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Do you believe it is possible to experience a state of pure awareness?

Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
Indira said:
Have you used the visualization technic of the Tree of Energy Flow? Or something similar? I have used this meditation technic for over 25 years and it has become quite beneficial, as it helps to bring the flow of energy into harmony.
Click to expand...
I've never heard of that one.

Being an ecstatic and synaesthete, I long ago learned that most communicable techniques out there belong to transcendentalism and are ill suited to the basic structure of my mind.

I still like to hear about them, though. Would you mind sharing?
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
FunctionalAthiest said:
Imprecisly! Ultimately observable (directly or indirectly) and understandable in terms of natural phenomena (no magic, miracle, or super-nature).
Click to expand...
Is it fair to infer that you then classify anything incomprehensible to current science as supernatural?

If so, I have to ask why.
 
Indira

Indira

Member
Here's one..it works with both sides of the brain and helps bring the flow of energy into harmony.



"In the beginning of the animation there is a tree with naked branches without leaves. The trunk of the tree is in a form of a human DNA string. When following the images in the visualization technique imagine your body as the tree. The technique starts with an image of leafless tree, standing on a hill with a frozen lake beneath it (the lake of your frozen potential). The rays of sun reach the crown of the tree and go through the tree to give warmth to the ground and roots of the tree. The warmth from the sun rays allows the roots to breathe in the underground water and breathe out through the green leaves that appear. The tree becomes essential part of the Photosynthesis process. It breathes in the rays of sun (just like our human body does) which go through the tree and help to turn the ice beneath the roots into water and breathes the water out through the tree leaves. This process goes on until the underground ice turns into water and the sun comes out from the above to greet the tree.

The sudden rooster scream helps the human brain to shift into an impulse mode and send the images, that hopefully were created in the mind by following the visualization meditation technique, to your subconscious mind or as some call higher levels of consciousness. The sharp sound pin points the visualization on the energy Field and the right brain receives a symbolic process map of how energy should be flowing through the body (or DNA cells). This technique uses all four elements – Earth, Water, Fire and Air to help the energy flow through the fifth element – the tree of life."
Read more at Powerful Visualization Technique With a Kick to Save Meditation Time - Expanded Consciousness
 
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Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
Indira said:
Here's one..it works with both sides of the brain and helps bring the flow of energy into harmony.



"In the beginning of the animation there is a tree with naked branches without leaves. The trunk of the tree is in a form of a human DNA string. When following the images in the visualization technique imagine your body as the tree. The technique starts with an image of leafless tree, standing on a hill with a frozen lake beneath it (the lake of your frozen potential). The rays of sun reach the crown of the tree and go through the tree to give warmth to the ground and roots of the tree. The warmth from the sun rays allows the roots to breathe in the underground water and breathe out through the green leaves that appear. The tree becomes essential part of the Photosynthesis process. It breathes in the rays of sun (just like our human body does) which go through the tree and help to turn the ice beneath the roots into water and breathes the water out through the tree leaves. This process goes on until the underground ice turns into water and the sun comes out from the above to greet the tree.

The sudden rooster scream helps the human brain to shift into an impulse mode and send the images, that hopefully were created in the mind by following the visualization meditation technique, to your subconscious mind or as some call higher levels of consciousness. The sharp sound pin points the visualization on the energy Field and the right brain receives a symbolic process map of how energy should be flowing through the body (or DNA cells). This technique uses all four elements – Earth, Water, Fire and Air to help the energy flow through the fifth element – the tree of life."
Read more at Powerful Visualization Technique With a Kick to Save Meditation Time - Expanded Consciousness
Click to expand...
I can see how that would be powerful to many.

Although re: the link title, anyone who prioritizes 'saving meditation time' needs to revisit basics like "why are you even doing this" before tackling the technique. UGH.
 
Nakosis

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Gambit said:
Do you believe it is possible to experience a state of pure awareness? That is, do you believe it is possible to experience a state of consciousness in which awareness is only aware of itself?

Note: I am not asking you if it is possible to experience self-awareness.
Click to expand...

It's difficult. If you consider 6 senses, it is difficult to shut down external perception. Then there is nothing else to be aware of other than self.

It'd be interesting to have access to a deprivation tank. That basically shut down five of you senses. The sixth, the perception of thinking. You'd have to learn some meditation technique for that.

So you shut it all down and find out what is left to be aware of.

I wonder if we could consider the sense of self as a seventh perception. You can even shut that down and then there is Sunyata. No identity, nothing to anchor awareness on. No sense of time or space, no separation, no oreintation. What is awareness when there in nothing to be aware of?

If you lose your sense of self, will you be able to find it again? How do you create something from nothing?

