Bindi

This is a really interesting breakdown of 'minds', thanks Kubba. Interesting information on the fast and slow minds. This made me think of a time when I was out on a bush track with my two children who were very young at the time, the oldest would have been about two, and he had walked off the track a couple of steps right into the path of a venomous tiger snake which had reared up, flared out its neck and was facing him. I was a few steps away from him holding the baby, and all I could do was make a primal sound which reminded me at the time of what I imagined a howler monkey would sound like, a 'hoo hoo hoo' noise, it was decidedly pre verbal and dealing directly with the danger at hand, surely an occasion when I used what you describe as 'lower' mind. Amazingly my two year old looked at me and started walking towards me, exactly the response I would have wanted if I had been thinking or talking, and the snake quietly slithered away. I understand ego as being fixated on 'unconscious' mind (lower manas) that is driven by persona, and lower manas simultaneously as being fixated on ego. Ego ingratiatingly agrees with everything lower manas thinks regardless of reality. Information I received in a dream showed me that lower manas needs to raise itself through awareness of its contrived persona to upper manas, where it is no longer driven by unconscious persona and can open to the higher senses, and in this way upper manas can see through ego's 'madness', ignore her 'ego stroking' words, and bring her to ajna to be 'healed'. Perhaps this answers an earlier question I had, and suggests that ego needs to be transcended and transformed, but not killed.

I believe that joy (bliss) is a marker on the way to ‘enlightenment’, I wonder if others would agree, or if they feel it is unnecessary. "Mature awakening is sat chit ananda – absolute bliss consciousness. Typically, the freedom and peace comes first and the bliss a little later. No bliss means not fully established yet." @davidya

I'd like to see a Hin-Dao-Christ variation

I'm wondering about the role of ajna chakra consciousness in relation to 'mind' and 'ego', I remember many years ago for a brief while I was aware of 2 levels of mind, one the normal mind and another which ran at about half the speed, it was like 'slow deep mind', calm and clear thinking, I wonder if this second level might be ajna chakra consciousness

when you get old enough weeding the lawn is exercise when you get old enough you start getting birthday cards from the queen when you get old enough you shrink but your ears keep growing

I'm torn between ego should die and ego should be transformed, I simply don't know, nor am I convinced either way at the moment. Perhaps spiritual mind does have to be achieved first but then still needs to join with Siva/The Father/God

I disagree with what I have written here, and would now say that emotional clarity is also only achieved at ajna level, by bringing consciousness of the minor chakra to the left of the heart (hrit) up to its higher form at Ajna. I think Ajna chakra consciousness herself orchestrates how both lower manas consciousness (right/male/mind) and hrit consciousness (left/female/emotion) can travel up to her.

I agree that the problem is the mind's attachment to ego. I believe that to break this attachment the mind itself must first resolve its relationship to its hijackers, and then transcend its relationship to the senses and the persona, and that ego must then also transcend its role and become the servant of the spiritual mind.

Did you ever make it past this barrier T_I? Do you think the barrier was unresolved fear of death? Could it even have been fear of ego 'transcendence', which might appear the same to the mind as death or ego death?

As others have suggested perhaps overcoming ego is a matter of chipping away at acknowledging the parts of ourselves that we would prefer to ignore or deny, but even then I think there must be a core of ego that remains, Ramana’s root (ego) thought, and so there must be a final confrontation on some level. One simple guage of my ego that appeals to me at the moment is to notice how authentically aligned I am to ‘thinking of others’ as opposed to ‘thinking of myself’. This might not be the ultimate guage but for now it’s a simple way for me to see where I fall short, and in falling short to know that I haven’t yet 'arrived' (to believe that one has 'arrived' seems to me to be a remarkably common ego delusion).

Well obviously it matters to me Karl, and because it mattered I found the one for whom there is an ego, and surprise surprise it was me, and it needs to be 'removed'.

Many good quotes from Ramana here, thanks T_I. This quote “The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise” seems to answer my question, in that if ego is the root thought, it must be the last thought left between the 'ego-self' and the 'ever conscious- Self.' Interesting point about the apparent lack of ego dissolution in Daoism, I wonder what a Daoist might say?

