The "Headless" Way To Enlightenment: Douglas Harding's Enlightenment Experiments
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- Опубликовано: 2 апр 2023
- Douglas Harding, who lived into his 90s, spent his entire life
instructing people on how to see the utterly obvious fact that they DO NOT
have a head.
Harding said that once this fact is seen - that we have no head - then we at
the same time have the most profound insight into our true nature,
non-duality, or what many mystical and religious traditions call,
“enlightenment.”
Douglas Harding was in his mid-thirties and living in India, looking out over
the Himalayas, when he first realised that he could not find his head.
Instead, where he thought his head should be he found a boundless field of
awareness.
This awareness was utterly inclusive and not limited to the boundaries of
his body.
This was not something that he had developed or achieved.
It was rather merely the seeing of what was completely obvious and always
already the case.
It was, to quote Harding, to experience one’s self at the “zero point.” To see
clearly what one truly is: open, boundlessly inclusive, empty, awareness.
Douglas Harding’s teaching and experiments can be seen as similar to Zen
Buddhism in several ways.
Most importantly, they both emphasise the importance of direct experience
and a shift in perception that allows one to recognize the true nature.
However, there are other similarities that are important also.
In Zen Buddhism and in Douglas Harding’s teaching, there is a focus upon
cultivating non-dual awareness - an awareness that transcends the illusory
separation between self and the world.
In Zen, this is expressed as “not-two,” which very closely resembles
Harding’s idea of experiencing the world not through two eyes but through
the “single” eye.
Sitting meditation practice in Zen is called Zazen.
#zen #enlightenment #douglasharding #spirituality #nondual
Script: Matt Mackane
Edit: Harsh
Voiceover:Andrea Giordani
Score: Epidemic music x Original Music
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It happened when I recently walked along a country road and saw/felt the road and other things passing THROUGH ME! Later, I stood by the road side and watched/felt cars passing THROUGH ME! I somehow became a huge, invisible, space-like essence or aliveness through which external things were simply passing whilst I/this remained perfectly still! It was and still is INDESCRIBABLE but absolutely real & still is whenever I remember to notice the inner stillness whilst being outwardly active. "Be still & know".....
That's beautiful. Is this an on going experience for you?
You can expand on this by realizing you never move anywhere, you are always at the center of the universe, and the universe moves around you like your the center of a sphere. You will feel a little dizzy or vertigo the first couple of times you become aware of this.
Yes, like a dream?
“I” never go anywhere ❤
The simplest mandala is also a sign of the cross. Where the two poles of opposition intersect the center is found. It symbolizes the whole, the unity of the universe and the center is the soul, or the psyche. In an ever expanding universe, Infinity can be measured in any direction, from any given point. This means that any specific point in the entirety of the universe is exactly at the center. The cosmic event horizon is roughly 14 billion light years from any point in the universe. Travel 2 billion light years away, and you shift the event horizon correspondingly. What does geocentrism or heliocentrism even mean in the face of infinity? It means the center is the soul or the psyche, or psycentrism.
Whether it is conscious or not, when a person maps this symbol out on their self, they are acknowledging this universal truth. Every time a Christian makes a sign of the cross, they are pointing to the center of the cosmos. Additionally, with in that center of the psyche, there expands an equally infinite depth.
The Psyche is drawn by desire (Eros) to manifest in the material to partner with Eros and thus becomes mortal. The Psyche seeks to return to its natural state but Eros compels her. Psyche is torn between Eros and Thanatos.
Yes, there are exeptions of such point of view which can be experienced 1. Easily , with an assistance of substances as mescaline or salvinorin A
2. By regular practice of specific techniques of meditation as sitting with eyes open and focusing entire attention equally on all the sensory input, including sounds, bodily sensations and vision . But yeah, headlesness.
You can also think, rather than any object, including oneself being not there then present what I call the zero plus orientation, that every thing is what it is because everything else isn't it, what I call the infinity minus orientation, if you take a large square & call that the infinite set, then put two smaller squares inside it, you can either think of those squares moving towards or away from each other, or you can think of the space surrounding them changing, & further the space surrounding them connects them.
"You have no head" is a profound statement, a Mahavakya-level type statement. Especially for those who already have some experience and practice, it can be of profound help along the path to englightment. I practice Japa, Breathe-Mindfulness, and Awareness of Awareness meditation.
What a weight off my shoulders!.
Literally and experiencally 😂
What a great explanation of Douglas Hardings teachings!
Narration of the teaching in this 20 min video is outstanding - thank you!
I highly encourage you to read the book.
