As long as you believe that only the outer world is real, you remain its slave. To become free, your attention must be drawn to the ‘I am’, the witness. Of course, the knower and the known are one not two, but to break the spell of the known the knower must be brought to the forefront. Neither is primary, both are reflections in memory of the ineffable experience, ever new and ever now, untranslatable, quicker than the mind.
that post just made me feel a lot better for some reason
<3 That sentence is beautiful. “that post just made me feel a lot better for some reason”.. It’s beautiful because YOU are “some reason”
Buddha said: “I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one’s eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.
(Source: 101zenstories.com)
The disciple said to the master one day, “I just don’t understand. I still feel depressed even though I know I’m not the depression. I still feel sucked into the depression. Does self realization cure me of this feeling?”
The master replied: “As long as you take yourself to be someone there will always be problems to be solved. You obviously don’t know you are not the depression because you still state that you feel something. Who feels? What you are is the cause of feelings but it does not feel. You want to cure something but there is nothing to cure. You think you’re in control and that is a disease. Feelings appear on you like the clothes on your back but do you say ‘I am my clothes’? Only in silence will you hear the answers.
Just be and know that you always are. Let go and know that you were never holding on.”
Lucid Dream or OBE?
WHAT DO WE KNOW NOW?
Our two studies have compared the frequency of OBEs in the
two types of lucid dream, and surveyed the relative frequency of
OBEs and dream-related events in a large number of people. We
have thereby learned that when OBEs happen during lucid dreams,
they generally happen in lucid dreams that arise from brief
awakenings in REM sleep, and that people who have certain special
dream experiences are more likely to have OBEs that people who do
not. These dream experiences include returning to the dream state
after an awakening, lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis.
Above we described our operating theory that OBEs occur
when people lose input from their sense organs, as happens at the
onset of sleep, while retaining consciousness. This combination
of events is especially likely when a person passes directly from
waking into REM sleep. In both states the mind is alert and
active, but in waking it is processing sensory input from the
outside world, while in dreaming it is creating a mental model
independent of sensory input. This model includes a body. When
dreaming, we generally experience ourselves in a body much like
the "real" one, because that is what we are used to. However, our
internal senses in the physical body, which when we are awake
inform us about our position in space and the movement of our
limbs. This information is cut off in REM sleep. Therefore, we
can dream of doing all kinds of things with our dream bodies --
flying, dancing, running from monsters, being dismembered -- all
while our physical bodies lie safely in bed.
~Lynne Levitan and Stephen LaBerge
