I-AM, I-I And Anatta

Jackson Peterson:

Intellectual realization of anatta or "no-self" is not the same as what occurs when the subconscious mind ceases to project a self-entity. It is not that "you" just don't understand the concept of there being no personal self and that once "you" understand that there is no actual self entity, that the self-entity projection ceases. It usually doesn't, yet the person says "I realized anatta".

The "self" belief is not something that can be figured out or understood intellectually as a means of self-liberation. Its not a product of surface consciousness. It comes from the same place that our dreams that we have at night, come from. Its a place beneath volitional awareness or consciousness, that's why I say "sub-conscious".

Like when the mind mistakes a piece of rope in a dark room to be a snake, when the lights go on, the snake is no longer projected by the mind and the adrenalin levels go back to normal automatically. You didn't have to apply logic or think about it. The valid "snake" idea just disappeared. The subconscious mind ceased projecting the whole idea of a snake into consciousness. 

Likewise we can expose the entire mind, as the subconscious is always present under the surface, to information or experiences that reveal that the "self" belief is not correct. This is like turning the lights on in the darkened room, but in this case we may call it "en-lighten-ment" or "illumination". 

This can happen and it does happen. It has happened to everyone that had a valid "awakening" or "enlightenment" experience. Suddenly the self-entity projection ceases and in that moment there is "no one", but there is not just a blank left in its place, although the sense of transparent "absence" is exquisite! Like the presence of absence, or the absence of presence... or perhaps we bring in the term emptiness, emptiness of self. No one realized anything as the that someone just vanished. But there is instead, a wisdom that is not possessed by a "someone", it belongs to the emptiness, not to the self.

I call this wisdom condition the "unestablished" as it can't be conceptually established one way or the other. To talk about "non-dual" experience has nothing to do with this wisdom as such concepts as "non-dual" or "oneness" don't even arise. 

Until this sudden and total falling away of the self projection occurs, the wisdom of the "other shore" will never arise, only intellectual approximations. There is no one to benefit from this "falling away" or cessation, that someone has suddenly vanished.

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Jackson Peterson: It interesting that for many like Byron Katie and Katie Davis, the self entity just dropped away spontaneously and neither had studied Buddhism or any spiritual teachings previously. It just happened. Similar events happened for Tony Parson's and Eckhardt Tolle. The same thing happened here but it was an unexpected event that did occur during my days of spiritual endeavor concerning the topic of "no self". Something just clicked suddenly deep within my mind and the subconscious just ceased the "me" or self projection. I can't tell you what the magic button was, but somewhere in there the lights went on and when the mind saw its projection was false and its automaticity ceased. Its kind of like realizing during your dream that you are dreaming and the dream just disappears and you are left awake without the dream.

April 20 at 5:54am · Like · 2

Ville Räisänen: Jackson, confusing again  I recognize exactly what you speak of. When sub-consciouss ceases to project self entitity it leads to impersonality. There is no person, no Ville. When you look yourself from the mirror there is no identification at all. That's all what it is  This can happen through investigation, no need to wait somekind of spontanious magic button. And yes, when investigated, it leads to cessation that can be only a little moment or longer complete crash down of consciouss experience. This impersonality is so called I AM. There is only "some-one", not two, a certainty of just being. The "Advaita realization" so to speak. And when this is done, it needs never to come back to. No person, fine, let''s move on!

This I AM can eventually or very quickly lead to a belief of Self, true self, awareness as basis, "here", "this", "now", being", whatever you call it, if you don't investigate the next layer. What is awareness? A thing or conditions arising? Was the person that is no longer here a thing or conditions arising? If the person is gone, who's typing? Was it really a thing? So, is there in the seen only the seen? 

April 20 at 8:46am · Like

Soh: Some Christians also experience impersonality but without realizing the I AM... they will say something like they are being lived by the higher power or Christ. But there is no I AM realization involved or the complete certainty of one's very existence or consciousness. And some who realized I AM may not experience the deconstruction of personality yet... so they are not exactly the same but can be complemented. Impersonality however is not non-duality and not anatta.

April 20 at 8:54am · Edited · Like · 4

Greg Goode: Jackson's post did not mention an "I AM," and didn't entail it either. He was talking about a realization anterior to the "I AM," something more basic and profound. When this kind of dismantling happens, there occurs no sensible way to speak about it. That is why people can sometimes talk funny "afterwards." Stuff like "it happened here," which when you think about it, is still pretty much the same as "it happened to me" or "this form." There are still certain indexical or deictic terms being treated as special, drawing attention, such as "this" being privileged over "that." That is one reason I am in favor of plain language, which is less mystifying, and less apt to go off on tangents... 

