Bindi

Contentment is a poor substitute for bliss… Ruined in the tavern of love we can taste the intoxicating wine of His presence. This is when the bliss begins. At the beginning it may come as a gentle lover’s foreplay, like butterfly wings at the edge of the heart, but in this gentle touch the whole of oneself is saturated with love, a love that runs through the body and soul, in which nothing is excluded. Then one is really reborn, reborn in love, in the deep knowing of one’s true nature and the love that is present in oneself and in everything. Later the states of bliss deepen and intensify, become almost painful and one wonders how the body can bear it, and yet it continues, sometimes for hours. Sweetness, intoxication, drunkenness, these are the words the Sufi uses to describe such states: the ecstasy of love: What is the nature of this bliss? In the moments of intoxication one does not know, one does not care, there is no mind, no self, just the currents of love that have taken one away from everything one knows into a different world, a world without difficulties or conflict, in which everything is alive with love. And in these states the heart can grow and expand, until the heart is everything, the call of every bird, the taste of every tear. https://goldensufi.org/divine-intoxication-rumi/

Very nice 3bob, it makes me think I read Gibran far too long ago, when I knew hardly anything. “If you could hear the whispering of the dream” reminds me of one of my favourite lines from one of my favourite texts, “When the green immortal spirit passes over and communicates with me, there is a distant echo.” There’s something that I do want to hear and see, and it’s not emptiness, and it’s not a void, and it’s not even primordial space, its more akin to spirit pointing to the actualising of spirit within my body.

I’ve got to say how I understand the three channels and how to work with them is entirely peculiar to me, but I’m happy to put forward my thoughts on them. Give or take the two main side channels are the dual ones, one side being male, and one side being female, the Ardhanarishvara figure (below) is a graphic demonstration of this, as is the yin/yang symbol. Where I differ is in equating the female side with emotions and water, and the male side with thoughts and air. So for me, to work on clearing the two main side channels is as straightforward as working with emotional ‘mud’ and it’s concomitant stuck thoughts. On a more subtle level this allows water to flow in the female channel and air to flow in the male channel. Opening these channels took me decades, but I think that work is mostly done for me. What happens in the central channel and other channels in the legs and arms is far more esoteric, and doesn’t really mean anything or make sense or is even needed to know until a lot of initial work with the two side channels and the lower dantian is done.

I like what you are saying about sexual love, emotive love and aesthetic love being associated with the central channel where it intersects with the dantians, though I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘aesthetic’ love exactly. I think there is some sort of subtle ‘seed’ that has to travel from the LDT up to the MDT and then the UDT that in a sense has to be fully realised and transformed in each of these centres, and this ever broadening of ‘love’ is a fundamental part of the journey. edit to add: Christianity has ‘Agape’ as the highest love, “the love that is of and from God, whose very nature is love itself…it is His nature to love and He must be true to His nature.”

"Buddha nature" is often described in terms of three qualities: boundless wisdom, infinite capability, and immeasurable loving-kindness and compassion. If this is true, and Mind is equivalent to this, then I agree that it means much more than that which thinks. Since I’m a hopeless case I’d break up the above mentioned three qualities into the fully realised potential of pingala, Ida and Sushumna respectively.

Removing a single proton from the nucleus of a mercury atom transforms it into gold, thus the ability to manipulate atoms at a quantum level would be all that is needed for external alchemy to become a reality. Not a car to a chair, but it would be an interesting demonstration of some sort of quantum ability.