I have heard a story from kashmiri shaivism which maybe relevant
There was once a spiritual aspirant who used to practice meditation everyday with the wish to see Shiva in person. After a long time, he became desperate and began to lose hope and confidence, Shiva then came in his dreams and told him to look for a man without a head.
The aspirant was overjoyed and started to look for that headless man everywhere and couldn't find such a person. Finally he became tired of it and was just lying and noticed a strange phenomenom he could see that his body has legs, hands, chest, stomach and wait... he could not see the head and it was at that moment he realised Shivoham "I am Shiva"
Thanks... ❤
the practice with the finger was divine,what a shift !!!!!! very very powerful , thank you for your dedication is very very helpful🙏🙏🙏
This video gave me goosebumps cause I accidentally experienced this while slow breathing and meditating while practicing tantrak and when I say the realization of the experience is overwhelming you just gotta maintain a casual breath about it all otherwise you fall back into regular perception but it’s utter bliss no experience like it I promise you fully feel connected all around inside and out
This is already the case. The body/brain/mind/self is simply disentangling from a previous developmental perception. Everybody is aware for the need of a mirror to see their face. Headless points to our simple direct reality. As a child there is a need to seek outside to form a character. As we develop there grows the need to notice our actual reality. Every Human culture expresses this reality.
It is a profound insight! "You have no head" is a great utterance, Mahavakya level type statement. Especially for those who already have some experience and practice, it can be of profound help along the path to englightment. I practice Japa, Breathe-Mindfulness, and Awareness of Awareness meditations.
Wisdom showed i was no-thing. 🔥
Love showed me i am every-thing❤
Thanks for bringing attention to this important body of work. Douglas Harding continues to inspire me to look for myself and trust my own 1st-person truth: From where I look there is no "head", only an awake, boundless space, seamlessly one with what is arising and passing. I encourage you to try the experiments and read one of his books. The only problem: it's way too simple, way too obvious, so people overlook the profundity of that liberating insight. "Pearls to the swine", if you will...But maybe you are one of these people who also appreciates these pearls of wisdom.
The simplicity is the key. The key revelation is to realize thinking creates two complementary parts to create a narrative. These parts are obviously functional abstractions. All thinking is IMAGINATION. ALL IDEAS ARE ATE STORY. THE END.....GLORY!
Everything is already within
No within, no without!
I stumbled upon this experience of being headless by accident a few weeks ago while contemplating the nature of experience. Thanks for the video, I now know this is an actual thing!
Thank you for the reminder 🙏🕉️
such a gift this channel is.
I can't thank you enough for your extremely enlightening videos, they are extremely helpful. Thank you. Namaste 🥰
The atmosphere and animation of your videos are so enjoyable to watch.
thanks. Insightfull and good practice tips.
Pair Douglas Harding explorations with Tony Parsons/Jim Newman and Robert Wolfe work with Ajata and Sunyata. When you finish with this THE KINGDOM WILL BE REVEALED.
Yes very good. I really like Jim Newman and Robert Wolfe especially his talk &book on a Ajata you might also like God is Nothingness by Andre Doshim Halaw. Ps I wrote this video script
U G Krishnamurti and your done🎉😊
@@tomsmith2361 I found him hard to understand.
@@FirstPersonHood I find every human hard to understand 😂
Thank you for this lecture. Brilliant!
Well done, great video and content. keep it up.🙌🙏
When thine eye is single thy body is full of light
If you are seeking an experience of your deeper Self. If you are seeking release from your suffering. You need to simply disassociate your sense of self from your body, and in the ensuing emptiness you will find is full of what you have always been. What you are before birth and what you are after death hasn't changed at all.
You are eternal. ⛩️
Brilliant... ⭕♾️
Thank you
For one who has no head, the entire universe is his head
Great insight of a legitimate spiritual practitioner
Hopefully this realisation helps me to stop nose picking
Another expansion is to say you have no body either. I also imagine I live within a my Core (in the middle of my body) in a large energetic circle which is your essence.
I love the way you express yourself that is spot on to having full awareness of oneness to all. Peace to you GODDESS
There is no need to imagine anything. You acknowledge reality everytime you go to your mirror.
@@FirstPersonHood no mirror is false sense of self, true self can be perceived from within.
@@lmf3880 don't comprehend and that's wonderful.
Zen has become a group👯movement,👣 however, ONE=mc2 can reach complete awareness without any struggle to BE=mc2 Still🧘, Silent🔕 & Empty😶. Living in the👣 Moment is Full🌝Consciousness🎺!