No conceptuality can by itself force or cause falling away to happen, but there are many paths that employ conceptual resources along the way.

Speaking in an everyday way, I would nevertheless say that even intellectual, conceptual, incomplete insights can be helpful in makin life more pleasant and manageable. They do not transcend life or individuality or separation, but they make it more user-friendly. The biggest danger of course is to take the conceptual for the non-conceptual, the partial for the whole, the incomplete for the complete. I agree with Jackson here, that many paths or personal interpretations go astray in this way, landing on some form if conceptuality as if it were final.....

April 20 at 9:52am via mobile · Edited · Like · 3

Jackson Peterson: Ville Räisänen, I did not discuss "I am" as a remainder. I have never described "I am" as something known here. Its an "unestablished" absence of entity of any kind. Yet an Intelligence is ceaselessly present and presenting. This intelligence exists at every level of experience, its a dynamic energizer that drives self-organizing principles at every level of hierarchy. Its the creative plenum out of which all appearances appear perhaps at magnitudes beneath the Planck Scale. Buddha attributes are embedded in this Ground. I wouldn't call it a Self nor an "I am", but rather that innermost space from which the universe pours forth from, the "no place", "no when" of the "big bang". We and everything we think or do is its expression. There is no choice or free will at any level. The activity is embedded within just "the seen and just the heard". No one is doing the "seeing and hearing". But the Intelligence of the Void Plenum makes itself known through consciousness, and unmistakenly so as Satori or Rigpa. There is also a reflexive feedback that represents creative response. Brief glimpses until the surface collapses into the Depth from which it arose. We live on the tip of an iceberg that is floating in a bottomless sea. Yet its all right here, right now not beneath or behind, but within the fabric of experience itself. But the Intelligence is the Reality that drives it all from within the all.

April 20 at 9:55am via mobile · Like · 1

Jackson Peterson: Greg Goode, you said it better than me! You are not allowed to do that!  

Greg actually made my view perfectly clear, exacto mundo! Thanks Greg! Well done! 

April 20 at 9:59am via mobile · Like

Jackson Peterson: Funny, Greg Goode posted his post in response to Ville while I was still writing mine.., lol

April 20 at 10:03am via mobile · Like

Greg Goode: Hah! As for the I-AM, it is not an inevitable stage or artifact in every path. Ramana talks about it as a precursor to I-I-I, and I think Nisargadatta talks about it too on the way to the Beyond. But the Atmanandan direct path does not have that stage. It has stages on either side of it, something less subtle, and then something more subtle. And in all the Madhyalmika and Western philosophical. scientific and psychological texts I've read, it is not mentioned either. I think the I AM is an issue for Ramana and Niz-influenced journeys. Other journeys of course have other issues....

April 20 at 10:16am via mobile · Like · 1

Din Robinson: i don't know what you guys are talking about, i don't see the point in getting involved in ANY idea or point of view or even any insight anymore, it's all just water under the bridge anyway, isn't it? 

April 20 at 10:38am · Edited · Like

Greg Goode: Din, I respect your point of view! .

April 20 at 10:57am via mobile · Like · 2

Ville Räisänen: Yes, thank you Jackson and Gregg for pointing the I AM mistake. Sorry about that, won't use it anymore But, I said: "When sub-consciouss ceases to project self entitity it leads to impersonality. There is no person, no Ville. When you look yourself from the mirror there is no identification at all."

Jackson, is this right or not? Is this what you mean by no entity? If no entity realization is anterior to I AM, what else it can be than no person, deconstruction of personal self? What else entity is there than the person? If I have it wrong, which is very much possible, please explain me clearly how.

Jackson you say: "unestablished absemce of entity". Then you say: "...but rather that innermost space from which the universe pours forth from, the "no place", "no when" of the "big bang."

No matter how fine tuned your language is, if universe pours out of "innermost space", I just can't see the real difference between things come from somekind of I. Sorry about that, I'm little stupid this way  if you ask me, things arise from empty manifest, not from any inner space.

