Leo Gura

That's right. This thread contains a lot of people talking past one another. We have to be careful in how we define our terms and how we use different mental schemes to explain the unexplainable. I am not really contradicting Spira or Tolle. I'm just challenging folks here to see the other side of the coin: all thoughts happen now and only now. The problem is that thoughts are so sneaky they mesmerize you into an illusory conceptual world. This is what is meant when people say that thoughts take you out of the now. They don't actually take you out of the now because now is all there is. But subjectively they entrance you. It's like getting lost in a day dream. Also want to challenge people here to not dismiss thoughts or mind as bad. The Absolute Now can certainly contain thoughts. Otherwise how could thoughts exist??? Elimination of thought is not strictly necessary to be in the now. Newbies commonly get the wrong idea about thought and mind, as if it is an evil that must be eradicated. I wanted to challenge that.

That is part true and part false. Ultimately who is to say what is real and what isn't? We make up those definitions. Of course in person sociaizing is different. But as humanity evolves digital communication will become more and more common and robust. Even digital sex is getting common now. I've had deeper orgasms through text message than through physical sex. So don't dismiss the digital world as somehow inferior. It has its pros and cons, just like all mediums. Don't forget, physical reality is just one medium out of many. Digital reality is no less real than physical reality or imagination.

Hey there. Welcome! It's pretty rare, but there might be one or two folks. They just might not be very active here.

The whole point of true happiness is not to base it on mood. Imagine being happy even when you're in a bad mood. That's real happiness. And it's not easy to develop because our ideas of happiness are so mood based and survival based. Those ideas require deep deconstruction. You have to deeply grok that attachments to physical things and even emotional states always create suffering -- sometimes gross suffering, but sometimes very subtle suffering. This was a core teaching of the Buddha. And it's a very important point which people overlook. Outwitting suffering is something only a master can do. Suffering is extremely sneaky! Because it's central to your survival. You must literally transcend the entire survival drive to access true happiness. Awakening allows for superhuman levels of happiness.

@Consilience There basically is no serious meditation without serious concentration ability.

Careful. I know extroverts who are awakened and do spiritual practice. And obviously many extroverts make a killing in creativity, business, art. There's more than one way to skin a cat. One should only be a lone wolf if that's what one is called to do. It's not necessary for success. With that said, personally I love lone wolfing life. But that's just me. People here must find whatever kind of lifestyle resonates with them. This is a highly individualized thing.

Great! But that's just like the tip of one hair on the Ox's tail

@Mikael89 Hehe... You must awaken to what Love is to understand these discussions. We are not talking about romantic love here. This requires an epic enligthenment experience which will melt your cold heart. Contemplate: What is Love? Hint #1: it is not what you think it is. Hint #2: psychedelics make this contemplation a lot easier.

Those 5 insights are of course all true and very important to realize. But there's also a lot more stuff to realize. The "mechanics" of God are not addressed well by Buddhism.

Because you are in a contracted state of consciousness. Also, since Love is all things, it doesn't necessarily have to be felt. You don't have to like all aspects of reality. Hatred too is a form of love. Think about what "Everything is Love" entails. That means pain is love. It does not mean that you will never feel pain.

I never wanted to. It just happens to be Truth. You have yet to realize the Buddha's central teaching of Annica or Impermanence. Reality is designed in such a way that no from can be permanent. The ultimate goal is to realize that there is no difference between form and formlessness. But to realize this requires surrender of attachment to form. So again, the entry fee of immortality is death. Immortality cannot be attained through physical means, it must be attained through spiritual realization. The problem of death is not a physical one the way materialists assume, it is a metaphysical one. You must realize that material reality is imaginary. That your own birth is imaginary. Then you will be free.

That is not possible. All forms are impermanent. The only thing that can be immortal is formlessness. So long as you are identified with any form whatsoever, you are mortal. Only a devil would claim that God is a selfish devil. So nice try, but no, don't confuse your devilry with that of God. If I let you, you would make a devil out God! See what a devil you are?! Hehe.... No, you just misunderstand animals. As I have repeatedly said, animals are not in God-mode. They are God in animal-mode. This is a big and significant difference. It is the survival of any limited identity. Any identity attached to any kind of form. Any identity less than the entirely of reality. So, a kangaroo is committed to surviving as a kangaroo. This makes it selfish. You are commited to surviving as a human. This makes you selfish. If you weren't bothered by living or dying, you'd be selfless and immortal. The entry fee for immortality is death.