Very interesting, thank you
Thank you 🙏 ❤
It is not something to be experienced or by using drugs, it already is what you are in fact. The more you look for it the further away it is.
Thank you..
Ver reminiscent of Bankei Yotaku and his teachings ov the unborn
Great ... ❤
Thank you for your videos. The people who speak in these videos have such nice voices. I enjoy listening and learning.
Oh my god. I've been doing this for just a couple of days, didn't know that this is an actual practice ppl do!
Thank you asangoham
Do a video on jiddu krishnamurthi teaching
That finger thing changed the way I feel and view things now.😮😊
Same experience of headlessness..at the beginning of sadhna
Response to tarot hija, the last chant is not a mantra but a sankrit verse which means ' you alone are my mother and father too, my relative and friend, knowledge and riches, oh Divine of divine !you alone are my everything !!!' ; pardon me if I took your time,,,,sastri
seeing yourself as headless is one of the meditation techniques mentioned in vigyan bhirav tantra. osho has talked about it.
Very good, I just wish the video had included Chinnamasta.
Thank you for all the videos. Can you explain Tony Parsons insight? ..from a persistent seeker.
It is described that angels/gods dont percieve themselves as humans do. They percieve in a space-cosmic type perception that a worldly man would have no idea on about. Embodiment of I AM
وَشَاهِدٍ وَمَشْهُودٍ (3)
Another awesome research. Thank you so much. Can you share the name of the mantra that you use in the lasts seconds of the video please? Thank you again. ☺️🙏🏻❤️🇨🇱
Listen to someone who had a glimpse trough very difficult ways, do this. This is the easiest and the best.
Hint: once you get accustomed, start directly by acknowledging the space around your head without the part of the exercise related to the finger. Then lose your whole body instead of losing just your head.
what is meant by "space"? the experience of air around the head?
@@nikigira Not only that, the awareness of the empty void. Empty void around, empty void inside, a rappresentation of nothingneds.
Subscription to Asangoham increases the likelihood that I will bumble into frothy moments of breathless looking (shades of Don Juan) such as these! ''Freedom at point zero''. ''All moments are equidistant from eternity''.
🙏
Simply awesome … just what I needed today ! 🙏
Thank you - this was GREAT! Who is the singer at the end of your vidoes?
No-self/No-Thing are teaching pointers, NOT knowable/beable states. (Nisargadatta:" All pointers *point to what is not.* As the Absolute, there is no Absolute.") This stuff is actually the epitome of mistaking the finger for the moon, but no one picks up on it because the spiritual *experiences* are so cool.
If one ultimately believes in discrete states that are higher/lower, etc. then that's the nama rupa trap.
this is all just stoner gibberish no reason treat it like philosophy
@rjevans2728Am pretty sure buddhist way to enlightenment one must realize the non-self
Let me leave something here.
The day you start knowing about yourself, that day you will find yourself.
❤
I don't have a head, but do I have a Heart...?
Head in clouds 👑🔥💫😇🌞🙏
i got my head up in the clouds like Zues where i can see the game from a Birds eye view. - Eminem
I have had the same experience....and it is so damn scary... really 😅
Is it possible to know the chant at the end of the video? ⚕️🧘🏾♂️
i first experianced this as a 5 year old
Ketu
so basically the momentum is no momentum but to see it how it is to be then you find nothing but a deep awareness of state of being - in that deep awareness one also utter something out of love and it can be OM or something similar - basically you experience love and you call out to that love using inner senses - and if the love responds there is a joy - but there is nothing but love where there is nothing …
I'm not sure I understand but it seems interesting.
Is anyone else going to mention Crowley? He practiced yoga so I think he got the idea for at least one of his rituals from that. It's just fascinating. Now I am getting ideas coming up.
That s dualism.
Seems like the guy, found some really potent charas (hash) over there 😂
Or LSD. Disassociation by any other means reveals the same space.
(I wanna make some brownies so bad.😊)
@@stefanschleps8758 weed grows like a wild grass here. People have clear acres upon acres of it for farming..
It's true; anyone, like Harding, coming back from 👣India has no🗣️head untill they start publishing 📚 books, then the head shows up again when counting their🤑money💰. A single👁️eye will confirm IT👀!
Speculation, speculation and no substance. It is indeed the “I” that speculated and the eye that sees. In your case it seems the former.
@@villainsandvagrants ironic, your statement has a chunk of speculation about the person you're commenting on and now I'm part of the game too.
@@svc2461 Round and round it goes. As the law of karma states, you reap what you sow.