In my understanding "Buddha attributes" are so called Brahmaviharas. "According to the Metta Sutta, Shākyamuni Buddha held that cultivation of the four immeasurables has the power to cause the practitioner to be reborn into a Brahma realm." Are these the Buddha atrributes that you mean Jackson or do you mean something else? Is there even more "ultimate" Buddha atrributes?

i respect you everybody too and I'm sorry if my language is hars. I just want clear and understandable answers so I just keep on going until things get clear 

April 20 at 11:06am · Like · 2

Kyle Dixon: At any rate, (being that this op is reposted from the orher thread) I don't think anyone ever suggested that an intellectual understanding of anything is on par with the direct experience. For the record though, anatta can certainly be brought on via analytical cessation. There are many roads to Rome.

April 20 at 11:31am via mobile · Like

Jackson Peterson: Ville Räisänen, instead of a "self" there is an alert center-less knowingness. It has no history, name or karma. Thoughts arise and release but nothing is reified as the "reifier" is absent. Its a transparent state that is endowed with wisdom as required. Action flows from the wisdom instead of the dualistic mind. The Buddha attributes are the dynamics of primordial wisdom and are like the rainbow colors that appear when light hits a prism or crystal. When the Light of wisdom arises, the permanent attributes arise automatically. The main attributes are compassion, wisdom and empowered action. 

Quantum physics would not say that the universe arose from an "I" or Self. They would say it arose from a unique dimensionless singularity. That works for me, except I am adding a component of "self-organizing" intelligence to the primordial mix that pervades all energetic phenomena. Our unique phenomena is being a consciousness and that consciousness can access this primordial intelligence within itself. None of it requires a Self or an "I am". Its rather like the wetness that is intrinsic to water.

April 20 at 12:11pm via mobile · Like · 1

Din Robinson: ok Greg, so you respect my point of view but the question may be, do you share my point of view, if not, then maybe you're right my point of view (or any point of view) may simply be more water under the bridge 

or perhaps you have another reason?

April 20 at 12:25pm · Like

Jackson Peterson: Lets cut through the crap! We argue whether there is a "no self", a Self, an Awareness, a no-awareness, what rigpa is or isn't etc. in Buddhism from all traditions we attempt to realize the Mind of a Buddha. We recognize that we are a Buddha. I recognize I am a Buddha. I recognize you are all Buddhas, already. What do Buddhas do different than you? Nothing. You are Buddhas pretending to be sentient beings trying to realize Buddhahood. If you weren't a Buddha now, you couldn't become one in the future. The Buddha is an unchanging status. Dogen makes this point very clear. Whatever you do, positive or negative or neutral, everything is flowing from the Buddha Nature, even ignorance. Simply recognize that you are a Buddha now. Any doubts to the contrary... cut them off. Recognize your true nature right now. Who is it that is reading this? Who is it that is thinking about this? If you conclude that you aren't the one from who all of this is flowing, then cut that thought off too! There is only you being you. No one else is being you. See this in the deepest level of your consciousness as you observe how you create you.

April 20 at 3:17pm via mobile · Like · 1

Greg Goode: Din, you originally said " i don't see the point in getting involved in ANY idea or point of view or even any insight anymore"

That is one point of view among many. I like lots of points of view, and one of them that I like is that we can talk about a point of view without being INVOLVED IN a point of view. So in that way I agree with your point of view. But I like to retain the freedom to talk about this and that. Or nothing. Or nachos or bicycles. 

Another way to look at it would be like this. If Ramana were teaching and came up with a quote from the Upanishads, and you walked by and heard it, would you pop your head in and say " i don't see the point in getting involved in ANY idea or point of view or even any insight anymore" Would you go into a dharma center and say the same thing? Is there no way that these teachings can exist and be circulated without involvement?

April 20 at 3:44pm · Edited · Like · 3

Kyle Dixon: There is a difference between recognition and decision though, and it is important to be clear about that. Simply deciding that one is a Buddha is not equivalent to actually recognizing one's nature. Direct experiential recognition is the key. 

I personally wouldn't say one is a 'buddha pretending to be a sentient being trying to realize buddhahood', in my opinion, being steeped in, and wrought with confusion is not the same as pretending. Pretending is very light hearted, there are no problems in pretending because it is a voluntary activity, one can stop pretending when one wants to and the charade is thereby discontinued. On the other hand, delusion and ignorance is involuntary, and the implications are monumental, suffering, confusion, affliction and so on. Ignorance is being unaware that one is lost and so it isn't as light hearted as pretending, but is a heavy burden to bear. All in all though we are each free to express ourselves how we'd like and so to each their own. 

The most important point is to be aware of the implications of non-recognition, because while it could be said 'one is a buddha pretending to be a sentient being'... without recognition, one is nothing more than a sentient being pretending to be a buddha. Which is much worse. The latter is akin to mistaking vomit for nectar. 

