Beyond the Idea of Good and Evil

Photo credit: Emanate Presence

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'Spiritual traditions, systems and techniques often refer to emptying the mind of self-limiting thoughts. Attention to 'outer' sensations diminishes and mindfulness (awareness of the inner life) is allowed to arise. For example,

"When meditation brings us to the point where self-talk ceases, the mind is anything but blank. Instead it’s full — full of an awareness of those sensations, feelings, emotions, and images. I like to think of this as one of the meanings of mindfulness – 'mind-full-ness,' or the mind being so full that there’s no need for, and no room for, inner self-talk." [1]

Deeper still is pure consciousness (PC), which has been experienced in and out of meditation. One person said of his experience, "I was left with a sense of refreshment, of having drunk deeply the blissful nectar of a timeless far away realm of Being."

Timeless, yes. Being, yes. Far away? Perhaps as perceived from the world of sensations, from the world of agendas, objectives, and to-do lists. But in actuality, this Being is one's own True Self and the Absolute Self of all that is. Nothing will effect a substantive change - individually and globally - like coming to this realization and embodying it in actions of everyday life.

How does one experience PC, "the blissful nectar of Being"? Meditation can be one way, but it is not necessary to meditate or practice any technique. The article, 'Pure Consciousness/Mystical Experiences' excerpted below recites examples like Charles Lindbergh's report of his solo flight across the Atlantic and that of a college student with no previous experience of transpersonal psychology or mystical experiences, who had a life threatening automobile accident.

Nature loves diversity and each human is individual. There are no manuals for living from pure consciousness. There is nothing I can do towards it, and PC cannot be achieved. It can be allowed, it can be surrendered to by the persona. I can bring it more into my awareness by returning my mind to the One Being. Just by saying within or out loud, 'One Being,' and knowing in my heart that O.B. is my true Self, I am closer to living the greater reality.

How can I know this is more than an intellectual exercise and not just another illusion? One evidence that the True Self (pure consciousness) is being lived through me is provided when the qualities of the One Being, universal love, emanate from my life in actions — whatever provocation or challenge may come.

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I. Pure Consciousness/Mystical Experiences

"There is a central psychospiritual state of consciousness for which there is now adequate scientific evidence that the experience of it is healthy, life enhancing, and promotes development. It is pure consciousness. Several other transpersonal experiences can be understood as clustering in some way around or leading to this central experience.

"But what is pure consciousness (PC)? 

"Alexander, Chandler and Boyer (1990) define PC as 'a silent state of inner wakefulness with no object of thought or perception.' They hold that it is conditioned not simply by cultural or intellectual elements, but by fundamental psycho-physiological conditions which are universally available across cultures. Qualities of this state are implicated in their expanded definition:

"If pure consciousness is without content, it would be, ..., non-changing because there is no content in it that could change. It would be simple because without content, there are no parts. It would be completely one, having no diversity of content. It would be self-referring, because there is nothing other than itself to refer to or know. It would be unbounded because there is no bounded content of awareness to engage or limit awareness.

"A meditator describes this experience:

"'I was meditating one late afternoon when I began to settle down much more deeply than usual. As I became more and more still, all thoughts and feelings settled and I was left in a deep quietness. All familiar boundaries that defined where I was and what time it was, and even who I was, began to fade from awareness and dissolve altogether. I was still awake and yet all that remained was my own wakefulness . . .

"'There was nothing else. No trace of thought or memory entered into my awareness; even the sense of my body and its position in space had vanished. It's not that I missed these things. It simply did not enter my awareness to miss them or not to miss them.

"'For an indefinitely long time I remained in that state of perfectly simple wakefulness. How long I could not have guessed, for there was no measure in my awareness by which to judge the passage of time. Then, slowly, the world began to be reconstituted around me.

"'At first some faint sensation of my body and surroundings returned; then some sense of where I was and what time it was; then some sense of my person, my projects, engagements, relations, and all those forms of awareness that make up the sense of our everyday world. The world returned to me and was organized and constructed into all the layers of awareness that make up our sense of reality.

"'I was left with a sense of refreshment, of having drunk deeply the blissful nectar of a timeless far away realm of Being. At that moment, my whole body and mind experienced a rush of blissful joy and well being.'"

[2]

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Anand Mehotra of The Shift Network explains that, “ultimately, we are all looking for God experience, meaning an experience of aliveness, of expansion.”

"However, the capacity to experience God in time-bound existence is severely limited, for the mind, or ego, is trapped within space-time. Seek expansion, and you will experience contraction.

The finite mind is incapable of perceiving that which is infinite. The mind, which relies on the senses for its information, is fundamentally unable to lead you to God.

We have no sense that can reveal knowledge of Him; the senses give knowledge only of His manifestations. No thought or inference can enable us to know Him as He truly is, for thought cannot go beyond the data of the senses; it can only arrange and interpret the impressions of the senses.
— Paramahansa Yogananda

"While you may intellectually accept the existence of God as an idea, this idea is like all ideas: a detached mental construct unable to satisfy your deep longing for love and connection.

"Life is willing to reveal its mysteries only when you become aware of that which exists beyond your awareness.

"When you are anchored in a profound, absolute state of self, says Anand, you will be fearless, and experience all of life with deep equanimity.

"'That does not mean you won’t have movement of emotion,' he acknowledges. 'But beyond that movement is a profound field of awareness, a profound field of stillness.'"

[3]

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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense. - Rumi

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Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (جلال‌الدین محمد رومی) 
was a Persian philosopher, theologian, poet, teacher, and founder of an order of Sufism; also known as Mevlana (Our Guide), Jalaluddin Rumi, or simply Rumi.  [4]

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[1] Meditation - www.wildmind.org

[2] Pure Consciousness/Mystical Experiences -http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

[3] Video: 'The Absolute Self' with Anand Mehrotra - http://theshiftnetwork.com/page/absolute-self

[4] Rumi - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rumi

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THE IMPERSONAL LIFE