When you free yourself from perceptions you begin to question the reality of those perceptions. If you free yourself from self I'd suspect you begin to question the reality of your self as well.
 
Indira

Indira

Member
Storm said:
I can see how that would be powerful to many.

Although re: the link title, anyone who prioritizes 'saving meditation time' needs to revisit basics like "why are you even doing this" before tackling the technique. UGH.
Click to expand...
LOL..i see your point but they are only words..i am sure people have their own reasons for using this technic. I know mine aren't for expediency as i do what works for me and have time. I hope you might give it a try so you'll know for yourself if it's of value to your practice. The simplistic nature of it makes it easy to master, btw. Blessings of Joy
 
Rick O'Shez

Rick O'Shez

Irishman bouncing off walls
Storm said:
True, which makes me think 'passionate' is a better word. I've never been so disciplined as that....
Click to expand...

Inspiration is certainly important, getting the emotions involved. I think of meditation practice a bit like doing a daily run to get physical fitter, you start small but gradually build up stamina so you can go further and further....sort of like that. ;)
Some effort or application is initially involved but then it becomes really enjoyable.
 
viole

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
Indira said:
Have you used the visualization technic of the Tree of Energy Flow? Or something similar? I have used this meditation technic for over 25 years and it has become quite beneficial, as it helps to bring the flow of energy into harmony.
Click to expand...

The flow of energy into harmony? You mean energy like we measure it in calories or electronvolts?

If not, what do you mean with that?

Ciao

- viole
 
mystic64

mystic64

nolonger active
Gambit said:
I'm simply asking if it is possible to experience of state of consciousness in which awareness is aware of ONLY itself.
Click to expand...

The state of being that you are talking about is when you become the pure observer that is not observing anything. You have no attachment to the observed and no awareness of self but that the observer exists as a conscious moment. Pure observer with no baggage :) . From there you can step outside of the box (that that we perceive as creation) and explore the reality that is outside of creation, or you can reenter creation as an "enlightened", or you can shut yourself totally off and ceast to exist.
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
Indira said:
LOL..i see your point but they are only words..i am sure people have their own reasons for using this technic. I know mine aren't for expediency as i do what works for me and have time.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I just get annoyed when people try to mass market things they clearly don't appreciate.

I hope you might give it a try so you'll know for yourself if it's of value to your practice. The simplistic nature of it makes it easy to master, btw. Blessings of Joy
Click to expand...
I'm a tactile synaesthete. Any visualization is difficult to the point of being counterproductive, as it requires such intense effort simply to conjure the image that I can't spare the distraction of meditating upon it. Still, there are several bits I might adapt.
 
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Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
Spiny Norman said:
Inspiration is certainly important, getting the emotions involved. I think of meditation practice a bit like doing a daily run to get physical fitter, you start small but gradually build up stamina so you can go further and further....sort of like that. ;)
Some effort or application is initially involved but then it becomes really enjoyable.
Click to expand...
Actually, that's the sort of thing I meant by discipline. I love to move, and who doesn't want to be fit? Still, I can't stick to an exercise regime because I find it joyless and boring. OTOH, given half a chance, I'll be in a dojo or a dance studio every day.

To my mind, discipline is difficult precisely because it strips the passion from inspiration. "Yeah, that's great, you should do that. But first you have to do something completely different that you don't enjoy one bit for a really long time."
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
FunctionalAthiest said:
No. The only thing ultimatly incomprehensible to science is the erroneous belief in things ultimately incomprehensible to science.
Click to expand...
LOL... Do you get the sense that you and I talk past each other a LOT?

Why don't we start by defining supernatural?

I always understood it as 'unbound by and capable of superseding natural law.'
 
FunctionalAtheist

FunctionalAtheist

Hammer of Reason
Storm said:
LOL... Do you get the sense that you and I talk past each other a LOT?

Why don't we start by defining supernatural?

I always understood it as 'unbound by and capable of superseding natural law.'
Click to expand...
LOL. I would say your definition is a decent start if we are to entertain the concept. But it leads to a circular reference.

Then I would point out that natural laws are not so much bounds and limits, as they are descriptions. If I put a fence around 640 acres, I have created a boundary. Natural laws are more like a river. I use the 'natural' phenomena to describe the limit that exists. My neighbor can jump the fence, but they cannot ford the river.

If something could supersede a natural law, then it wouldn't be a natural law. If we observe phenomena A to violate natural law B, then there are 2 possibilities;

A is not natural, or
B is not a natural law (or is out of context or incomplete).

If I accept A is not natural, then I am assuming 1) that my knowledge of nature is complete (i.e. there is no need to rethink my understanding of the natural law) and 2) even though my knowledge of nature is complete I have something I can't explain. Seems a bit lazy.

