Cheltenham Group Meeting 13/5/10 – Self Remembering

Meeting reports, papers and discussions from Cheltenham Group. All Society members are welcome to join in the discussion here.

Moderator: ADMIN2016

User avatar
Rumpelteazer
Posts: 143
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 5:30 pm
Group: Cheltenham
Location: Gloucestershire, UK

Cheltenham Group Meeting 13/5/10 – Self Remembering

Postby Rumpelteazer » Sat May 15, 2010 1:42 pm

We studied parts of the attached two papers. The group tried to answer the question ‘Does one have to think, have in mind “I am doing this for Param-Atman” in order to be doing it for him?’ One person objected to the word “I”, saying there was no “I”. Another objected to the word “for” saying it was dualistic. (And the word “doing” is also suspect.) So how does one ‘do things for Param-Atman’? There were several answers:
  • It’s doing something without expecting a result or anything in return.
  • It’s all about doing what you are doing with joy.
  • It’s about doing things for other people. You can’t 'do everything for Param-Atman' – e.g. if you are practising the piano this is not for Param-Atman. But if you are playing for other people and can transmit something of what you feel to them, then this could be for Param-Atman.
  • You can do everything for Param-Atman if you take it to mean self-remembering. It’s about starting everything from stillness and doing it with attention - then sometimes self-remembering happens. But the mind needs to be still. This includes practising the piano if you are doing it properly with attention. It is possible to practise while thinking about something else, but without focussed attention the practice will not be very effective and would not be 'for Param-Atman'.
The discussion broadened into the general subject of how to 'remember Param-Atman':
  • It seems to be like a feeling of flow, being connected.
  • You can’t really describe it – it’s about being in a certain state. It’s a feeling. You have to drop everything. You sometimes get this feeling in the period after meditating. It can occur at other times, but this depends on a lot of practice over many years. "The world now seems quite different compared with when I was younger."
  • It’s the knowledge given to us by HH that changes one’s attitude. It’s about letting go and seeing the same thing, the same consciousness in other people. We spend most of our lives being negative and this is what changes.
Someone asked “But what if you encounter a really obnoxious person? How can you avoid negative feelings?” One reply was “it’s not about the obnoxious person, it’s about you. You need to see Param-Atman in that person”. Someone else suggested an alternative approach of trying to understand in advance that you really don’t want to have any negative emotions at all, however reasonable and justified, as these can only take you away from what you really want. Then, if an obnoxious person is encountered, his (or her) obnoxiousness is entirely irrelevant (to you) and you simply need to focus on whatever technique you are using to stop the negative emotion taking hold.

One person said that the words “remembering Param-Atman” had always just washed over her and she needed discussions like this to help her understand what it really meant. Another person agreed and said that for many years she had been unable to put HH’s teaching into practice as she couldn’t understand how to do it. It was only through studying it side by side with Ouspensky’s teaching as in these papers that she began to understand what HH was really saying and how to practise it. "Remembering Param-Atman" seems like a devotional approach whereas self-remembering seems like an emotional approach - both leading to the same place. It's simply a question of which is easiest to understand and practise.

Someone gave an example of realising that he was not present and aware of where he was. He had come home from a walk by the canal and realised that he had left something behind at the place where he had stopped for a picnic which was just by a bridge. He went back, parked the car and set off down the track. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t reached the bridge and just kept walking and walking always believing it would be round the next corner and reluctant to stop and work out where he was. Eventually he did stop, and switching on his GPS he found he had walked half a mile beyond the bridge. He had failed to notice on the original walk that the bridge was about 50m away from the track, and was expecting to pass close by.
Attachments
Paper_10_09.pdf
(108.49 KiB) Downloaded 423 times
Paper_10_08.pdf
(80.01 KiB) Downloaded 415 times

Return to “Cheltenham Group”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests