at present. But I could see this as how all this might work.

So, I am looking to check in – make sure I’m not off in the weed, not getting lost in Mokya and am heading in the right direction. Feels correct so far.

This is excellent. Keep looking into this spot. You can call this spot a seat of awareness but it is not the awareness itself because it is observable. Nothing observable can be you, you are what observes. This location however is a chasm of sorts and one can abide there without thought. Keep looking into it actively and then endeavor to see what is looking. In time it will be totally natural and no effort will be needed for the aware presence to remain

 

Thank you. That is what I was looking for. Very helpful. Will Do.

We can talk about “endeavor to see what is looking” later.

For now it draws me and focus is effortless when I remember to do it 😉 though that is easier when external and internal are not so active.

And it can serve to reduce the jarring-ness of the eternal existence. Being at a big box warehouse store here in SoCal (“Costco) ” 2 days before thanksgiving felt like what I imagined walking into a mental energetic firefight would be like. Not good. Even focusing on the spot was not enough to fully ward off the craziness.Walking outdoors and expanding into the vastness helped a lot.

Along with that , I am noticing I am much more sensitive to energy and vibrations. With this arise feelings of non-injury so I’m back to being a vegetarian.

A couple nights a week I awake a couple hours after I got o bed and am up the rest of the night, This is when the practice and feeling of the spot is strongest.

No problems with energy – I am fine the next day. I still have some egoic concerns about what if I can’t function the next day (mind says: “So you can’t do this every night!!!”- but this has not happened since this started 3 weeks ago.) I need to let it come and take advantage of it when it does. Along with intense focus on the seat – I have access to direct knowledge. I recently asked: what is the meaning of life – and “service to others” came back immediately. Excellent – I’m down with that.

Sensitivity and focus are down right now and I’m in a bit of an energetic contraction due to the cold.

 

Inwards and Muscle Building

November 20, 2022

So, my current take:

I can easily focus on the thought “I” in meditation – and there is an feeling of attention going to an area behind my forehead between the eyes – 3rd eye I think – the feeling or sense of the thought I seems to reside there – not sure if this is really true or helpful – I tend to distrust physical manifestations – or at best it might be useful now but have to be dropped later, of course.

At first I couldn’t focus n the sense of I when out of mediation and active, but that sense is now accessible during action, like walking the cats or typing – though it’s tougher.

 

But, there is a sense of some small, yet noticeable amount of attention being withdrawn or held back from the outward external direction of attention – which I think is what makes the external thought-world “feel” solid and real.

And, I can see that over time as more and more attention is pulled away/withheld from thought-based ‘external”  world, that it would be easier to do, more attention would go inward instead of outward and the external world would become less “real” = more like watching a movie.

This is 5% experience and 95 % conceptual – but k  thing that is correct.

So, it just takes time. I’ve spent 60+ years pouring  attention outward and then getting lost in the immersive aspect of perception and thought stream –  – it will take a while to break the inertia.

But it seems doable – like intense exercise to strengthening a muscle. Noting woo woo about it. Breaking a habit learned and honed over time.

Even at 75 mph on the freeway.

I AM – Who Am I -> Infinite Regression

November, 19, 2022

While in meditation, I have started practicing focusing on “sense of I am ” – repeating “I” within my mind and then when thoughts arise, asking where do these thoughts come from : answer is “me” – and then asking “Who Am I”

per Ramana Maharshi’s instructions.Who Am I

“That which arises in the physical body as ‘I’ is the mind. If one inquires whence the ‘I’-thought in the body arises in the first instance, it will be found that it is from hrdayam (literally ‘I am the Heart), or the Heart. That is the source and stay of the mind. Or again, even if one merely continuously repeats to oneself inwardly ‘I-I’ with the entire mind fixed thereon, that also leads one to the same source.

Since every other thought can occur only after the rise of the ‘I’-thought and since the mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts, it is only through the inquiry ‘Who am I?’ that the mind subsides. Moreover, the integral ‘I’-thought, implicit in such enquiry, having destroyed all other thoughts, gets itself destroyed or consumed, just as the stick used for stirring the burning funeral pyre gets consumed.

Even when extraneous thoughts sprout up during such enquiry, do not seek to complete the rising thought, but instead, deeply enquire within, ‘To who has this thought occurred?’ No matter how many thoughts thus occur to you, if you would with acute vigilance enquire immediately as and when each individual thought arises to whom it has occurred, you would find it is to ‘me’. If then you enquire ‘Who am I?’ the mind gets introverted and the rising thought also subsides. In this manner as you persevere more and more in the practice of Self-enquiry, the mind acquires increasing strength and power to abide in its Source.”

I am also working to be aware of awareness “behind” activities when not in meditation – much harder with eyes open – I am very addicted to my sight.

There is awareness of being aware.

If I keep asking what is aware of the awareness there is – conceptually – not experientially – an infinite regression – I do not think that is correct path. But IDK.

I do notice when I am aware of being aware that there appears to be a small place inside my head at approximately the middle-back of my head, a few inches behind the eyes towards the left.

I do notice when I am aware of being aware that there appears to be a small place inside my head at approximately the middle-back of my head, a few inches behind the eyes towards the left. I can focus attention on this and it seems to pull some attention away from “external” things.

Is this worth pursuing or is it Makyo?

