Entry 2,357 - Entry 2,365
Entry 2,357 - November 15, 2024
There are many things I agree with in relation to David R. Hawkins and his overall framework of reality and his many beliefs. One, however, that I cannot get behind and support is his limiting belief about how a majority of those who enter the enlightened states cease being able to take care of their body or function normally.
Now, I have been really good at spotting limitations of any kind, and to limit the All Pervading Presence of Oneness by saying once one inhabits that Presence, they are unable to take care of their body or they need help for a period of time, is limiting that All Pervading Presence.
If this were truly an issue, in my opinion, it would not be the Presence that is the issue, but rather the human ego. Some may be able to handle it, while other people might become too addicted to the heavenly bliss that they refuse to come out of it.
This is similar to those addicted to form-based addictions such as drugs or alcohol. The substances allow one to temporarily feel a pseudo state of bliss, and many are not able to shake the addiction.
In that case, potentially there could be those who touch this heavenly blissful state of the Presence and can easily become addicted to it, where they don’t want to function normally. They choose bliss over the health and support of their own body. Now how is this any “better” or “worse” than the drug addict of cocaine, meth, or heroin?
In my opinion, it wouldn’t be that much different because they both allow for states of ecstasy, oneness, and bliss. Yes, both are still rooted in duality. For the “enlightened individual,” the drug of choice for the human is now the bliss state of experiencing oneness, but from the perspective of duality, it becomes dualistic since they are still human.
So, in essence, they still must learn self-control and not neglect the body, just as a human who is managing their addictions with meth must manage the health of their body.
Meth does not benefit the body, but also having that much bliss to the point where you stop taking care of your body also doesn’t benefit the body. Where they differ is meth is not something you would want in moderation.
The goal is to get off of it entirely so that it doesn’t wreak havoc because it is too addictive. For the bliss of oneness, the goal is moderation because oneness is, in essence, our true essence. But if people are struggling to function because it’s “oh so good,” then it defeats the purpose of becoming a human and “running the race.”
If it gets in the way of why you came to Earth, what you planned to do, then is it really necessary to pump yourself up with the good bliss juice of oneness and become like a vegetable to the point where your body rots away?
If you treat it like that, then yes, it does become a drug that gets in the way of what you came here and intended to do. In that case, in duality terms, it becomes a deterrent to your plans of “playing the game.”
Trust me, there is all the time in the universe to be blissed out, formless, and ecstatically connected to unconditional love. Why decide to vegetate while you’re in your body and become a massive burden to your body and the people around you? In my opinion, that is very selfish and the opposite goal of this All Pervading Presence.
When David R. Hawkins does talk about how it’s so normal and that a majority of enlightened individuals who reach this level of consciousness do turn into this vegetation state, I won’t lie. It freaks me out.
Why spend all this time moving into deeper states of realization, oneness, just to get massively addicted to the state where I let my body rot before my eyes because that bliss from oneness is just too good? Thanks, David! You unlocked a new fear!
If this is indeed a genuine issue that a majority fall entrapped into, we have examples of enlightened avatars who did not succumb to this supposed vegetable state that David R. Hawkins loves talking about. (It feels like it’s in every single one of his books.)
Interestingly enough, in reading the stories of Jesus and Buddha, nowhere do I see it mentioned about this vegetable state that they are fighting against. But if this vegetable state does exist, I don’t think a majority of people will fall for it, or else Jesus and Buddha would have warned us about it.
If you read extensively about their Scriptures and writings about what they said, you’ll notice what they both warned us about were the addictions to pain and pleasure and how they keep us in a cycle of suffering which does not help us.
They both talked extensively about that and how to transcend it. I can’t find one piece of writing from them warning about this supposed “vegetable state” that David talks incessantly about within his books.
On top of that, there are many times when David R. Hawkins’ writings read as if they are being channeled from a higher entity without acknowledging that process as other channelers do. The entity seems to give the answers rather than letting the person find the answers on their own, which is an issue down the line, especially with those who suffer from abdicating their authority to spiritual teachers who say all their teachings are very high in truth.