Too much awareness in this thread
Head is rahu.headless is ketu
Awesome. Whenever I go into a deeper mediation. I feel my hands disappeared. Guest I'm on the right track?! 🙏😀
I remember when I was a child I repetedly had an experience of percieving myself as huge and very small in the random combinations. Then 20 years PASSED, I had to learn and practice vipassana for few years to get hold on it again.
You just reminded me that I to had a similar experience? Thank you!
@@mitzipaigemclemore9282yooo me too
Yes I went through it also .
So no head?
Gives a whole new meaning to the term "headless chicken" 😅 😇.
His talk beyond conscioness Depp understand my abishekghish chicken head you
@@arunkumarkumar930 Yoda you are, did not know before I.
@@abhishekghosh4384 what is yoda
@@abhishekghosh4384 you hindhu. Goddess of china mastha see the picture in Google. headless wisdom
Can you tell me who did this vidéo with douglas?
Sam Harris is a dunce! Great vid as always 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Yes, Sam Harris is such a knucklehead that he praises Harding without understanding the implications of what Harding is saying. He completely waters it down to the point that he can accept it within the atheistic framework that he espouses. I find his neoatheist diatribe to be obtuse at best, and extremely racist at its worst.
@@msimp0108 I think you've got Sam wrong dude. He understands non-duality as well as anyone. He just stops short of making any further claims about the universe or god. Seems pretty reasonable to me (although I'm open to being wrong).
@@JR-tc4kq To actually understand non-duality IS to make a claim about the universe implicitly. What Harding’s demonstration is meant to illustrate is that there is only One. That One is conscious awareness. All objects, including the body mind, are arising within the field of consciousness. That’s what’s actually interesting about it! Harris presumes that consciousness somehow is a product of the brain. Such a presumption is dualistic. And it suffers from the “hard problem” like all dualistic explanations of consciousness. Harris tries, and fails, to have it both ways. I still maintain that he is a knucklehead.
Ketu...🔱
This is much easier to do by oming or auming or toning,or humming by not paying attention to the sound you make you fall into the abyss of nothing,or just smoke some dmt
My favorite voice is no longer narrating the videos 😢
"iiiiiXPiiiRrrRriiiiENCE"
So what you're saying is that I should cut my own head off to obtain this state of mind?
"Then what are you?" Um, an amalgamation of squishy bits formed by lots of light photons bouncing around for the purpose of reflecting light back at itself so that other being may also exist and experience this life thing so evolution can finish its play? We're all light stuff. If you get your mind/nervous system running at the right frequencies, you can literally see it. Meditation takes a while but is more sustainable, psychedelics work just as well but you have less stability/control than with prolonged meditation. It's there for everyone to see. In some schools of esotericism, headless rituals are one of the first things you learn, it's the most basic of basic to get back to basics.
Ketu...🚩
Is he basically saying consciousness does not reside in the physical body?
The physical body exists within consciousness!
11 seconds in... oh i did it.
this just seems like people are trying to put a spin on decapitation of statues
Two eyes of Self (Subjective) and World (Objective) = Dualistic base of the Triangle. Above is the Eye of Unity (Illuminati Eye of the Mason) = 3 Pupils (Circles). These 3 triangular ⭕️ is also something you can see in the Yin-Yang symbol. 🙏🏻😊
so no head?
Oops, already too many words before the first character. “I’d,” like to say that given “my,” experience (not belief), “there,” is actually a literal experience of having the infinite field of awareness where one thought one’s head was. This is not a metaphor though the physics head remains. “You,” are not the body. You aren’t even a ‘You’.
These matters are verifiable through the same empirical and experiential basis as any conventional experience. You know if you know, and you only know if you’ve experienced plainly. For those who haven’t had the experience or are sick with ‘left brain only,’ disease, I can only offer this: only a fool discounts the potential for an experience he has not thoroughly investigated.
Both immanent and inexplicable (like the mystery itself), the experience arose, stuck around a while, and faded back into carrying water. It was at once blaringly unspeakable and completely ordinary. Nothing to see here. Alas, words. The greater point that I’m (ego) interested in is that through these aparent ‘minor satoris;’ and though the veil has been gone through consciously, still, there is ego and fear of death! Amazing - put simply Dharmakaya does not negate Dukkha but rather there is integration beyond mentation.
As an exercise this sounds cool. As truth, this completely ignores materialism.
Yes, because it is a profound scientifically empirical demonstration that materialism is not the truth!
16:21
Nah.. The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. If you call it awareness or anything else, you've already missed it. Study Sunyata and Prajnaparamita.