Any other suggestions for deepening this practice as described by RM?  – other than sheer practice?

If that is all that is required, fine, but not wanting to get lost in makyo (again).

 

Experiences and insights on non-dual nature can be great.

November 20, 2022

Non-dual awareness and the clarity that comes with it, the understanding there is no separate beings, only the One, and that all this is an illusion are very powerful experiences and insights and realizations.

These insights and experiences are available to all, they don’t belong to any one person, they are shared by us all. Some of us by grace get to access this while alive.

 

And now, the $64k question for those who have had – or are having or will have these experiences and insights:

 

How are you using this profound grace? How are you using the deep insights, capacities, knowledge, new awareness, clarity and stillness to benefit yourself, your family, your friends and your local and global community?

Don’t you think that a spiritual practice and its outcomes/effects should make you a better person and member of the human race? Otherwise, why do it? Don Jan would ask: is this a path with Heart?

 

ND can be an amazing realization. But if we spend too much time on the Wow this is so cool, we may miss the opportunity to put it into practice to improve the lives of ourselves and others.

In the podcast you mention a “Flow Experience”. The definition I use comes from the book “The Logic or Failure”. To paraphrase and add a bit of dramatic embellishment:

 

A flow experience is when a person comes to you who does not have a watch and tells you they need to take medicine at 12:00 sharp or they will die. And now it is 11:45. Instead of telling them when it is 12:00 you launch into a deep explanation of how the clock works. And, lost in the flow experience of explaining how a clock works, you miss the 12:00 time and they don’t take their medicine and they die.

 

Now, there is nothing wrong a with a flow experience – they can be intensely fun for sure – and there is value to bringing awareness to it until it gets in the way.

 

Discussing ND can be like that. We can get so focused on the lingo – which is even weirder than grammar in time travel – that we miss the point – how do we use this gift of knowledge to benefit ourselves and each other. Yes, sure, some validation and agreement of terms, and shared experiences is necessary and beneficial. And then we need to put it into practice in our daily lives.

It reminds me of people who get lost in their practice, like using a canoe to get across a river, and when they get to the other side they should let go of the boat and walk on. But sometimes people get attached to their practice.

 

So, as we work through understanding what ND awareness let’s make sure we also look at how we can use it productively in our lives. I think Chris and Sean are wanting to do that with their podcasts.

 

Some reading for those interested in ND. ND has many facets and expressions.

 

“Awakening to the Dream” by Leo Hartong is one of the best ways to get started. Very approachable and accessible concepts and ideas.

 

If you want to use stillness, awareness and presence to help your day-to-day situation and life, I recommend Eckhart Tolle – “Power of Now” and “ New Earth” and this video on YouTube for a good start: Reality is Beyond Thought. PON was a major step for me and my practice.

 

If you want to dig in and really go deep, deep, deep into nature of consciousness, non-duality and nature of the universe and the Absolute Reality, I suggest Sri Nisargadatta’s “I am That”. Very deep book. When I was reading it I would sometimes spend 1 – 3 days on a single page to digest it.

 

If you think you are interested in Enlightenment – and I am referring to Full Blown Zen, cut your head off and annihilate your ego kind of enlightenment, then I would suggest reading “Spiritual Enlightenment, the Damnedest Thing”, by Jed Mckenna.   A great place to help define what E is – and is not – and what it means to pursue it and the consequences of such a pursuit – which are not always pretty or even what was expected.

 

If you want a break from seeking and to “take a rest”, then Tony Parsons’ The Open Secret can help. His message is so simple, direct and yet powerful, that it is can cause seeking to subside. For some the message of true self is enough and they get the contradiction of the One appearing as a seeker who is seeking and the seeking hides the truth of their being the One.

 

If you want to read a step by step journaled journey of awakening, then look at Franklin Merrill Wolf’s “Pathways through to Space”.

 

If you like physics, check out Goswami’s “The Self-aware Universe”.

 

And last but by no means least, is the classic  book: “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass. This and D.T Suzuki’s books on Zen opened up the entire West to Eastern spiritual ideas and launched millions onto the Path. The book is in three parts – first his brief autobiography, and last a “cookbook” for living a spiritual life. But the core of the book is the message and it’s powerful and well delivered.

I first was turned onto Be Here Now in the md-80s by a friend who was practicing Zazen at the time. I invited him over and he gave me “Be Here Now“ and I gave him his first LSD. I think Ram Dass would appreciate that. So, I’m tripping  – not tripping balls, as I could still read and focus on the words,  but enough –  and I opened the book at “random” and started reading. O the page it said:  “If you are doing LSD right now you are seeing your body dissolve…”
Dang! That just blew me away. I’d known for a long time that one can hold a question in their mind and pull pretty much any book off the shelf and open it and an answer will be there in some form. But to sync into me that closely and clearly? Wow.  I always had a resonance with Ram Dass. I was fortunate to see him many times while he was still alive, and got hugs and even an autographed copy of “Be Here Now” – which fed my spiritual materialism for a time.

 

Hope this helps.  My deep respect, gratitude and appreciation for Chris and Sean for putting this site and podcasts together and putting themselves out there – it can be scary to do so. I’ve been on both sides of that.

 

I have joined their site and will be checking in regularly. I would be happy to answer questions, should any arise.