Compare the above to this: Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi (B) taught that the heart, not the head, is the true seat of Consciousness; but by this he did not mean the physical organ at the left side of the chest but the heart at the right, and by 'consciousness' he did not mean thought but pure awareness or sense of being. He had found this from his own experience to be the centre of spiritual awareness and then found his experience confirmed in some ancient texts.When his devotees were instructed to concentrate on the heart, it was this spiritual heart on the right that was referred to; and they also found it the centre of an actual, almost physical vibration of awareness. However, he would also speak of the Heart as equivalent to the Self and remind them that in truth it is not in the body at all, but is spaceless. https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/sri-ramana-maharshi-on-heart Ramana also refers to awareness, but it’s centre is within the body, the ‘spiritual heart’ as opposed to the head, which can be felt as an almost physical vibration. He goes on to say it is spaceeless, though it’s hard to square that with ‘almost physical vibration’ and an exact location. Maybe nonduality 😱 But then I just now come across this from Wikipedia: Dzogchen texts also describe how rigpa is connected to the energy body. Dzogchen tantras explain that rigpa can be located in the center of the human body, in the heart centre. The Realms and Transformations of Sound Tantra states: "The jewel present within the heart in the center of one’s body is great pristine consciousness."[21] Furthermore, the Self-Arisen Vidyā Tantra states: I have the idea that what is important is centred within us, and that it is important to establish it first within as the source, before identifying with everything ‘out there’ and maybe missing what’s ‘in here’.

When I read something from the nondual traditions for example dzogchen. Below is an explanation of ‘mind-itself’, I understand it’s not mundane mind, but it still seems mind based if the word gnosis or even awareness can be applied to it. Dzogchen theory focuses above all on mind-itself, which is seen as a primordially pure, empty, and luminous gnosis (yeshe) or awareness (rigpa), which must be distinguished from unenlightened “ordinary” mind (sem). Awareness is not only the true nature of each individual sentient being but the very source and substance—in Yogacara terms, the foundation (alaya)—of the cosmos itself. Rigpa is conventionally divisible into essence, nature, and compassionate energy, and includes within it all of samsara and nirvana. Beginninglessly pure mind-itself is captured symbolically in the figure of the primordial buddha Samantabhadra (luminosity) and his consort, Samantabhadri (emptiness). https://www.lionsroar.com/empty-pure-luminous-mind-in-dzogchen-and-mahamudra/

@Apech, you suggested earlier that "mind" equals mind plus spirit, but it still seems to be limited to specifically 'mental consciousness' when I read it in a text.

From what I can gather things are not reliable and constant on the quantum level but when it comes to visible things they are. If quantum reality can be manipulated, maybe a car can become a chair.

If sound is vibrations, then the falling tree certainly does make a sound, because it produces vibrations in the air. Even if there’s no person or other animal around to hear the sound, a recorder with a microphone could certainly record those vibrations—as sound. Another definition is that sound is the sensation we experience when our ears detect those vibrations and send information about those vibrations to the brain. In other words, by this second definition, sound is what we hear, i.e., the perception in our brains. So if sound is what we hear, and no one is around to hear the tree fall, then it doesn’t make a sound! That’s opposite to the answer we had earlier. Which answer is correct? Here’s how to know: When someone asks you, “If a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound,” first ask, What do you mean by sound? Define sound! Once you hear the definition they’re using, you’ll know the answer. If they say that sound is vibrations in the air, then the answer is yes! If they say that sound is only what a person hears, then the answer is no. https://www.nsta.org/q-if-tree-falls-forest-and-theres-no-one-around-hear-it-does-it-make-sound

In a sense the linked article proves what I was saying earlier to manitou, one can find just about anything to support their view, doesn’t mean it’s right. And you are drawn to those papers and wisdom traditions that confirm your own view/experience. So you are trusting your experience and it’s confirmation to be the truth. Statistically speaking, what you believe to be true is more likely to be one part of the elephant.

The linked article refers to reality as “objective physical realism”. You don’t doubt that there is an objective physical reality?

New experiment demonstrates that reality might actually be real Forget theoretical physics, let's talk about experimental reality April 19, 2022 - 9:12 pm A team of scientists recently conducted an exciting quantum physics experiment allowing them to demonstrate that reality might actually be real. https://thenextweb.com/news/new-experiment-demonstrates-reality-might-actually-be-real

The phrase ‘Form is emptiness; emptiness is form’ is not a necessary foundation of subtle body cultivation IME, and I wouldn’t need to unravel the meaning of this phrase if it doesn’t affect my subtle body cultivation. It seems more likely that we have different concepts of what the subtle body is and how it is cultivated. I don’t need to understand this phrase to feel an emotion, or do a specific posture, or have a working understanding of dantians and chakras and Nadi’s, and these are the basis of subtle body work for me.