"Listen to me. If you are asked what the difference is between the mind of the truly perfected Buddha and the mind of sentient beings of the three realms, it is nothing other than the difference between realizing and not realizing the nature of mind. Since sentient beings fail to realize this nature, delusion occurs and from this ignorance the myriad types of sufferings come to pass. Thus beings roam through samsara. The basic material of buddhahood is in them, but they fail to recognize it."

- Padmasambhava

April 20 at 4:09pm · Edited · Like · 1

Jackson Peterson: We are never less than a Buddha. The rest is just day dreaming otherwise. Check it out... You are a day dreaming Buddha. There is no such thing as an "afflicted being", outside of day dreaming there is. An "afflicted being" is an emanation not a source or decision maker.

April 20 at 4:12pm · Like · 1

Kyle Dixon: Buddhahood must be recognized or realized. The fact that our innate nature is that of a buddha doesn't matter at all unless it's discovered.

If a child is a brilliant guitarist, but lives in an area of the world where there are no guitars, the fact that his talent is latent within him makes no difference. Until he encounters a guitar, picks it up and learns to play, unleashing that potential... the fact that he indeed has potential to be a great guitarist is nothing more than a latent possibility.

Likewise, all beings are endowed with buddha nature, but for the child who lives in circumstances where there is no access to teachings, the fact that his buddhahood is latent within him makes no difference. Until he encounters the dharma, learns how to apply it in his own experience and unleashes that potential... the fact that he indeed has potential to be a fully awakened buddha is nothing more than a latent possibility. 

One's buddha nature, is a potentiality which is latent within them, it must be either recognized or cultivated. Milk has butter nature, the butter is latent within the milk as a possibility, however unless the milk is churned, no butter will result.

April 20 at 4:32pm · Like · 2

Stian Gudmundsen Høiland: Jackson, I wonder what the point is of emphasizing that one is already a Buddha. Does it serve a purpose — and if it does: what is that purpose? — or is it just mental masturbation?

Or is there another reason not mentioned here?

April 20 at 4:38pm via mobile · Like

Soh: Hi Greg, it is important to note that what I call "I AM Realization" is not related to the 'I thought' in other traditions.

As I wrote previously:

Hi Malcolm, I agree completely with "Any self identification is a form of ma rig pa dualism."

As I understand the term "I AM" is not only absent in Dzogchen, it is in fact, absent in all or most forms of Buddhism as far as I know (perhaps the closest equivalent term would be 'self-nature', or 'true self' in those influenced by Tathagatagarbha teachings). In the early teachings in fact term "I AM" is equated with asmi mana or the conceit of I AM being one of the fetters removed in arahantship.

However, the term "I AM" that I am using is more closely linked with the Advaita tradition, and even they may have slightly differing terminologies (I think "I AM" is used more in early upanishads). I used the term as coined by Thusness himself. It is not aham, or the 'I thought' either - it is rather that when aham or 'I thought' has dissolved and what's revealed as pure consciousness (or luminous clarity), which is then called the "Self" in Advaita but it is not aham and is non-conceptual.

In Buddhism/Dzogchen/etc luminous clarity is never equated with an "I" as that could all too easily lend into the Advaitic kind of reification... but I am simply using the term "I AM realization" here as a term to denote a direct realization of coming face to face with "Awareness" or "unconditioned luminous clarity" or whatever you want to call it. It's just a realization of that luminosity directly without intermediary. In that moment of what I call "I AM realization" there is in fact no I AM-idenfication, no being, no subject-object duality, no concepts, emotions or thought.... instead there is complete stillness, and there is complete certainty and doubtlessness about one's presence of knowingness. However due to lack of clarity on its empty nature after the realization, a subtle identification may form as discovering the luminous clarity does not imply the realization of emptiness.

April 20 at 4:45pm · Like · 3

Greg Goode: Soh, so yours is a local coinage. Ramana talks about it as one of the names for God, and it isn't as subtle as the "I-I" for him:

Ramana on I AM:

'I am' is the name of God. Of all the definitions of God, none is so well put as the biblical statement 'I am that I am' in Exodus chapter three. There are other statements such as brahmavaiham [Brahman am I], aham brahmasmi [I am Brahman] and soham [I am He]. But none is so direct as Jehovah [which means] 'I am'.(5) 

Ramana on I-I, which is an experience, not a claim:

Where this 'I' vanished and merged in its source, there appears spontaneously and continuously an 'I-I'. This is the Heart, the infinite Supreme Being. (Upadesa Saram, verse 20)

....