It’s as if this channeled entity finds pleasure in sharing its beliefs and frameworks with people. From my point of view, I refuse to abdicate my authority to this entity’s beliefs fully and remain skeptical of this strange vegetable state that supposedly a majority fall entrapped by that he consistently talks about.
It’s almost like it’s subtly placed in there to discourage the leveling up of one’s consciousness. Whether it is ignorant that it is doing it or intentionally doing it, I cannot say. All I know is there is no reason to spread this much fear when it’s already hard to remain central and focused on further enlightening oneself. If it were really an issue, why haven’t the enlightened avatars such as Jesus and Buddha warned us about it? It’s just very fishy in my opinion.
Entry 2,358 - November 17, 2024
I had this radical revelation while in the shower this night. For many years, I’ve had some misconceptions about enlightenment, embracing fully the I Presence of the All, and I've been undoing these irrational fears with Hawkins’ books such as The Eye of the I and Adyashanti's books as well. Together, they are a double threat to the ego.
The first fear was about the void and losing the I. I was in Croatia, traveling with a buddy I met at a hostel in Zagreb, and I was doing Adyashanti's online retreat, and it was scaring my ego to death. I was afraid that if I made the jump to sudden enlightenment, I would become nothing.
But in reality, that was the ego’s fear, because in actuality, the ego is nothing. Not me. The ego is a temporary, fixated level of experience for our own enjoyment. It's like a ride at an amusement park. It serves a purpose of giving us a finite, localized experience within a smaller scope of reality. But it was too much, and I believed the ego and gave up on the retreat.
The second fear is over retaining the permanent transcendent state of the I, the All Pervading Presence. This fear stemmed from the ego and was based on the belief that if I did get to that permanent state of transcendence (enlightenment at 600 on Hawkins’ scale), then I would lose all control, no longer follow my goals, dreams, passions, etc., and become like a vegetable.
But while in the shower, I had a moment of intense realization that was this: actually, I am not FULLY in control UNTIL the ego has been transcended. Until then, the ego still controls me against my truth, against Reality, against my essence, even if it is temporary within space and time. However, it doesn't have to be like this. I can choose right now to see through the facade.
I can choose to see, in actuality, that I am fully in control when I fully surrender the ego. It's a grand paradox. It doesn't mean I stop being this personality, Kyglo, but rather that my life is recontextualized permanently through the Holy Spirit rather than through the ego.
It's merely a different and more authentic way of relating in the world. The Holy Spirit actually fully gives us our freedom back. I can and will still follow my dreams, goals, and passions, but with and through the power, safety, security, and joy of the Holy Spirit.
When we are under the control of the ego before that level of enlightenment, we are actually a slave to the ego's devices of suffering, anguish, guilt, shame, etc., that keep a rope wrapped around our neck. We feel like we cannot get out because life is contextualized through the ego, which is irrational, hopeless, and unreal. It's like wearing dirty glasses as you try to pursue your dreams and goals that are within your energetic blueprint.
BUT the moment you decide, hey, this is enough, and clean those glasses, the world changes around you. It changes your whole life not having to deal with the years of past trauma or guilt, shame, terror, hatred, etc. It's wiped away, and the way to your best life is so much more free of obstructions.
Entry 2,359 - November 17, 2024
Really weird moment while walking to my room... It is hard to explain, but it was like I was walking in nothing. Like I knew at that exact moment that the whole idea of time and space as a true construct was false and nothing more than an elaborate illusion for me to play in. I was in time and space but also outside of it and aware of it.
It's as if the real Self of me was unable to be confined within my ego's perception because it went beyond time and space. It felt like I was wholeness. Like I knew, as the awareness, that I was choosing to specifically focus on that exact moment.
Entry 2,360 - November 17, 2024
One of my goals in this life is total body mastery. This body is artwork. It is a reflection of ideas, thoughts, beliefs that are attracted to it via the level of consciousness. This impersonal field of consciousness acts as an attractor field.
That's why when you change your "consciousness," you automatically change your ideas, thoughts, beliefs at the root level. You change your consciousness through anything that cultivates mindfulness such as simply focusing on being totally in the present moment with your full, undivided attention.
