It Infinity You

Perhaps the best name in the modern vernacular is not; Tao, The Self, Brahman, God, Nature, I Don't Know, Buddha Mind, Suchness or any other, but

Infinity.

This word can speak to us all so much more clearly than any old terms and it can enlighten in an instant if its meaning is understood.

Infinity is not a number, it is a concept. Numbers, weights, distances, do not run to infinity, numbers are finite. Numbers are conceptual, have purpose, limit. Infinity is not "a very big number", it is that which can not be quantified, beyond measure.

If any one thing is infinite, then as this thing is beyond measure it can not be one of two, it must be all. If there is anything in your mind-map of life as we know it that you deem infinite then everything must be that infinity.

The infinity you have in your own cosmology, your way of mapping out what-is, is it, and, you're that. There can not be infinity and you. There can only be infinity, and, it is all, and - all is it - and,

You're it.

Infinite.



All else is mere abstraction.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Enlightenment for the selfish I

Wishing to be free of suffering and wanting enlightenment are very selfish acts of the i-ego. Although if the mind is to be wrapped up in any matter it may as well be this.

The truth is changeless, it never alters one bit. There outside of the bounds of time and space it has no action or form and no duration. Precisely EVERYTHING beyond that one truth can be said to be the mind. The mind at play and the mind obsessed over itself. When the mind has conjured up enough splits and forms it takes refuge in a body it has made and it pieces together a little kernel, a local point that it uses to refer to, attach ideas and concepts to, and it knows this as i-ego. This i-ego forms a world for itself to play in. This may be known as the subjective world of thoughts. A set of local thoughts and ideas which go to forming a world, one of stress and anxiety, or one of joy, most likely one of variation.

At some point this i-ego can be stirred from its made up self, star of its own show, world and can be given the idea of a new view, one free of this churning and change. One that is free of suffering and so on. The i-ego-mind is naturally quite interested in this, it has spent many years giving value to things and it rates this highly. It would like to buy it, have it for itself, or perhaps, if pushed, do some quick-fix steps to get it.

And so the quest for enlightenment.

However, when the i-ego is told that the world it lives is in solely a fabrication, one made of mind, it becomes a little confused and decides this thing must be learned about. So it buys books, DVD's, the company of wise or flowery people.

Time and time again the i-ego is told that it must attempt to go beyond mind, it must cast aside its ideas and preconceptions, it must HAHAHA destroy the i, the ego, the mind! It is not too impressed by this and more often than not, sits at some half way house or gives in all together.

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But it is not so difficult as all that. There is the alternate route. [ego wakes up to listen eagerly] but the result is the same, ego, i, and all the falsehood must go. This route is inquiry. It is best done with as little learning as possible and it must be determined, it must deter mind.

The method has two prongs: Fork one is to find the source behind the source behind the source behind the ..etc.. Until it is recognised that the one element behind, happiness, joy, sleep, thought, emptiness, pre-birth, pre-time, pre-concept, is the same. And fork two is to recognise ALL that changes, all that is transient, as the show of the mind and nothing more than mind.

When all that changes and emerges and flows and goes is seen as mind. And the unchanging root is recognised as the root to all, then the joining of the fork at the handle can take place.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

WOW

Not sure if this will make sense, but I don't often let that stop me writing.

Meditation: As I allowed that in my vision to remain (eyes open) I also allowed that in my mind to stay also. There was a persistent tune and some thoughts in my mind and the room and items in my vision. I just focused on nothing until a spot of clarity emerged from no sense perception but from somewhere other. At this time I took to only concentrating on that and the field of vision, humming and thoughts stopped.

Focusing solely on that, I remained still to allow that and that focusing to merge. I remained for, from looking at the clock now, over 20 minutes.

I realized clearly that there is no effort in killing ego and no one to do it. No action as once merged with the subtlety of the oneness all such ideas of ego, self, I and so on were naturally absent. My mind occasionally attempted to reemerge and this was beneficial, to my ego at least, as I was able to map out some of the experience.

This merged point is blissful, it is absent of any forms or thoughts, it is ever present and the subtle root to all.

