abrakamowse

@Lorcan If you find out how to get a non biased answer, let me know. I am interested.

I think Leo was referring to a different thing. Sometimes people use science to deny the existence of a God. They call it Universe hehehe... but they deny that the universe can be also God. Like Sam Harris, I agree with everything he says. The only difference is that he believes there's a big consciousness and that we are all one, so he says "there's no God"... I think, that's God. The problem is the labels we use, and the realities we create, to see the same thing differently and to arrive to different conclusions even when the facts are the same.

To long for me to read it completely hehehehe...

I agree Lol... but I take whatever I think is Ok, or make sense to me. In fact I do that with everybody. I learn a lot from the grocery owner and from the pharmacist, from the bus driver, from people on the street . Lol :-)

@Natasha Really cool. He's right. I am really on facebook because I found some childhood friends and old high school and university friends. But really it's a waste of time. I don't use it anymore. Thanks for sharing!

@ranzo1 I am not enlightened but I have experienced oneness, emptiness, nothingness, love like I never experienced before. I have a T/R (truth realization) experience, where I saw that the reality we are living is like being dead, you are not alive until you begin to be "born again" or enlightened. You begin to live when you are enlightened, right now we are nothing. At least in my experience. Experiences like that are like gifts, you have to say thank you and don't think too much about them. I know I am not the "person" or "ego" because that ego changes all the time, I know that we must be something more permanent, that there's a real self that we have to look for. But my recommendation is to meditate, that will bring the awareness you need. You never will know by thinking. I am not enlightened but I am feeling much better than before and I know that everybody can be enlightened. There's a pattern you can see in the teachings of people who are enlightened, in their teachings. When you awareness begin to improve you will notice those patterns more easily and you won't need any guidance or guru. Your true self will guide you.

You can have a "healthy" ego if you want, but you will be asleep like most of the population. You will doubt of yourself, you will be fearful (that's how ego keeps you in the illusion), you will desire one thing, then other, then another... that's how the ego works. The purpose of life is to discover your true self, that's why ego never is satisfied. In fact there's not such a thing of "healthy ego" the only healthy thing is your true self. Or no self.

“Can't you just see all those enlightened monkey men sitting around a roaring woodfire around their Buddha saying nothing and knowing everything?” ― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

What's happening to you is normal. You are confused, that happens when you hear the truth. Your ego is confused, not your real "you" the "I AM". Your ego doesn't want to leave, so that's his way of keeping you slave of your ego, of your identity. But, when you leave that ego behind, your real self will be in charge, and you won't need to ask for guidance. The ego makes you think it is something scary, that's why we are trapped in the whole identity thing, in the idea of separation from the source. You will notice that when you begin to meditate you will begin to change, just continue meditating and change will come alone, no effort needed. Only the effort of sitting and meditating everyday no matter what. Your real self is much wiser than the fake self we think we are, our ego. Hope this helps.

"Taking a break from Facebook" is this era's "soul searching."

When you do nothing you accomplish a lot. Let me copy paste this, he explains it better than me: "Become the watcher of this procession of thoughts, this consciousness stream, and marvel at the range of memories, ideas, images, and opinions that come up. With practice at this, almost by working at your doing nothing, you will find that the train of thoughts actually slows down. After some time gaps will appear between thoughts. This is the emptiness that Buddha spoke of, the natural condition of the mind. It takes a while to master this, but it’s a great justification for doing nothing. As the emptiness between thoughts increases you will find that you develop a richer awareness of the world around you and also a great serenity. Next, you will find ideas and solutions begin to pop into your head almost automatically. So the next time that you sit down to do nothing, become aware of this great opportunity—and enjoy every minute of it." The whole article is here: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-doing-nothing-helps-you-get-more-done/

Awesome @Emerald Wilkins !!!! I would like to go to one too. I am considering going to meet Mooji someday too.

@Andrew I know what you are saying, I had that problem too (and still have it). What it helped me was to know we have no free will, so it allowed me not to try to control things so much. I am more in "I have no control" mode. So I just don't think and plan too much about anything, and I am trying to plan less and less and let me guide by my intuition. hehehe... I know is a bit scary, but I am experimenting with that.

I would suggest meditation observing your thoughts. This gives you a very good practice and awareness that you are not your thoughts and it helps you to ignore them fast. Just sit and observe your thoughts without interfering on them. With time you will notice that when you have negative thoughts you will think inmediately "that's just a thought" and it will disappear very easily. At least it happened to me, I couldn't believe how easily thoughts can be ignored and how much power we give to them. http://www.swamij.com/witnessing.htm

Cool, it's an exciting topic.

Yes, no problem Socrates. This is my opinion based on my experience. I am not saying that I am right, and I am still studying about it, but everything I found out it confirms me the same thing. In my opinion is not true that Jesus said that he had to die for our sins and if we believed in that, we will be saved. If you read the bible you will see he didn’t say that, his apostles said it. He said that god and him were one. That’s what Buddhist say, and other true religions say like Christians mystics, (not mainstream Christians), Kabbalah, Zufi, Zen etc… When Buddhist say you have to kill your ego, Jesus says “deny yourself”. Everything that is written in the Bible has a more deep meaning than the one that we can see with our materialistic ego mind. For example, the Bible says that we can’t do an image of God. The Protestants say that you can’t do an statue of anything in heaven, the Catholics don’t interpret it like that and they do statues of Jesus, etc. But the point is that most of the mainstream churches see it in the physical way, they think about not doing an statue, but I was listening to Alan Watts and he said something that it makes a lot of sense. We should not do an image of god in our mind. That was mind blown for me. And I think is true. You can read the Christian gospels on so many levels, they are so deep and full of wisdom, but it can reflect too the worst of you if you are full of ego, like the mainstream churches that they are only interested in creating an empire and not to explain the real truth about God. There are a lot of more examples like that, I will write about them soon in my journal, in the journal sector of the forum. Let me know if you want to find out more, I am really an admirer of Jesus teachings, and I think the apostles didn’t understand most of the things he taught to them. Note: I don't know about this Church but I found this googleing and I think it is interesting. I have some videos too about this. But maybe we should open another thread to not hijack this one. :-) http://thechurchoftruth.org/jesus-did-not-die-for-your-sins/

@Natasha Sounds obvious but it's true. We really don't know

@Natasha You are a guru... hehehe...

@Henri @Philip I was thinking that Jesus advice was pretty inefficient, at least for most of the people who listened to his message and misunderstood it completely. (I was one of them )

@Henri I know.

Earn 1 million dollars in one week and tell them you made it because you were enlightened, that will do. :-P

I think is just consciousness talking to itself, when you talk with anyone, that's why I say whatever it comes to my mind. I don't see if the person is prepared or not, sometimes I feel not to do it and sometimes yes. The other thing is that I agree that it doesn't matter if we don't understand at the moment, because we always tend to remember that kind of things, I remember as a teen I read a Zen book and for me was crazy. And now I am like... "ah... that's what the book was referring to". You see? Now things that I didn't understand long time ago are beginning to make sense and they are like a support that I feel is helping me on going further on the seek of enlightenment. And I tend to go a lot to Christian stuff and the Bible, and I really believe what the Bible says, that everything that we say has a purpose. It doesn't matter what we do or say, everything is under control by the universe, cosmos, consciousness, god, etc. Isaiah 55:11 "so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

@Henri I think you hit the nail right on the head