Many years ago I had a dream where I looked out of a large window and saw the ‘oceanriver’. I was thinking about this image and this specific word yesterday, along the lines of when the river merges with the ocean the river no longer exists in the same form but has become perceptibly more, but also that the ocean is no longer just ocean but has become imperceptibly more. I think reaching the point where the river is merged to that extent, no ego would remain.

This last bit doesn't fully make sense to me. I can see that "The mind always exists only in dependence on something gross" whether that be the physical or subtle body, but I am lost when he says that "mind is called the subtle body or the soul". Is there some way of looking at this that I can't see? Would 'mind' be equivalent to 'consciousness'?

I find myself thinking about the fundamental difference between these two world views quite a lot, and I wonder what others might think. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:21 And Jesus said: If those who lead you say to you: See, the kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will go before you; if they say to you: It is in the sea, then the fish will go before you. But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. Verse 3 Gospel of Thomas

Something like this... In the 19th century, Lisco and Fairbairn stated that in the parables of Jesus, "the image borrowed from the visible world is accompanied by a truth from the invisible (spiritual) world" and that the parables of Jesus are not "mere similitudes which serve the purpose of illustration, but are internal analogies where nature becomes a witness for the spiritual world". Similarly, in the 20th century, calling a parable "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning", William Barclay states that the parables of Jesus use familiar examples to lead men's minds towards heavenly concepts. He suggests that Jesus did not form his parables merely as analogies but based on an "inward affinity between the natural and the spiritual order." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parables_of_Jesus

This suggests that there is secret Christian knowledge equated with 'the kingdom of God', but this secret knowledge would have to accord on some level with the parables in which this knowledge was hidden.

What about the immortal foetus, might this be pure Yang within our Yin bodies that with cultivation may be brought up and unified with pure unmanifested Yang? Is Jing equated with Yin energy that is converted to Qi and Shen which is then Yang energy (though still trapped within Yin)?

Was the suggestion that you didn't have to come back here, but made the choice to?

I don’t recall coming across the concept of moving beyond time in spiritual literature before (which isn't to say it isn't there), but perhaps because this thought had been put in my mind after reading your post, I did see a reference to beyond time and space while reading about Taoist dream practice: You talk about entering ‘the kingdom’ by “break[ing] outside of the last barrier of 'time'”, I wonder if you could expound on this idea a bit further, for me right now the idea is a bit like falling down the rabbit hole, I don't even know the right question to ask...yet

In Perth they keep threatening to recycle sewerage to be pumped back into the supply chain, I wonder if any of these sort of particles would make it through. Maybe it's time to run for the hills

But my way (and Jesus agrees with me on this ) is more "seek and you will find". I think it depends on the path you take as to whether seeking helps or hinders.

Yes I agree. Mystical kingship, sounds interesting.

My true self may be hijacked at any point in time by fear or shame or guilt or desire or anger. When my consciousness is identified with any one of these hijackers, my true self is obstructed. My only solution is to try to vanquish these hijackers one by one. My true self is buried beneath a persona that I created as a child from a childish perception of lack. Only when this childish persona is broken down and a mature persona has been created that instead reflects my True self will I be free of artifice. My true self is betrayed by ego, seeking its own best interests and avoiding the pain of the realisation that we are each one truly alone. Only after willingly walking through this pain will I be free of the motivations of ego. There may be more obstructions that I am not aware of, and intricacies that I have not yet understood, but this is the gist of why I am not yet my true self, according to me.

From that perspective there can be no within or without, I agree. But how does that concept relate to me right now, am I my True self now, already part of the Godhead, already entered the kingdom of heaven within and without? I personally know that I am not at one with my True Self or the Godhead, no matter what I might or might not like to think. I haven't yet entered the kingdom of heaven within or without. Thinking about it right now, I guess that the moment I enter the kingdom of God within will be the same moment that I enter the kingdom without.