Transcending dualities and attachments

[ethereal]

Had a couple of those "aha"s this morning and wanted to share with everyone

- An attraction to one thing is equivalent an aversion to its opposite, i.e. they are at the same level of consciousness. When you are attracted or repulsed by something, you automatically create the duality and thus the seemingly opposites of good (desirable) and bad (undesireable), whereas before there was only unity.

- Transcending a certain pair of opposites (dualities) or attachments gives freedom, and from one point of view enlightenment would be complete freedom to act under Divine Will. You still have the freedom to pursue the desire or avoid the aversion, but you have complete choice in the matter, it is not tainted by cravings or fears or the ego's animal instincts. I liken this to being clearer/purer channels for Divine Will to act through you (you can also call it, letting your Higher Self guide you for everybody's highest good, without attaching demands or expectations from the ego).

- Freedom from attachments brings happiness. It allows the natural joy of existence to shine forth better, with each attachment we relinquish. The pleasure we normally get with any fulfillment of desire is actually the joy of existence (joy of the Self), i.e. at that moment we are happy to exist because our desires were fulfilled. The analogy I like to use is the sun of the Self naturally shines all the time, but the ego blocks it with lots of dark clouds. When we fulfill our desires and we think we are happy "because" of something, it is actually a temporary recession of the ego-clouds and letting the sun shine forth. Instead of just temporary happiness, why not surrender the attachments themselves and be permanently fulfilled? I realize now the full meaning of "it's not the desire itself, but the attachment to the desire"... you can still fulfill your desires, but you have the complete freedom and peace of mind to choose otherwise as well.

- It is possible to fulfill your desires and be happy, but still be attached and thus always have the lingering fear of losing what you achieved. That explains a lot of things, like why many successful people still aren't happy. The only way to lasting happiness is to relinquish the attachments.

Happy to hear comments or additional ideas/insights on this, I finally discovered all these attachments that I never knew existed and I'm trying to transcend them. For example, the fear of rejection = attachment to self image and desired outcome, fear of criticism = attachment to being right, irritation/anger/impatience = wanting to change others/the world = attachment to ideals/expectations of what others/the world should be like, fear of failure = attachment to self image of success, etc. Wow, imagine being able to transcend this bunch of core attachments

[Royce_aus]

i really like your "aha"s, just one thing i'd like to share it's simply an idea i have.
i learnt it when i was in school but never paid attention to it,
KISS - keep it simple stupid
If you reduce ideas like your "aha"s to fewer words i believe you increase the
strength of what your saying

Hopefully i don't seem hypocritical cause i tend to go on without taking my own
advice but all great ideas could do with some reduction.
I haven't gotten around to reading the christian bible yet because of its daunting size, i really believe they could get it down to a couple of pages if they really wanted to.

well love your ideas, hope you can integrate them to your lifestyle to create real happiness.

[AndyMartin]

ethereal--That's very cool. You're experiencing an important fundamental shift in perspective that represents an important growth stage. The basic pattern is that the subject of the previous stage has become the object of the present stage. In other words, what you were experiencing before (eg attachment) becomes what you observe now. Which means that the experience that arises from this observation will eventually become an object to be observed. So keep observing, but don't get attached to attachment. And I'd worry more about how you live what you have realized than how you articulate it; the deeper realization that will allow you to restate it more succinctly will come through practice of the principle itself.

Royce_aus--Can't say I blame you; I have spent some quality time with the Bible, but at the time it was compiled, it was never intended that the masses would ever get their grimy, peasant hands on a Bible. There is a book out there -- the name escapes me at the moment -- that consists only of the direct quotations directly attributed to Jesus. It's about 25 pages. I still recommend eventually coming around to the big book, but by far the most valuable parts in my opinion are the Sermon on the Mount and the parables, all attributed to him.

[Glass Joe]

Thanks ethereal. Your post was great timing.

Here are the only comments I can think of right now.

Is it possible to transcend “transcending”?

Duality is a sticky thing. I mean, with all of this intentional transcending, will there ever come a point where we can transcend the act of transcending itself? Will there come a point where conscious and willful “transcending” is no longer needed, and is therefore transcended too? What will that feel like?

And after that, what about transcending transcending transcending? And so on...

Example:

Who’s going to police the “police”?
The “police police”.
Who’s going to police the “police police”?
The “police police police”.
Who’s going to police the “police police police”?
And so on, ad infinitum...

Simplification vs. Details

Also, I see what Royce is trying to say about simplification, but I think when people come up with their own insights and can articulate them in their own words, it's definitely much better. At least IMO.

For instance, I might logically and rationally believe in the simplified and compacted-down concept of "as you sew, so shall you reap", but I might not actually live it out in my daily life. For me, I think until after I actually wrote out pages and pages of my own thoughts on various topics over a period of time, coming to my own conclusions, and then came back full circle to that original concept “as you sew, so shall you reap” on my own, it was much more powerful, rather than just repeating something I read in a book.

But yeah, “K.I.S.S.” and simplification is still very useful. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to stop talking or finish a single thought because we would have to include every little detail of our experience when trying to explain or think about something.

But on the other side of the extreme... even though simplification is useful, wouldn’t the ultimate simplification of truth just be silence?

I mean, I can see how simple silence would be helpful to those who already understand silence, but it probably wouldn't be helpful at all to those who don’t, and maybe even counter-productive. So I think over-simplification can have its problems too.

[Royce_aus]

It's interesting to see the logical progression of something, silence being a transcended state of simplification, and honestly in mind small mind (in comparison to its potential) i can not perceive and conclusion to all this transcending.
One theory i have learned and am yet to realise within my life is a simple outline of transcendence, you go from one step to the next, rinse and repeat.

--------------
1. information
2. knowledge
3. wisdom
4. tangibility
--------------

i kinda believe (i say kinda because i haven't spent a lot of time digging into it)
that those 4 steps are what create life and the reason life continues and doesn't reach a dead end or optimistically 'ultimate conclusion'

i really love silence without it i don't believe communication would be possible.
however i do think everything should be in moderation and blast music from time to time to balance things out for myself

to do something like transcend transcending the only way i can comprehend that result is through complete expansion of consciousness so that it infact engulfs everything in reality... universal consciousness. personally i don't like terms like that because they are thrown around all over the shop and leave a lot to the imagination as to how you can define that.
you'd need a consciousness that big to perceive such a thing.

i love paradox.