I mapped out how 'I' 'time' and 'mind' are born. From the subtle emptiness there is born a sense of I (dimension 1, the 1st dimension is I), held, this I forms dimension 2, time. Dimensions 3 and 4 seem to occur simultaneously as mind and this the 4 dimensions of I, time, Mind(2) which give space-time: Mind is born of a subtle nothing, that as it has no qualities, can give birth to all.

Past this point reality as we know it quickly takes form and that was the final move back to me here now typing - but I did not allow that to happen until just now, I instead stayed with just this subtle point for some time, just observing how the 1, 2, 3 and 4 build out from this 0.

Remaining with the subtle point 0 I knew bliss and that it would be perfect to stay, but I also saw how that moving to a lower vibration, a lower state of awareness - being human - would reoccur and was great fun and pleasurable thing to be and experience. Bliss is ever present but this lower state of worldliness is a unique and worthy manifestation.

It must now be the case of recognizing the subtle also as the root to the world seen, and experience it as the source to everything, so that there can always be one eye on the ground as I float a foot above on my balloon.

~~

Old recognition newly recognized.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

I see I

The cat or dog is given a mirror and they become fascinated by the reflection, scratching at the mirror, jumping around, running to the back of the mirror, seeing nothing they return to the front, nudge it, on and on..

So it is also with the person when they first see the world.

With time they may realize the world is a reflection of themselves and smile.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Don't kill yourself

Not much here is meant literally as one thing I say a lot is how words fail at truth but can be used to point.

Do you carry an old haunting memory, a real cringer than pops up from childhood days or some embarrassing act? Does it pop up and have you wince? What I aim by the next story is to demonstrate why you should throw it out.

 

One person is lead to kill and they act and move on, take nothing with them from the deed and continue as if nothing had happened.

Another person kills out of anger and is caught, tried and jailed. Each hour of each day in prison they curse the policeman, the judge, the jury, themselves, the family of the dead. Come the day they are released, they are still a murderer.

 

Take the story to point to how people punish themselves and not a literal story about killing. If you can empty to the act you did so long ago, it was probably not murder, then you can empty of the past and be full of now.

An act is only carried with you if you carry it.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Alan Watts discusses the truth of who you really are

Buddha torrents does it again with this Alan Watts talk.

It is another recording of Alan Watts and his ability to be entertaining and clear in making digestible the ideas of Eastern Philosophy to a Western audience.

He covers mainly here the idea of how we are not just the skin bag and the minimal acts that you "do" but in truth you are the whole.


 

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

In two sips

I absentmindedly, while reading, took a sip of Tea, then another, then put it down, pushed up my glasses on my nose and continued from the exact part of the sentence I was reading as if nothing had happened.

The 2nd sip was the clincher, Who decided one was not enough? It was not ego who was simply the viewer, the result of the consigning and collection of events and who would normally take the glory. Maybe the sense organs relayed to somewhere else that sip one was not enough liquid volume, but the liquid was cool enough to catch a 2nd sip of before the muscle tendencies put the cup down as a result of the nerve tendencies to protect the mouth from the increase in heat.

All in all it was a very complex thing to happen autonomously and I did not forget to beat my heart or forget to keep gravity at 9.8m/s or forget to have all electrons repel at the normal rate. The result of the complexity was manifested to viewer as man sips tea twice while reading and adjusts glasses. To me it was I had a sip of tea. Who was the I there?

Was it the same I who was flying this morning in his dream? The same I who can fly in dreamtime, the same I who walked me to work as I took in the view of the trees, the same I who took in the view of the trees? All these I's are moments where the overall operation is taken to be the action of the star of the show Mr Ego yet he did not do one of these events.

The star of the show just rolls into set where the huge film crew have set the stage, the effects team have all their parts in place and timed to perfection, the co stars don't miss a beat - and the star takes all the credit.

The ego then is nothing more than yet another part of the show. The show is life and I'm as much a part as the rain. There is no I here. The I is a ghost, a shadow of the true action.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

What is Mind What is self?

Someone asked "What is Mind What is self?" and the reply was an action. The master leaned forward slightly and knocked twice on the floor. "tap tap".

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Sri Ramana Maharshi is no more

I have read enough Maharshi for now. It will be more useful to allow the concepts to play out than keep reading reiterations of similar points, and I will possibly return to the books another time.