Entry 2,361 - November 17, 2024
Eventually one sees it is not that one belief system traded for a better belief system is the goal of the spiritual aspirant, but rather that it no longer becomes important to living.
One must eventually go beyond rituals, ceremonies, sacraments, and spiritual concepts because the domain of the Mind cannot be found by the intellect. It is beyond the intellect's capacity to innerstand it.
Unless one is willing to drop the intellectual pursuit of enlightenment through form and thinking, they will keep chasing their own tails with unnecessary suffering.
Chronic suffering ceases when one realizes beyond the intellect.
Entry 2,362
Eventually one realizes they've split their spiritual life from their everyday life.
The last step is dissolving the separation between the two.
Then everything you do is an act of meditation. Every word you say has been contemplated. Every idea that comes into your mind is inquired as to what belief it sprung from. And in every opportunity, more of your Mind between thoughts is experienced.
Entry 2,363
I am realizing more and more each day how my spiritual life consists of every little and big thing I do. From gently taking the spider the size of a centimeter outside back into a better home for it to make catches so it can thrive, to sweeping the floors to clean them, to doing the dishes, to walking. Everything is a part of my meditation, whether my eyes are open or closed.
Entry 2,364 - November 19, 2024
“Do you care enough about yourself to not care whether they care about you?” 🫳🎤
— Bashar
Entry 2,365 - November 19, 2024
Quotes from Huang Po:
This text, which is one of the principal Zen works, follows closely the teachings proclaimed in the Diamond Sutra or Jewel of Transcendental Wisdom, which has been ably translated by Arnold Price and published by the Buddhist Society, London.
It is also close in spirit to The Sutra of Wei Lang (Hui Neng), another of the Buddhist Society's publications. But I have been deeply struck by the astonishing similarity to our text in spirit and terminology of the not-so-Far Eastern, eighth-century Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, edited by Evans-Wentz and published by the Oxford University Press.
"It is said that, when Enlightenment really comes, the moon is again very much the moon and
the trees exactly trees; but with a difference, for the Enlightened man is capable of perceiving both
unity and multiplicity without the least contradiction between them!
From thought-instant to thought-instant, no FORM; from thought-instant to thought-instant, no
ACTIVITY--that is to be a Buddha!
When all such forms are abandoned, there is the Buddha. Ordinary people look to their
surroundings, while followers of the Way look to Mind, but the true Dharma is to forget them both.
It cannot be looked for or sought, comprehended by wisdom
or knowledge, explained in words, contacted materially or reached by meritorious achievement.
You cannot use Mind to seek Mind, the Buddha to
seek the Buddha, or the Dharma to seek the Dharma. So you students of the Way should immediately
refrain from conceptual thought. Let a tacit understanding be all! Any mental process must lead to
error. There is just a transmission of Mind with Mind. This is the proper view to hold.
About Vipassanna:
That which is called the Mirror of Concentration and Wisdom (another reference to non-Zen
Mahayana doctrine) requires the use of sight, hearing, feeling and cognition, which lead to successive
states of calm and agitation. But these involve conceptions based on environmental objects; they are
temporary expedients appertaining to one of the lower categories of 'roots of goodness'.
[Roots of goodness are believed by some Mahayanaists to be 'Enlightenment-potentials' of varying degrees of strength with which individuals are reborn in accordance with the varying merits gained in former lives.]
And this category of 'roots of goodness' merely enables people to understand what is said to
them. If you wish to experience Enlightenment yourselves, you must not indulge in such conceptions.
They are all environmental Dharmas concerning things which are and things which are not, based on
existence and non-existence. If only you will avoid concepts of existence and non-existence in regard
to absolutely everything, you will then perceive THE DHARMA.
Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed. Away With your dualism, your likes and dislikes. Every single thing is just the One Mind. When you have perceived this, you will have mounted the Chariot of the Buddhas.