@Ar_Senses Well, mystical experiences and samadhi states are a clear sign of results. I'm not saying that's the end, but the beginning. If you don't what a mystical experience or a samadhi state is, take a psychedelic and they will quickly show you. Then try to get similar results via other methods. If you have meditated for a few years but never had a mystical experience or samadhi, then you aren't doing it properly or you need to find a better method. Take a psychedic to see how much you're meditation is missing.

@ahmad ibdah I am all things at all times. There is no end to me. I go on forever. And so do you, since you are me

Lol The past is a thought happening in the now. Nothing can actually be in the past or the future since everything happens now. Check your experience. Notice all thoughts happen only in the now. Don't believe me. Check!

The point of enlightenment is to realize what death is. It cannot be explained to you in a believable way. You have to experience it to understand it. Until then you will of course fear death. Because you believe you are real.

No, that is not what groundless means. Groundless means that you can never say what the material substance of anything is because anything you claim to be the substance will itself need a further substance to explain it, and so on, to infinity. You can't claim the substance of any form to be another form, the way science tries to do. You cannot say that a table is made of atoms because the atoms themselves are just another form in an infinity of forms. You must grok that the substance of everything is nothing. Another way to say it is: a table is not made out of atoms. A table is a table. This is tricky to grasp because it is too direct to be grapsed. It is raw Truth/Being. A nondual state of consciousness is required to understand it.

I would be very suspicious of it. The potential for self-deception with that technique is enormous. Stick to direct consciousness and healthy doses of admitting: I don't know.

Mushrooms are super entrancing. More so than any other psychedic. It's like being mesmerized by a supernatural force. Cool stuff!

That's right. A seperate self based on illusion must always fight with the world keep from re-uniting with it. Death is that reunification. But death is also infinite love. So what a devil fears most is infinite love. It's a metaphor for the human psyche. No If such a creature existed it would still be an aspect of God and not seperate from me. Science has made 5-MeO-DMT. What more do you want? The thing people don't understand about the immortality elixer is that it works by killing you! So the last thing a devil will do is drink it. The devil is terrified of meeting God. He is committed to staying a devil. Animals ARE selfish devils. They are unabashedly selfish. They are so selfish they don't even know or care what selfishness is.

@Hampus I don't really subscribe to the idea that you should move to a higher city in order to develop yourself. Far more important is how you manage your life, regardless of where you are. As long as you're in a physically safe and free society, that's basically good enough. The real work then begins. The inner work. If you are in an oppressive violent country, then that is important to resolve.

That would actually be inauthentic and untruthful for me.

Well, sex and intimacy are still meaningful to me. But the process of chasing after it is not.

Precisely because a devil is merely God in disguise! Really, there are no devils. A devil is just what we call it when God isn't aware that it's God. Also, devilry is inherently unstable and self-defeating. The suffering that devilry creates ultimately becomes so strong that the devil is forced to admit he is wrong. Either that or he doubles down and becomes an even bigger devil until finally physical death takes him. So now you see why death is such an important part of the divine plan of Love. Death is the safety valve which ensures that devils never ultimately prevail. A devil can only prevail in the short-term. God always prevails in the long-term: by killing you and freeing you of all your limits! Death is like the reboot button on your computer, for when it bugs out Could you imagine if devils lived forever? Now that would be a problem. Fortunately, all devils must die. Unfortunately, you are a devil. Fortunately, you are also God Say... that's a good book title The profoundly twisted irony is this: the devil only behaves like a devil in the first place because he can die! If the devil was immortal he would not act like a devil, he would act like God! If a devil should ever realize that he is actually immortal, he will stop acting like a devil and start acting like God. Ta-da!

To be more accurate, I just have a different kind of social life than most people consider a social life. My social life is through my work. For example you might ask if the Buddha or Gandhi had a social life. And the answer is, their social life was everything that revolved around their life's work. The same goes for me, except with the added wrinkle that we now live in the digital age, where the notion of "social" has expanded to include all of the activity happening through digital communication. If you include digital communication, my social life is quite significant. The very definition of "social life" is flexible and relative and changes across the ages. If you mean, do I go to the bar and drink beers with people, or attend dinner parties, or go bowling with friends? Definitely not. Such things are not interesting to me.