The core part of his inquiry is this question "who is I?" and to draw all other questions also to this fundamental issue.

The question "Can I be enlightened?" would be answered by him; "Who is this I to be enlightened?" - always drawing to the root issue.

Further to this central point is the reminder that this true I that is to be "achieved" is very much not something to be achieved at all.. As, again, Who is it to be achieved by? and further, if it were something that could be achieved then it could also be lost. The wisdom arising from this is that it is instead 'ever present' and it is then rather a matter of casting off that which keeps the person from it, uncovering that which is already present and always was.

Maharshi uses the word 'God' in a few ways. The Hindus have a fantastic language for this inquiry:

Brahman is the supreme, unknowable god

Ishwara is a personal god, very much like the Christian god but rather than just one and wars over who that is, they call any god that you relate to on a personal level Ishwara.

Atman is the god in us all, the true self, it is exactly the same as Brahman except that we can know Atman but never know Brahman.

And the list goes on..

Maharshi then will use the word God quite often and for my own benefit, as I feel the word god to be both tainted and vague, I use 'Tao' for the ultimate; and 'Real I' for Atman, Tao or Brahman (interchangeably). I will also use the term 'little I' or a similar phrase when referring to the I we most often think is us and refer to when talking English.

While Maharshi was a dedicated monk in these matters from a very early age and reached a point of recognized Enlightenment and sagehood he was able to remind interested people how this act of uncovering the true self is just as well carried out in the "real world" - That one can be married, have a job, operate in the world of objects, yet still work towards and meet the real I. Also in doing this the person could then continue in the world of objects as a sage.

This wisdom is echoed in other Hindu texts and very much so in Taoism. In fact very very much so in Taoism that seems more able to hold to the root of the world without getting lost in spiritual nonsense.

This is the path I recognize as most suitable to myself. I do not wish to lock myself away in a monastery as to be honest I would consider it a cop out. I am very taken by the idea, and I feel I see it in action, that we can alter the shape of the world we see to be real by working to uncover the true I.

Concepts such as "The Secret" are very much reaffirmations of the false little mini ego I and reach for transient goals. The result of genuine sagehood is instead to operate in the world as a human detached form the false I. Instead then, with recognition of the true I, the sage actually perceives a different world. Not one of strain but one of perfection.

The world seen is a reflection of the I who looks upon it. One seeking for the ego sees one kind of world, one seeking for the little I sees another, one living wholly from the true I is effectively, in the Kingdom of God, In Heaven, and to avoid such tainted language - A real person of Tao.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi

ADDITION 1

Thanks Eric The Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi are very nice at times. I will keep adding to this post rather than make numerous posts on it. I also have 2 more of his books to follow this one.

On Life being illusion and killing animals...

"To whom is illusion? Find that out! In fact everyone is a “killer of the Self” (atmahan) every moment of his life."


That is so brilliant!, the concept being that all the time you operate as "I" you have the true self chained up in a dungeon beneath your house. Acting as "I" you smother the true self.

"For a realised being the Self alone is the Reality, and actions are only phenomenal, not affecting the Self. Even when he acts he has no sense of being an agent. His actions are only involuntary and he remains a witness to them without any attachment."

Powerful and brilliant stuff!

I'll add to this post in drabs..




ADDITION 2

Inferred not directly quoted: (meaning I'm reading a whole load of his words and creating a paragraph)

The I can only be that beyond sleep and wake, life and death, beginning and end. The I must be before consciousness or unconsciousness, before universe, before all that can be consigned and before consignee, before before, after after, beyond so far as to be eternally present, etc etc.. you get the point.



ADDITION 3

Inferred not directly quoted:

The world seems like this when you are awake, it seems another way when you are asleep, both are correct in that level of awareness, this world where we are awake is no more real than the world seen when asleep. The same information through different levels of awareness is rendered differently.

So too the drug states. None are more or less. None are reality. Reality transcends them all.



ADDITION 4

Paraphrasing a lot to save posting huge chunks of text:

The world and all manifestations are changing so have no reality. Illusion if you will. Moving beyond what you deem to be I, what you deem to be world, what you deem to be infinite, you reach truth, the ever present, unchanging -- Then seeing all that you had previously discounted (as unreal) you see it now as part of this one true self, and so real.

