Realizations of a lunar kind.

After cruising the board for about ten minutes, I still don't think I've posted this in the right place, it sort of doesn't fit anywhere, but could go anywhere

So mods - please, if I'm wrong, move it for me. I'm useless, I know. You think I'd know where to post things by now, but alas, twas not to be...

Anyway, I just thought I'd share an experience I had while on the train today with you all.

Firstly, I've always been interested in space and stars fascinate me. Looking up at the sky in a dark area on a clear night is, in my opinion one of the most beautiful things you could ever see. And I've always been drawn to this sort of stuff too. I find it all beautiful and fascination, and because of that I know that it takes roughly 8 minutes for the light to travel from the Sun to us, and the stars we can see might not be there anymore because they're so far away that they're in the past etc. I'm also a science geek so I know what they're made of and how stars work, how they burn out blah blah blah.
And, obviously, I know that the moon is a rock that floats round the earth (okay, orbits. Stay scientific, dear) and is a bit rocky satellite. Our big rocky satellite.

Okay, so lets get into this properly.

Today, I was sitting on those seats on the train that face the wrong way, and I get motion sick, so as you can imagine I wasn't fairing too well. So I had one of the ATS Live podcasts playing to take my mind off it, but still felt slightly queasy, so I tried to pick a stationary object to look at so I'd feel less sick.

And usually, I look up at the sky - especially if it's clear like it was today - because, well, you can't see the sky 'move'. And in the sky was the moon, in quite a nice waxing crescent main-in-the-moon type shape. So, I was focusing on that - staring out the window like a mental - when I thought how beautiful it was, and then it suddenly hit me that I was looking at something which isn't on this planet, which is in space, beyond my reach.

Of course I knew this already, but realising - and I mean truly, deep down, stomach pang realising - it and knowing it are completely different things. And honestly, it took my breath away. I couldn't stop looking at it! Something that I've seen hundreds of times before, through a telescope etc. It was really astonishing, and I'm really happy I got to experience it. Because when you do, it's just breath-taking.

It's happened with other things too, but I won't go into those right now.

Like I said, feel free to move this if it isn't in the right place, but I can have faith even if it's scientific, right?
Takes me back to the days of Philosophy A Level, that does...

ohh, i seee..
tricky mind we have, and one can see it very clearly when he realizes that he is actually seeing things interepreted by his own mind, not thing itself.
lets hope for more of such clear observations for us all

I second that!

Thanks for reading

u welcome,
I have been wondering for some time,
how to stay "awake" as long as possible.

There definetly are people researching this phenomen like Gurdjieff .. who i think was saying that u will everytime fall back "asleep" soon after u have "awaken" until u make lots of "alarm clocks" all around u in your life. Plan to read some book from him, but have hard times coming across one.

Recently i came across Krischnamurti, who says that as long as there is observer (you, me) the thing observed is never the thing, So basicaly he says that one can percieve the reality celarly only when his mind is empty, thus there are not any subjective thoughts altering/blocking what u percieve. So being in constatnt state of meditation is the way here ..

well iam still figting, but things like fast, wandering trips or amanitas, works quite good to wake me up for some time, and one wonders then how deeply asleep he was.

reply to post by ClevererRunbeening


Haha.

I studied Buddhism a bit in my last couple years of school, so I'm up with the whole meditation and enlightenment things they do. I don't practice, but out of all the religions, tI think they've got the best idea.

I just thought that this was some sort of scientific jhana, or a bit of real-world enlightenment haha. Thats what I imagine it to feel like, anyway.

just came today across this article,
i am having hard times to read it now properly, its bit mindbogling,
but i think its quite conected with our previous discussion, so iam sharing it

Life Is But A Dream (search the page for title, its like third post on the page)
lifetechnologynews.blogspot.com...

I would not be so excited about it, if i hadnt one particular experience with friend of mine (who is into lucid dreaming), where i felt something very.... new about perception of reality. Well its quite a long time and i still have hard time describing it.