In Advaita, there is just no getting away from the "I" at the center of things!

April 20 at 5:07pm · Edited · Like · 2

Stian Gudmundsen Høiland: Greg, am I understanding correctly that Ramana's I AM is "the stick that stirs the fire and is eventually consumed by it"? And that what remains after the dissolvement of I AM is I-I? Another word for I AM in this terminology is the Witness?

April 20 at 5:08pm via mobile · Like

Greg Goode: Stian, this gets complicated by different registers of expression. The I-AM for Ramana contains the seeds of a propositional claim, "I am God," I am THAT," or the one that is taken to trump the others, "I am that I am." There is always a kind of object at the end. So it's not so subtle. But the I-I is a pure objectless outflow. And this being Advaita, there is always the I. Even my own Advaita sat-guru Sri Atmananda likens global awareness, our true nature, to the "I-principle," and he likens it to light shining in its own glory. The final orthodox realization in that path is as pure objectless consciousness. But then there is a sort of secret, surprising, unorthodox turn, when all that stuff falls away as no longer needed. That is not well known in that path, and not many talk about it. But it is there, and my book talks about it from a modern angle. 

But when people from Ramana's path talk about Ramana or a sage in reference to a body, they talk about "witnessing" what happens to one's body, as when cancer affected Ramana's body. 

So the level of expression happening at the moment is important to keep in mind when someone is trying to figure out states and stages based on hearing various slogans....

April 20 at 5:22pm · Edited · Like · 2

Soh: Hi Greg, as I see it, what I call "I AM" is in fact Ramana's I-I.

In some instances Ramana seems to refer to "I AM" as an experience, so it isn't so clear to me and he may switch terms based on context:

"Samadhi alone can reveal the truth. Thoughts cast a veil over reality, and so it is not realized as such in states other than samadhi. In samadhi there is only the feeling `I am' and no thoughts. The experience of `I am' is `being still'."

April 20 at 5:23pm · Like

Soh: But for myself I would even go on to distinguish between an "experience" and "realization" (point 1 in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/09/realization-and-experience-and-non-dual.html)

Awakening to Reality: Realization and Experience and Non-Dual Experience from Different Perspectives

awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com

April 20 at 5:23pm · Like · Remove Preview

Greg Goode: For Ramana, I-I is more subtle than I-AM. And for Nisargadatta, the "I am" is a sense, used as a tool to take him farther. I think there are some different senses and levels to these. You use it one way. Ramana and Nisargadatta use it another way. I don't use it at all, even in Advaita.... Here is Nisargadatta on the "I am":

"My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously

and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best 

to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I 

realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did 

was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. 

This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the 

mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound. "

April 20 at 5:31pm · Like · 3

Soh: Agreed, terms can be confusing and there is no universal language across for these stuff... we should be careful otherwise there is all kinds of false projection of what others mean when they talk about "I AM", "I-I", "emptiness" and so on.

April 20 at 5:36pm · Edited · Like · 6

Soh 2007:

(9:12 PM) Thusness: u don't think that "I AMness" is low stage of enligthenment leh

(9:12 PM) Thusness: the experience is the same.

(9:12 PM) Thusness: it is just the clarity.

(9:12 PM) Thusness: in terms of insight.

(9:13 PM) Thusness: not experience.

(9:13 PM) AEN: icic..

(9:13 PM) Thusness: so a person that has experience "I AMness" and non dual is the same.

(9:13 PM) Thusness: except the insight is different.

(9:13 PM) Thusness: non dual is every moment there is the experience of presence.

(9:14 PM) Thusness: or the insight into the every moment experience of presence.

(9:14 PM) Thusness: because what that prevent that experience is the illusion of self.

(9:14 PM) Thusness: and "I AM" is that distorted view.

(9:14 PM) Thusness: the experience is the same leh.

(9:14 PM) AEN: icic..

(9:15 PM) Thusness: din u see i always say there is nothing wrong with that experience to longchen, jonls...

(9:15 PM) Thusness: i only say it is skewed towards the thought realm.

(9:15 PM) Thusness: so don't differentiate but know what is the problem.

(9:16 PM) Thusness: I always say it is misinterpretation of the experience of presence.

(9:16 PM) Thusness: not the experience itself.

(9:16 PM) Thusness: but "I AMness" prevents us from seeing.

