The key point about all this is to remember its all a perspective. There is one reality but many, many ways of experiencing it. I’m not even sure if a human nervous system is capable of taking it all in.

You are having a clear experience of the absolute but also seeing that it seems to change. That change is no different than It. This is a good experience but there is an even deeper value.

The key thing is that it appears to change because of shifts in our perception from moment to moment. Shifts in how we “attend to it” if you will.

This shifting is taking place as the perceiver is still distinct from the perceived and the relationship between them shifts. One experience that may arise is the collapse of time. When the past and future collapse fully into the moment. Then we see everything happening at once. One of the reasons Eastern gods are shown with many arms, heads, etc.

Space collapses when the perceiver collapses into the perceived, when they are not seen to be different. When the Self flows back into itself.

When there is no longer any difference and it’s all at once, there is no change to happen.

The only difference between this perception and your perception is the clarity of perception. None of it actually ever changes.

The problem with a description like this is that the mind cannot comprehend it. Thus, a teacher will tell stories in metaphor. Or they describe it in a way that can be related to, a little ahead of current perception. Like your quote from Tom. Lead the student to the next greatest truth.

For example, at first it seems it is us working to awaken. After first awakening, we see it as Self working through us, so Self seems to the one that was awakening through us after all. But in Oneness, we are the Self and were never not awake. So there was nothing to do and no process to accomplish. A ‘way’ or process can become meaningless. Where do you need to go to get where you are?

Each of these is completely true at that point in our path. The teacher will natural speak to what is useful.

An analogy about change comes to mind. If you look out at a distant horizon and scan your eyes across it, you will see variations in the landscape.(perhaps less so on the prairies But did your looking change it? Is the landscape changing before your eyes? Change only appears because we are shifting our attention across time. When our attention includes all time, nothing changes.

Make any sense? (laughs)

BTW – this does not mean it’s boring. It means we’re not stuck in a tiny little box. We are the vastness of everything in an unimaginably large playground.

(Yes, it’s funny, that coincidence with my name – Flow has been my nickname since I was 11, and I’ve recently started using it again because it resonated so strongly with me!)

The water/ocean analogy is great! – the absolute ebbs and flows, ripples and swells, like the ocean. Yes, it remains ‘itself’, just like the ocean remains the ocean, whatever floats in it. We may just be saying the same thing in different words, Davidya (cos like Tom says, it’s beyond words, really!), but I am still curious about whether we disagree on one important point…

It is my belief/experience that the essence of the absolute is changing, *as we attend to it*. We are used to the notion that WE seek enlightenment/greater consciousness/’god’ and that we change as we go through this process… but I see that *the absolute* is also seeking awareness of *itself*, and using us to do this. As WE become more awake, the absolute is able to know more about itself. I don’t think it’s just semantics: the increasing self-awareness of the absolute is a change in its quality if not its quantity.

I am not sure whether this is ‘old hat’ or ‘heresy’ – sorry if it’s either! But as I scroll back thru this discussion I see Tom made an earlier comment that seems to be saying the same thing that I am groping towards:

“… Listening to … Adyashanti … I noticed how he spoke several times about “clear seeing”. The take home message was that spirit is ever working to see things more clearly through us. That’s its “mission” in the world. Clear seeing”.

Thank you for being here!

The definition of absolute is unchanging. That’s why people call it that.

But you are having a clear experience of a more advanced quality of it. The so called world of change is really the silence, moving within Itself. This movement some call the flow. But it is not a flow of some thing, it is the flow of Itself. Seen clearly, there is no subject and object duality. Again, it is just within Itself. Pure Oneness, wholeness. Make sense?

While it may seem to change it does not really. It simply fluxes. Appears to vibrate, then subside. Wave, then settle. The waves rise up on the ocean but never become separate from it. They remain water.

Finding a community of the awake is very valuable. Being around people who’s mind is not always lost in illusion. That’s getting easier.

Tom, you raise a very useful question. I can answer part of it easily: the ‘me’ that remembers is NOT the same as the ‘me’ that experienced. Actually, the second half of that sentence doesn’t really capture it – because it wasn’t so much that I had the experience as that the experience had me! I asked/meditated (I called it ‘paying attention to the light’) and ‘it’ opened up and let me see.

On the other hand, the ‘me’ that remembers is definitely ME – it’s definitely ego – tho an ego that’s a little older and wiser! Memory, like Davidya says, is not the experience. The tricky bit, as I see it, is that I still seem to need ego to function day-to-day as a mother, worker, etc. I do not yet know how to make the ‘everyday’ into a meditation.

Daviya – you are right about our relationships to the absolute. But I would REALLY like to talk more about your statement that ‘the absolute does not change’. Unless I have misunderstood you, I think I fundamentally disagree! My encounters with the absolute told me that it is EVER-changing, constantly in flux. I am very sure of this because it is one of the things I meditated on and (um, inadequate words again!) intuited/was given understanding of. But I would love to explore and challenge the ideas, and hear other people’s beliefs/experiences – tho perhaps some other time and place, eh?! And of course, because paradox is everywhere, it is ALSO unchanging, in that it is ‘unchangingly changing’.