There is only the one reality, neither to be realized nor attained. To say 'I am able to realize
something' or 'I am able to attain something' is to place yourself among the arrogant. The men who
flapped their garments and left the meeting as mentioned in the Lotus Sutra were just such people.
[These people THOUGHT they had understood and were smugly self-satisfied.] Therefore the Buddha
said: 'I truly obtained nothing from Enlightenment.' There is just a mysterious tacit understanding and
no more.
18. If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of consciousness as
void; the four physical elements as not constituting an 'I'; the real Mind as formless and neither coming
nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as
whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one--if he could really
accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash.
He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor. He would be without even the faintest tendency towards rebirth. If he should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestation, he would feel no desire to approach them.
If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the
state of unconditioned being. This, then, is the fundamental principle.
Thus, if only you have a tacit understanding of Mind, you will not need to search
for any Dharma, for then Mind IS the Dharma. [Most of this paragraph is intended to make it clear that,
though Buddhism of the gradual school does produce results, they take long to attain and are at least
incomplete compared with results obtained through Zen.]
Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the Void. They do not know that their own Mind Is the void. The ignorant eschew phenomena but not thought; the wise eschew thought but not phenomena.
23. Thus, the mind of the Bodhisattva is like the Void and everything is relinquished by it. When
thoughts of the past cannot be taken hold of, that is relinquishment of the past. When thoughts of the
present cannot be taken hold of, that is relinquishment of the present. When thoughts of the future
cannot be taken hold of, that is relinquishment of the future. This is called utter relinquishment ofTriple Time.
A transmission of Void cannot be made
through words. A transmission in concrete terms cannot be the Dharma. Thus Mind is transmitted with
Mind and these Minds do not differ. Transmitting and receiving transmission are both a most difficult
kind of mysterious understanding, so that few indeed have been able to receive it. In fact, however,
Mind is not Mind and transmission is not really transmission. [This is a reminder that ALL terms used
in Zen are mere makeshifts.]
The Dharma of the Dharmakaya cannot be sought
through speech or hearing or the written word. There is just the omnipresent voidness of the real self-
existent Nature of everything, and no more.
It is not our sense organs that defile us, but rather our attachment to form that creates suffering:
The term unity refers to a homogeneous spiritual brilliance which separates into six harmoniously
blended 'elements'. The homogeneous spiritual brilliance is the One Mind, while the six harmoniously
blended 'elements' are the six sense organs.
These six sense organs become severally united with objects that defile them--the eyes with form, the ear with sound, the nose with smell, the tongue with taste, the body with touch, and the thinking mind with entities. Between these organs and their objects arise the six sensory perceptions, making eighteen sense-realms in all.
If you understand that these eighteen realms have no objective existence, you will bind the six harmoniously blended 'elements' into a single spiritual brilliance--a single spiritual brilliance which is the One Mind.
In these days people only seek to stuff themselves with knowledge and deductions, seeking
everywhere for book-knowledge and calling this Dharma-practice'. [Literacy is by no means essential
to the mastery of Zen. The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation makes the same point.]
They do not know that so much knowledge and deduction have just the contrary effect of piling up obstacles. Merely acquiring a lot of knowledge makes you like a child who gives himself indigestion by gobbling too much curds. Those who study the Way according to the Three Vehicles are all like this.
All you can call them is people who suffer from indigestion. When so-called knowledge and deductions. are not digested, they become poisons, for they belong only to the plane of samsara. In the Absolute, there is nothing at all of this kind.
All the concepts you have formed in the past must be discarded and replaced by void.
If you would only rid yourselves of the concepts of ordinary and Enlightened you would find that there is no other Buddha than the Buddha in your own Mind. When Bodhidharma came from the West he just
pointed out that the substance of which all men are composed is the Buddha.
You people go on misunderstanding; you hold to concepts such as 'ordinary' and 'Enlightened', directing your thoughts outwards where they gallop about like horses! All this amounts to beclouding your own minds! So I tell you Mind is the Buddha. As soon as thought or sensation arises, you fall into dualism.
Beginningless time and the present moment are the same. There is no this and no that. To understand this truth is called compete and unexcelled Enlightenment."
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