Then nowhere you look can be not Tao.

Also told by the Mountains, not mountains, mountains story of Buddhism.



ADDITION 5

Paraphrasing again:

Truth must be ever present so can not be obtained. That which can be obtained is of no use as it can also be lost.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

The impossibility of resolving the duality is the magic

The impossible trap.

Languages carry the trap, but how could they not? Who would invent a language if they were not first under the impression that there were others to converse with?

Yin Yang

Brilliantly we have this concept of the Tai Chi, where the dual ideas are brought back to unity by the logic that everything must carry an anti, and for that pair to demonstrate completion and harmony.

Magic

The magic then is for us, who for the majority of life exist in time and space, to see unity and harmony in all we do. This actual act is magical.

Infinite regression powers true being.

As we can not meet an end to any negation we are left with some factor that is always beyond explanation. We can feel this but not convey it. The very act of conveying it instantly taints our gift to others with the ripe smell of fresh manure.

You can't discount other as who then is doing the discounting? Any acceptance of other is reaffirmation of self. Accepting all as one, who accepts it? Who is writing and who is reading? Should the one true self spend time trying to inform the one true self that it is the one true self?

No, the one true self simply manifests as an ocean and opens itself to rivers. The one true self describes harmony by being in harmony. The one true self describes peace by being at peace.

Negate negate negate, to prove nothing is but a relationship to what it is not.

Searching for truth is instant failure as it sets up seeker and falsehood. The basic premise of chapter 2 of the Tao Te Ching. We won't do well if we can't get past chapter 2!

Yet the act of failure is quite magical. The part where brain and intellect cancel themselves out of the equation; blow up, cease, explode - boom - and with all negated, and no functioning reason left, we are still left with the mystery. This mystery can't be much else than the Tao itself.

..and as long as there is someone alive to witness the magic of all that they are not, then there is a show here and front row tickets are for the taking of anyone with eyes wide enough to absorb and an intellect wise enough to shut the fuck up.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

Imaginary friend

Who is your imaginary friend?

None?

Well you have an imaginary self!

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Any action you do is carried out by an actor. An imaginary center given a name and date of birth.

I wont hang around to discuss how we should get by without such labels. I wont take the ridiculous stance that language has no use. But I will say how nothing that is built from these ideas can have any more substance than the initial ideas. So none.

Self (the little one you think is you) is imagined. That same self is caught in the whirlpool of life and feels the ebbs and flows.

The true self is the flow.

Put the imaginary self away, cast it aside and grow up. Become what you were before your date of birth.

Pickup the plasticine person and squeeze them back with the rest of the dough, make a world and recognize yourself as that.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

I wave the flag

What must take place for me to walk to a flag pole and move the flag?

Too much to comprehend.

So what does it take for me to lift my hand and face the palm upwards?

Too much, far too much.

So what does it take for me to just sit here?

Even more!

The less I do then the more is done by the universe.

I am done by the universe.

If we sit Zazen in the same room and I fart. We both laugh.

Did the universe try to cheer us up or did I not chew my cabbage properly?

How egocentric it is to sit Zazen. What do I expect to gain?

I hope nothing. I can only sit to do less, to have less, to know less, to recognize how, in all of the vastness, I am being done as is the leaf falling from the tree.

So my ego would like to get. But my self is beyond such -ism. My ego would like to do, but my self does ALL.

My ego should get off the train and see how it still rolls. Ha, leave it behind!

The ego screams Fatalist!! so you feel you have no control? you are being done?!

No, I have no need to speak to the cast off ego but I will do it the favour of replying: I am not a fatalist, I would rather have the one self doing than to always have the ego getting inflated when it manages to do just as the self was already doing, or being deflated when it has a desire that is not in tune with the way.

Rather than attempt to follow Tao, I shall be.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao

so far in that it is out

the world
objects
your body
idea of self
the one asking

that one asking, behind the layer of the idea of self, right back at the core, at the outset - with no name, no nameable qualities, the one allowing the asking, the source to the flame.. is reality.

That reality is equal among us all and is the fabric to the river that streams down the mountain. It is the vastness of the void, it is all, and it rests in you.

~~

go back far enough, not so far, just back behind the idea of self, it is there. And it is all you see and can ever hope to.

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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao