Likewise I never listen to audiobooks. I'd much prefer to read the book though as the voice adds a sense of grandeur and mystery and when awakening is always this seemingly unattainable thing, for the seeker, I feel it's not helpful.
This book is worth making an exception, IMHO.
I tend to stay away from these discussions last few years because I am afraid naturally of adding more to the sense of self. So as a disclaimer I may very well delete my post later and however silly it may sound, I find the less I feed self consciousness the better.
I can see how that makes sense, though I somehow truly believe that,, just as like attracts like, the discipline of sitting in emptiness is a pale shadow of THIS IS IT. There are even times when sitting that the characteristics of the non-dual experience that I had color my experience. It's as close to the membrane as we can get I think, and perhaps, "training" the mind prepares it for seeing things as they are. If not, it makes me feel better in this dream, and is now an enjoyable passtime.
When it comes to this, it seems that if you get stuck on "challenging" any dysfunction such as self consciousness, by eg. maintaining the profile in an online discussion, or proving say, that I am not self conscious about this or that, it's all more gear grindings. Better to give up entirely the game. Those gears may not grind the same way for someone else, but it is still a massive waste of time.
I mostly agree, but if I'm going to waste my time, I'm going to do it in an agreeable way.
The keyword for me in the book is stillness.
So reading Carse talk about this stillness is uplifting. Hmm, maybe this is the right direction after all?
This is key to whatever shift Carse has helped me preciptate. Today is day two, and there is still this pervasive quiet to everything. It isn't that things are any quieter - though I think MIND might be quieter. I'm still trying to pick out what it is.
The path of Carse though, is more along the lines of Eckhart Tolle and many others. He lost himself in the jungle. It's the classic story of giving up in a moment of crisis.
It is. One of the quotes he uses that struck me is something about how paths to enlightenment are like ladders, and that each time one is used it is thrown down - not useable for someone else. His story is his ladder - we have ours. Can we really use his ladder... or anyone elses? I think we can only look for convergent practices that seem to help many and try them.
So to address more of your post.. I *believe*
- immersing onself in this or that state, Pointless
- maintaing this or that state, pointless
- samsara, dharmkaya, kayaks, banananes, all words and concepts
- stages of awakening, more concepts
- taking positions such as "no need to be attacjed to outcomes", more gears grinding > pointless
But none of that is pointless in the sense that it's happening anyway, and it's part of your "moving from A to B" energy that's burning itself out.
...and strangely, I wonder if I don't completely agree. Yet, my feeling is that meditation is working somehow - untangling the knots like a warm bath.
I don't know when this one will end, I just thought writing a bit might kind of kindle the flames for me.
You sound like a good cat, I hope you don't give up. I really think having some attraction to the ideas about how "things" are, and working to quiet the mind can't hurt. I'm 48. It took me 26 years to get a taste of it all. I feel like it's all very close now - well, of COURSE it is... it always has been.
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