most helpful insights/pointers to Reality?

[ethereal]

What insights and pointers to Reality did you find the most helpful in your spiritual evolution, either from your own experience or from books, scriptures, sutras, etc. from other people? And it doesn't necessarily have to be the Absolute nondual truth, it can be anything that has helped propel you spiritually or break through previously held concepts. Feel free to give them straight up or with explanations/commentaries and/or ways to generate the insight.

Hoping to collect in one thread the most potent and effective insights and pointers everyone can offer

[spacedout]

Originally Posted by ethereal

What insights and pointers to Reality did you find the most helpful in your spiritual evolution, either from your own experience or from books, scriptures, sutras, etc. from other people?

For me it came in stages. First, it was taking a simple yoga class 20 years ago. Second, learning Kriya Yoga from Goswami Kriyananda and developing my own meditation technique that I used for several years. Third, joining a group of like-minded people in search of Reality. Fourth, reading, re-reading and studying The Power of NOw in a group for five years. Fifth, doing experiential research on consciousness. Sixth, writing a book on pure awareness.





Pureawareness.info. Pure Awareness

[Johnny5]

Originally Posted by ethereal

What insights and pointers to Reality did you find the most helpful in your spiritual evolution, either from your own experience or from books, scriptures, sutras, etc. from other people? And it doesn't necessarily have to be the Absolute nondual truth, it can be anything that has helped propel you spiritually or break through previously held concepts. Feel free to give them straight up or with explanations/commentaries and/or ways to generate the insight.

Hoping to collect in one thread the most potent and effective insights and pointers everyone can offer

I met people who had progress in their practice.

When I was 14, I met one individual who had progressed in his practice that he had the ability to know his past life, to disengage his mind from his body and ascend to see other realms. He had ability to see ghosts. He is now living in La Mirada, California.

When I was 16, I met one individual who had progressed in his practice that he had the ability to disengage his mind from his body and ascend to see other realms. He also had the ability to speak other languages that he didn't learn.

Later in my life I met an individual who had the ability to read my thought. And I also read about monks in Thailand and monks in Burma had reached their final goal.

The thought that kept me going is, if other people can do it, why not me? And another thought is, why do I have to spend another lifetime in pain and suffering? These two thoughts are the forces that drive me to learn and practice everyday...and practice is important. The most important is the thought in me that said "I too have the possibilities as others".

Best Regards,

Johnny

[Ariel Bravy]

I've got a pretty well developed intellect (I'm guessing many of you guys do too.. which is why we find ourselves on a site "for smart people") and so latching onto the pointers was helpful for a while... until it wasn't.

There's this idea that if I can just understand the right concept or hear things in just the right way, I'll finally get it... but it turns out awakening is not like academia in this respect.

and so I began a period of deep inquiry. Who am I? Really? What do I know absolutely for sure, without a doubt, to be true?

and what I discovered is that 1) there is no me.. there is no separate self, and 2) there's not a single thing I could ever think that would ever be true. Not a single thought. There is absolutely no way that even if I could understand the Truth, my mind could be certain that that was it. There's no way I could know that I could ever actually find the truth.

When these things happen/happened, there was a sort of implosion of the mind and a complete surrender of using the mind to try and identify who I am or understand Truth.

The mind's role in this sense fell away, rendering it useless with respect to its previous roles, leaving behind an openness, a vast empty space, allowing the Self to arise and realize itSelf.

Nevertheless, there's still some energy invested in mind, in trying to understand the Truth. It's like the mind continually reasserts itself. Out of nothing, the seeker is reborn... until it vanishes into the emptiness and it's realized yet again that the seeker never existed. There is only contraction around thought.. which we call identity.

So it's a continual exploration into who am I. Who is this me which appears to be here? There seems to be one, but really, who is it?

[Tanemon]

For me, the sayings of the sages, saints, and scriptures are descriptive of higher states of consciousness. Realities beyond the body are indeed realities. So the sayings & writings are good.

Practically speaking, I personally had to unload a lot of inner junk, unravel a lot of tangled threads. These were things on the emotional, mental, and habit-pattern levels. There are practical ways to do this.

I learned meditation, and I practiced daily meditation for many years. That gave me a quieting of mental chatter (under most circumstances) and a restful place inside myself - a sense of refreshment whenever I practiced it. But I had continued to deal with the inner junk and the emotional walls I unconsciously used to defend myself. I'd boxed myself in much more than I realized.

Nine years ago I broke my leg and while mending I decided to take a course and an "attunement" in Reiki. It's a spiritual path and a method for developing one's healing abilities. Consciously, I did this for my leg, but it resulted in several other benefits: The attunement itself immediately and unexpectedly cleared away a huge amount of those emotional traces that had remained inside me since my childhood and adolescence. It got rid of the old muddy background of sadness, frustration, and fear that I had never been able to completely remove.

So then, after my attunement, both the pain/fear and the walls I had made just dissolved. My overall mood improved and my sense of intimacy with nature (birds, dogs, horses, wild mammals) markedly increased. And also, about twice as many people as before acted like they really liked me.

My path continues on. The path is different, it seems, for each person. We encounter experiences and challenges in differing order, depending on the person. I never know what might be said by someone on a forum like this that will lead to my next step.

[Josey]

-fully accepting and allowing what is in the moment

-if there is resistance to what is, accept and allow the resistance

-being in the body, having attention in the inner energy field of the body-
the ground- stills or quiets the mind

-being still

-listening to silence, listening to a sound intently and right when the sound ends- hearing this silence

-looking at stillness, at space around forms, like plants, trees- looking at the space in and around them

-looking at space over forms. looking at the space between. looking at space

-watching thought. Being the watcher, the witness of thoughts and emotion. Allowing them to happen, but not identifying with them, just watching them.

-being in nature with a quiet mind.

-watching the pull of rushing to the next moment or task. Being present in the doing. Seeing this step as what matters, not the end result.

-watching mind streams and emotions wanting to carry me along. Stepping out of it as soon as it is realized. Even though it pulls against this.

-giving space to others and allowing them to be who they are now- in the now.

-dropping whatever baggage is there in the now. Just dropping it.

[joylangtry]

I came to accept the following as personal truths:

We all die, death is a part of human existence, so it can't possibly be a bad thing.

In fact, nothing is inherently good or bad - it all takes on the meaning we apply. With enough distance and perspective, even the seemingly worst experiences can create amazing and beautiful results.

So, there is nothing really at all to fear in this life. Our fears are the things that create limitations and unhappiness.

God / Source / the Universe is inherently positive and happiness is our appropriate state of being. We are not here to prove anything, accomplish anything or even DO anything, other than what creates expansion and joy in our lives.

Thanks for asking! That's my take.

[Bative]

The realization that we are no more significant than any other organism on the planet. Therefore we are unified and constantly evolving with it.
Time isn't linear, it's expansive.
The probability that physics systems, energy sources and dimensions exist beyond what we can conceive or perceive, but you can learn to harness them, and let them expand into a theory.
That Ego is something to be aware of. When you are aware of yourself, you can see beyond it.

Always observe nature and it's constantly changing evolutionary practices. They are a natural reflection of the same evolution that is happening to us, only ours is happening in our minds, not our bodies.