I could go on forever, but I’ll stop now! I am sooo glad to have found your site Tom – because I am in contact with almost no-one who ‘gets’ any of this, and because finding it has been a small reawakening in itself. Thank you!

Don’t forget that the memory is not the experience. Don’t identify too much with what was or it can get in the way of what is. I’ve seen people struggle with letting go of past experiences of ‘reality’ to awaken.

The absolute does not change – it only seems elusive. What is changing is your relationship to it. Awakening is very simple, so simple its a surprise. But you have to come to a place where it can be. Where you can let go of the need for it to be anything.

Last year I had a time (it lasted several months) when I ‘encountered the absolute’ over and over again. I set out to meditate on the nature of the universe, and had the great pleasure and priviledge of getting what I was looking for. You say that you ‘know’ when you encounter the absolute, and this was certainly my experience: when I tried to describe my certainty to someone, I found myself saying that it wasn’t ME who was certain, it was the ideas themselves(’ideas’ is the best word I can find, but it’s still not quite right!) that were so sure, and I was lucky enough to be let in on them! (It is hugely difficult to put this into words; I hope I have explained ok!) The experience and insights I gained were hugely joyful, and the joy spilled over into all areas of my life.

However, like you say, the veil parts and then it falls back again. Somehow I lost the ‘tuning’ or whatever it was that giving me these ‘encounters with the absolute’. It had something to do with everyday life getting in the way. My roles as single mother to two children and freelance researcher and so on seemed to set up some kind of ‘interference’ which I couldn’t manage to weave into the music. I think this was because I often need to do things which my ego would not choose to do of its own free will – things I do as ‘duties’ – though I try to do them with good grace!

I experienced some bereavement and frustration at this. I was a little resentful that I couldn’t just take myself away from all the ‘distractions’ and live like a hermit, up a mountain or in a cave, meditating, and maintaining my direct line to the universe! (I hope you can hear that I’m laughing at myself a little here!)

Then I realised: life is life is life! Basically, I had been thinking “It would be so easy to be enlightened if it wasn’t for LIFE getting in the way”. (Spelled out like that, it sounds ridiculous!) But living life has got to be what it’s all about, surely?!

Now, a year or so on, the veil has not yet parted again. I maintain a memory of my ‘encounters with the absolute’ – but it’s just a memory – a rationally held thing – and not at the moment a directly experienced, intuited thing.

I think my ‘next step’ is almost certainly to discover how to ‘encounter the absolute’ while ALSO doing my ‘duties’. It’s a ‘zen through sweeping’ kind of thing!!

Also (here’s something interesting, important and challenging!) because I am living with a teenager, I get almost daily in-your-face reminders of the dramas that Ego throws up! I am constantly reminded that my own path CANNOT EVER BE walked alone. It is easy to be so focussed on our own personal spiritual journeys that we forget there are others all around us on theirs!

I think the challenge, for me at least, is not (or not ONLY) to find or walk my own ‘path to enlightenment’, but to find how my path weaves and fits with all others – to enrich the whole tapestry, so to speak!

Also (I am not certain I can put this into words adequately) I have a sneaking suspicion that PRECISELY BECAUSE there are so many of us swimming in the flow, so to speak, the waters are constantly changing! The ‘absolute’ is elusive – and maybe it always will be – because it is ever-changing! If so, enlightenment’ isn’t reaching the end of the path – it can’t be – it is something more like getting into a perfect stride!

Meanwhile, partly to reflect on this process and partly just to have some fun, I’ve started a blog (it’s at http://gogowiththeflow.blogspot.com ). Notice I want to ‘go-go’ with the flow right now! Like you say, humour can be a great way to encounter the absolute!

Hawkins has nothing on Theosophy. Talk about complex. The issues with Hawkins are less that he copied, but that he presents himself and the system as the judge. Levenson never fell into that trap.

Occasionally there is something that stirs the pot though. Jill Bolte Taylor made quite stir. She’s still thinking subtler means different part of the brain, but its a step.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

the concept seems to be missing in the neuroscience world, and would be a valuable addition to what those guys are trying to do.

(of course, these are the same guys that think consciousness comes from meat, a biochemical product of brain interaction, so maybe there is no hope anyway, never the twain shall meet)

You may find the “Rough Guide” here useful – he tanks on their rating: (green button)
http://www.energygrid.com/spirit/guide/index.html

I would take Tom’s advice over in ‘Spiritual Awakening’ comments. Be willing to learn from everyone but take it all with a big grain of salt.

Have you read anything by David Hawkins? He talks quite a bit about the various levels of enlightenment.