April 20 at 5:43pm · Like · 3

Din Robinson: Greg, what i would agree with is that you can retain your freedom to express any point of view without really being INVOLVED in it, in the same way that i'm at the point that i recognize i don't feel the need to be INVOLVED in any idea or perception, i just seem to be at the point of just letting it all be what it is without any need to understand or define, maybe i've gone back to my childhood 

April 20 at 7:10pm · Like · 1

Greg Goode: I'll join you there!

April 20 at 7:14pm · Like · 1

Joel Agee: Greg, speaking of Ramana's "I-I," you said: "In Advaita, there is just no getting away from the 'I' at the center of thngs!" Yet here is a statement of Ramana's: "In the Self there is no 'I'-thought, there is no mind, and there are no thoughts." Can you explain the apparent contradiction?

April 20 at 9:44pm · Like

Joel Agee: Or is "I-I" his name for an experience that is not shaped by language, not of the mind?

April 20 at 9:46pm · Like

Greg Goode: No contradiction. Ramana said in the what? In the Self (even capitalized). Atmananda calls the Self the true I or the "I principle." So sure, the I thought is not the Self. When the I thought is not there, the true I, the Self is what is discovered to be there, always already..... That is the basis, the alpha and the omega for that kind of path....

April 20 at 10:59pm via mobile · Edited · Like · 1

Greg Goode: I meant to distinguish this from Buddhism, where the highest realization does not establish the self or I or Self as center or basis of things.

April 20 at 10:33pm via mobile · Like · 3

Jackson Peterson: Perhaps generic "subjectivity" is better than all the "I's".

April 21 at 3:44am · Like

Joel Agee: Greg, my question wasn't well put. Why did Ramana refer to the Self, in which there is no I-thought, as "I-I"?

April 21 at 8:04am · Like

Greg Goode: Joel, that is a good question, and there is some dispute about whether that is what he really meant (see reference below). 

I can get into what I take as the spirit of it by talking from the Atmanandan Direct Path. The highest official stage in that path is being pure consciousness, which, according to Atmananda, is likened to the shining of light. On Dec. 27, 1950, Atmananda said, "What you call experience is the real ‘I’-principle, shining in its own glory, beyond the realm of the mind."

Putting these together (Atmananda knew of Ramana's work but didn't take from it), I could say that the "I-I" is the outflowing of the shining of the Self. Objectless radiance.

But in Ramana's case I can't be hermeneutically sure. Ramana expert David Godman tries to answer the same question and gets into issues of translation and interpretation and alternate readings. He sets out to answer the question he poses:

"I would like now to address more fully the question of whether the 'I-I' experience, as defined by Bhagavan, is present after realisation takes place."

He ends up saying,

"This may seem like pointless pedantry, but a crucial distinction is at stake: if the verb chosen indicates a permanent extinction of the ego, then the 'I-I' arises as a consequence of Self-realisation; but if the chosen verb indicates that the 'I' had only temporarily subsided (e.g. 'vanished', 'merged', 'disappeared', etc.) then Bhagavan is indicating that the 'I-I' manifests before realisation. It is of course possible to have it both ways and say that the 'I-I' is experienced both before and after realisation. Adherents of this school of thought would probably say that the Upadesa Undiyar and Ulladu Narpadu verses describe the post-realisation 'I-I' experience whereas the Vichara Sangraham quotations refer to the aham sphurana experience which precedes it. "

If you wish to research this, it's here:

http://davidgodman.org/rteach/iandii1.shtml

April 21 at 9:08am · Like · 1

Din Robinson: ok, now i'm totally confused 

April 21 at 10:01am · Like

Din Robinson: good thing i don't look to my thoughts and understanding anymore for answers 

April 21 at 10:01am · Like · 3

Din Robinson: "As the mind realizes itself, it stops identifying with it's own thoughts. This leaves a lot of open space. A mature mind can entertain any idea; it is never threatened by opposition or conflict, because it knows that it can't be hindered. When it has no position to defend, or identity to protect, it can go anywhere. There's never anything to lose, because there's no thing that exists in the first place. Laughter pours out of it, and tears of gratitude, from the experience of it's own nature."

~Byron Katie

April 21 at 10:15am · Like · 2

Din Robinson: just came across that Katie quote and thought it fit nicely here! 

April 21 at 10:16am · Edited · Like · 1

Jackson Peterson: Great quote Din! I met Katie, she's special...

April 21 at 12:22pm via mobile · Like