I’m glad to see this channel giving Harding his due attention. I read his book 45 years ago and it changed my life. It brought non-duality into clear focus.
My only criticism is that, while explaining the first person position by which Harding is suddenly brought to understand his headlessness(seeing his khakis, brown shoes,etc) you maintain a third person point of view. It is confusing because it diminishes the profundity of his realization. I also think it would be better without the references to the matrix and Keanu’s “Neo”, which has absolutely nothing to do with non-dualism. The matrix was about reality being a simulation. That is NOT Harding’s realization! Harding’s realization is that HE is only non-conditional, non-separate awareness, which is Reality. The objective world is an illusion, not a simulation created by some other nefarious entity. There is only one conscious awareness. It is the point-of-view created by the body-mind that creates the illusion and that must be transcended. There is no separate one. Very important difference that suggests the author of this narrative did not understand Non-Duality.
Can you tell me how can someone represent non-duality with imagery?
There can only be pointers. Don't pay too much attention to the graphics but listen to what she says.
Did she say something wrong that misrepresented non-duality?
Sri Ramana.
@@sidhantsharma9961 Doug Harding used imagery very effectively to point to what he had noticed in the Himalayas. That doesn’t make anyone Realzed. It requires a lot of Sadhana for almost anyone. You are preaching to the choir because you apparently missed my point. There is lots of 1st person imagery that could have been used to greater effect than scenes from The Matrix, which had nothing to do with Advaita or non-duality. To use imagery from that movie seems to imply that it does. No sense muddying the clarity of Harding’s message. Of course I understood it. I’ve been a student of advaita for 50 years.
Matrix is more than that, remember the quote “there is no spoon”
Beautifully and profoundly true - but I maintain The Matrix is also about the realization of oneness, if the movie is read symbolically. Also - at the risk of being pedantic - since oneness is primary, all signs must point there, regardless of intention or interpretation 😀
Bring the Kung Fu of your life out it doesn't matter what one does 🌬️🌹
It's an Indian meditation of Advait..no two...
His first "No Head" experience must be eye opening for him that not every girl likes to do that ! ☺
Men will invent a philosophy around frontal lobe epilepsy instead of getting an MRI
Because of the hard problem of consiousness. An MRI can't disprove subjective experience.
@@sidhantsharma9961 is isn't and wasn't ever and haven't ever been but that's only because we speak with tongues.
@@FloyDJode Yup, language bounds. And the methodology of modern science of objectifying things bounds further, especially when it tries to define consciousness.
@@sidhantsharma9961
XD
"Nonduality"; yet another subject-dependent projected experience/state in time and in the waking state. All the narrative of "me" and the quest for enlightenment.
So, where is your content?
It's opposed to duality, don't you understand anything? They're like....two things 😉
⭕♾️
Well this is quite like a religion, which is all about the individual and not about the whole... I feel that this might help for health and mood stability... however to defeat the wickedness and challenge the narrative of modern man, one cannot simply focus upon one's self... u share thus place with people that are lost in dispare. No family mindless debates about social constructions, whilst trying to push a social construction. I belive that we can learn from the ancient holy men and their insights. But when one cast this aside for the reson of religion being oppressive, I belive we rather shall cast out the word religion. And embrace the teaching. And Mr Sam Harris, I am quite sure that he is allied with the pope and so forth, their world veiws and how to solve "climate change" regurgitation in different light is all you guys do.. and to Christianity it is the only sound doctrine and faith which we all can understand and build upon. All the other faith's is just regurgitation whiteout the honesty and without mysteries... do not meditate youre life away. You and me are not here to feel well or attain our highest desires, rater as thee atheistic veiw we serve a purpose. And we serve one another under a father is many ways. But I know the right way is a solid foundation and Jc as ones cornerstone.... this u culd build upon without youre hous collapsing. House meaning yourself and you're family...
Bless you who understand, and tho those u challenge me
That exercise will induce a trace ( self hypnosis) in pretty much anyone and after that, while in this altered state, one can experience pretty much anything one has set their attention to before inducing the trance. Meaning, one will not see his own head or legs or whatever. Stage hypnotists do it all the time. It will not work with everyone, because only 3% of the population can achieve this level( negative hallucinations state) of trance naturally. However, like anything in life with enough practice one can learn to deepen their trance state
That would be duality?
@@maicolx7776 Yes , you can't have black without white or hot without cold . Its all conciseness at play
Ok I'm 6 minutes in and so far all I know is that this guy thinks he has no head