If I accept B is not a natural law then I am assuming that I have more to learn about nature.

NOW

Do we agree that sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch are limited to natural phenomena? Even 100 years ago it may have been very easy to lack any natural understanding of the senses. But we know what light and sound waves are. We know how smell, taste, and touch work. There is no evidence that anything other than natural phenomena can be sensed. Numerous claims to the contrary have without exception been debunked or failed any documentable repeatability.

Do we agree that anything that affects the human individual, species, or condition, has an effect. Any effect must be observable, measurable even, or it's not an effect by definition. Anything that cannot be measured, observed, or sensed in some way, has no affect.

NOW

When considering any unexplained observation, we can ascribe X = any part that is understood and (Y+Z) any part that is not understood; where Y is any part that may be attributed to a natural explaination and Z is any part that may be attributed to a supernatural explaination.

So the explanation E, is = X + (Y+Z)

There is not a single E where Z cannot be set to 0 by assuming I have more to learn;
There is not a single E where Z is anything other than 0 unless I assume my knowledge of nature is complete, yet IDKWTF is going on

I.e. an appeal to supernatural requires both unlimited arrogance in my own knowledge AND resignation to my own ignorance.

Now just because Z = 0 in any E does not mean there is no supernatural. But it does mean that IFF there is a supernature it is meaningless in the natural world.

Thanks for the opportunity to sort out some of my recent thoughts.
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
FunctionalAthiest said:
LOL. I would say your definition is a decent start if we are to entertain the concept. But it leads to a circular reference.

Then I would point out that natural laws are not so much bounds and limits, as they are descriptions. If I put a fence around 640 acres, I have created a boundary. Natural laws are more like a river. I use the 'natural' phenomena to describe the limit that exists. My neighbor can jump the fence, but they cannot ford the river.

If something could supersede a natural law, then it wouldn't be a natural law. If we observe phenomena A to violate natural law B, then there are 2 possibilities;

A is not natural, or
B is not a natural law (or is out of context or incomplete).

If I accept A is not natural, then I am assuming 1) that my knowledge of nature is complete (i.e. there is no need to rethink my understanding of the natural law) and 2) even though my knowledge of nature is complete I have something I can't explain. Seems a bit lazy.

If I accept B is not a natural law then I am assuming that I have more to learn about nature.

NOW

Do we agree that sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch are limited to natural phenomena? Even 100 years ago it may have been very easy to lack any natural understanding of the senses. But we know what light and sound waves are. We know how smell, taste, and touch work. There is no evidence that anything other than natural phenomena can be sensed. Numerous claims to the contrary have without exception been debunked or failed any documentable repeatability.

Do we agree that anything that affects the human individual, species, or condition, has an effect. Any effect must be observable, measurable even, or it's not an effect by definition. Anything that cannot be measured, observed, or sensed in some way, has no affect.

NOW

When considering any unexplained observation, we can ascribe X = any part that is understood and (Y+Z) any part that is not understood; where Y is any part that may be attributed to a natural explaination and Z is any part that may be attributed to a supernatural explaination.

So the explanation E, is = X + (Y+Z)

There is not a single E where Z cannot be set to 0 by assuming I have more to learn;
There is not a single E where Z is anything other than 0 unless I assume my knowledge of nature is complete, yet IDKWTF is going on

I.e. an appeal to supernatural requires both unlimited arrogance in my own knowledge AND resignation to my own ignorance.

Now just because Z = 0 in any E does not mean there is no supernatural. But it does mean that IFF there is a supernature it is meaningless in the natural world.

Thanks for the opportunity to sort out some of my recent thoughts.
Click to expand...
Delicious irony....

From this, I'm confident that we agree completely on the concept despite The fact that I see your articulation as circular, by conceptualizing the natural as the understood. To borrow your fence analogy, what we've pieced together thus far (science) is the 640 acres, whereas 'natural law' is the whole damned solar system.

To state it plain, ghosts exists, the fact that science can't (yet) explain them does not justify calling them supernatural, to my mind.

But I think, with those differences acknowledged, the ideas behind the opposed articulations are near identical.
 
Indira

Indira

Member
viole said:
The flow of energy into harmony? You mean energy like we measure it in calories or electronvolts?

If not, what do you mean with that?

Ciao

- viole
Click to expand...
Hummm...never met anyone who wanted to measure it..
Hard to describe but i would say life force..the natural innate reason we get out of bed everyday and the energy that spurs us on to be the best we can be. It can grow or dissipate according to how we nurture it with beneficial positive actions or with negative self abusive actions.
 
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