Do all roads lead to Rome (awakening)?

Hi,

I have a few questions I was hoping I might be able to get some help on.

I was wondering how the 1st gear phisio-energetic model of awakening relates to the 2nd/3rd gear path. It seems that many teachers from Adyashanti, Eckhart tolle and Tony Parsons teach basically 3rd gear exclusively? I am also reading a book by Catherine Ingram 'passionate presence' with a similar message.

What she descibes as awakened awareness sounds very much like people desciptions of direct mode sensing.

In the Hindu tradition there are the different paths of devotion, knowledge and karma (service?) yoga, which all offer paths to awakening. So I am curious what this means and it raises a few questions!

Do all roads to awakening traverse the same territory as the stages of insight?
Is the path of meditation and all its suffering (up until resolution at 4th path) necessary for awakening? or simply the most proactive thing we can do to assist its arising?

Intense noting/mindfulness, compassion & metta, devotion, service, surrender all seem like methods of of dissolving self view and dissolving the fetters (10 fetters model). On some level there is something in the character of the pure insight vehicle that makes me feel uneasy, it has been described it as the brute force method of awakening. It might be quick and it might be effective but is it the only way??

As this site and kenneths teachings seem to be about describing the territory of contemplative practice, it would be great get some clarity as to how all these paths inter-relate. Noting/vipassana investigation of reality and the stages of Insight Map are obviously the path of preference here. I wouldnt doubt their effectiveness for some people. However I feel that the same outcome seems to be arrived at by individuals through many different paths. any relfections on this would be great!!

Check out Kenneth's talk "Realization and Enlightenment" on kennethfolkdharma.com/ , if you can - there's a lot there about the relationship between awakening in the moment and enlightenment as a path that develops.

I'm not so sure its the same - given the number of people who think A&P is enlightenment and the number of odd, somewhat non-reproducible transformations of the brain that can occur (people that get stream entry using methods that may not work for anyone else, etc, or people that somehow just change and cannot tell you what to do to get there) - its very easy for people in a group doing a certain practice to grab on to the possible success of one person as a way of proving themselves right, while ignoring the fact that only one person out of a thousand ever 'got enlightened'. lets not even talk about the Siddha thing, that makes it even more confusing!
Honestly without efforts to record techniques and experiences over time noone would have a clue what worked. Thank goodness for thousands of years of Theravadan monks eh? I am hoping someday this becomes another branch of science and is no longer a mysterious, somewhat superstitious endeavor. It is just potty training after all, is it not?

Looking for commonalities in 1st/2nd/3rd gear, from my very limited experience, it seems that when I investigate the qualities of being present, vipassana is spontaneously occuring whether I am in open awareness or intentionally noting. Perhaps all valid roads contain vipassana to some extent?

For example, if you read Eckhart Tolle, he'll tell you to go looking for the Now. As far as I can tell, the Now can't be found, only inferred, and you're going to have a very similar experience as "Listening for the Ships in the Harbor" or looking for awareness itself. When I focus intensely on the Now I am catching more of the tail end of phenomena through a vipassana type process. If initially I apply an enormous amount of effort on finding the Now I might find that this amount of effort is a bit contrived and then just find myself relaxing into open awareness, but still essentially doing vipassana.

(This is my current theory anyway, and would love someone to tear it to shreds)

The shape bubble of attention seems to also totally change the quality or mind state associated with the experience of now. Antero had a very cool post on his journal recently on this. This might explain why people describe enlightenment in so many different ways.

" if you read Eckhart Tolle, he'll tell you to go looking for the Now. As far as I can tell, the Now can't be found, only inferred, and you're going to have a very similar experience as "Listening for the Ships in the Harbor" or looking for awareness itself. When I focus intensely on the Now I am catching more of the tail end of phenomena through a vipassana type process. If initially I apply an enormous amount of effort on finding the Now I might find that this amount of effort is a bit contrived and then just find myself relaxing into open awareness, but still essentially doing vipassana.



"

After listening to Eckhart Tolle's ' The power of now ' , i think what he is refering to an underlying ever present baseline of peace and contentment, something that is always available to anyone at any time.

stephen: If you listen to Kenneth's talk on the "Ships in the Harbor", I think he explains quite well how it is the *gesture* of looking for Awareness or anything else that can't actually be found, that is the point. Side effects of this include peace and contentment.

Totally agree with your last post Orasis. Although i have had an experience lately of feeling much more grounded in the present ( in the now )

See my post from earlier in the week ( practice for grounding in the present )

Hey, Ed. I'd like to put a little different spin on what you mentioned about Hindu traditions. From the perspective of Vedanta, these different 'paths' - karma yoga, bhakti (devotion) yoga, jnana (knowledge) yoga, and raja (meditation) yoga are all part of one integrative path. To achieve enlightenment, one has to have dispassion, dedication, and insight. These yogas are different ways of working towards those qualities.

I also think defining karma yoga as service is a little misleading. As I understand it, the goal of karma yoga is working hard or serving well but (most importantly) giving up the fruits of ones actions -- realizing that you're not really in control, that you don't have to have a certain outcome, that you can be happy no matter what comes. This develops dispassion.

I think what orasis has said has been said well. Practices that point toward the ungraspability of this moment are all headed the same way. Vedanta differs from Buddhism in that it takes a sort of metaphysical position and thus has a somewhat different practice paradigm (I'm not sure how far I would defend this statement). Vedanta says that you ARE this awareness that is all pervading, that is, in fact, everything. You are only unenlightened because of your ignorance of what you are. Therefore there is nothing to be gained in enlightenment -- only a dropping of ignorance -- or a return of knowledge (jnana yoga), perhaps.

Because it is knowledge that you lack (not an experience, kensho, samadhi, what-have-you), Vedanta focuses heavily on jnana yoga. Relating this to Kenneth's paradigm, this is 2nd gear, but fleshed out quite a bit, generally. Then to an abiding, 3rd gear practice.

All the best,
John