hi everyone...
Sahaja yoga is different in a sense one can get their self
realisation first rather that being the aim. It is a tangible
experience which most people can feel. Only with the help of the
primordial energy within, one can go into the thoughtlessness which
is the state of No-self. All ego n conditionings drop off. n is
jsut complete connection with divine.
The thoughtless and egoless state of pure presence is the 'I AM'
I am talking about. Its not a concept of a self, its the vivid pure
beingness. It is without personality/ego and a pure state of
beingness/energy/existence/awareness which is not confined to
thoughts or body or anything. 'Thoughtless awareness' as you
said.
Also there is a huge misunderstanding what No-Self (Anatta)
means in Buddhism... it is not talking about a stage or a state
void of personality or ego or conditionings...
As a comment written in my blog:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
...First I do not see Anatta as merely a freeing from
personality sort of experience as you mentioned; I see it as that a
self/agent, a doer, a thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found
apart from the moment to moment flow of manifestation or as its
commonly expressed as ‘the observer is the observed’; there is no
self apart from arising and passing. A very important point here is
that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma Seal, it is the nature of Reality
all the time -- and not merely as a state free from personality,
ego or the ‘small self’ or a stage to attain. (related article:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/07/bernadette-roberts-interview.html)
This means that it does not depend on the level of achievement of a
practitioner to experience anatta but Reality has always
been Anatta and what is important here is the intuitive
insight into it as the nature, characteristic, of phenomenon
(dharma seal).
To put further emphasis on the importance of this point, I would
like to borrow from the Bahiya Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html)
that ‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the
hearing, there is just the heard, no hearer’ as an illustration.
When a person says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I
hear sound’ to a stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it
is taken to be a stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there
is and always is only sound when hearing; never was there a hearer
to begin with. Nothing attained for it is always so. This is the
seal of no-self. Therefore to a non dualist, the practice is in
understanding the illusionary views of the sense of self and the
split. Before the awakening of prajna wisdom, there will always be
an unknowing attempt to maintain a purest state of 'presence'. This
purest presence is the 'how' of a dualistic mind -- its dualistic
attempt to provide a solution due to its lack of clarity of the
spontaneous nature of the unconditioned. It is critical to note
here that both the doubts/confusions/searches and the solutions
that are created for these doubts/confusions/searches actually
derive from the same cause -- our karmic propensities of ever
seeing things dualistically (also see my other friend Longchen’s
article http://www.dreamdatum.com/meditation-spontaneous.html
where I posted two of his articles including ‘How is nonduality
like?’ in this forum)...
This is only the start of the journey of ascent.
This is true. To catch a glimpse of awareness is not difficult,
to understand the true nature of it and not being misled by our
experience is most difficult. As our moderator Longchen has said
previously,
...Also, equally important is that the initial first glimpse
of it, will very quickly be miscontrued too. And therefore is also
not synonymous to enlightenment. But it can be described as an
initial awakening.
Beyond the first glimpsed is a continuous series of
refinements towards the ability to understand it better. This
usually happens in a series of major insights or realisations plus
countless cycles of mini-self recognitions (or pattern clearing).
These can take years or even lifetimes...
An old post by Thusness:
Transcendental glimpses are misled by the cognitive faculty of our
mind. That mode of cognition is dualistic. All is Mind but this
mind is not to be taken as Self. I Am, Eternal Witness, are all
products of our cognition and is the root cause that prevents true
seeing.
The who, where and when, the I, here and now must
ultimately give way to the experience of total transparency. Do not
fall back to a source, just the manifestation is sufficient. This
will become so clear that total transparency is experienced. When
total transparency is stabilized, transcendental body is
experienced and dharmakaya is seen everywhere. This is the samadhi
bliss of Bodhisattva. This is the fruition of practice.
Experience all appearance with total vitality, vividness and
clarity. They are really our Pristine Awareness, every moment and
everywhere in all its manifolds and diversities. When causes and
conditions is, manifestation is, when manifestation is, Awareness
is. All is the one reality. 