luckieluuke

I think its just easier to explain to ego´s cause we believe in past and the future...we came up with the concepts. Actually there is no time as we know it, everything is happening now. But that is so hard to wrap your head around it´s easier to speak as if we were having lives that follow eachother in a linear manner.

I really enjoy games and in the last couple of years indie developers have been able to emerge via crowd funding. I also know that I probably play to much, it´s like 4 hours a week, which isn´t much compared to ppl watching TV. Playing a game is so much more engaging and creative than watching TV or even reading a book. For instance, try this game: http://www.everything-game.com/ ...Then again generally the big games most ppl are playing are low conscious. They made to dull our minds. So it is generally a good advice althou Leo doesn´t show much nuance in his judgement. Feels kinda black and white.

I didn´t write this text but I found it at the right time in my life and wanted to share it if someone else would need it. I feel there is quite a few questions about the dark night of the soul and such here so it might be interesting to someone. I don´t know if the author is enlightened or if this text is true. But it rings true in my ears at least. If Enlightenment Came with a Warning Label… So when you heard about spiritual awakening or enlightenment, what was the prize that you wanted in the end? What was the story that got you hooked? Perhaps it was something about experiencing endless bliss and joy, or maybe it was the end of suffering, or perhaps it was about experiencing constant Oneness with the Divine. Maybe it was the answer to all your life’s questions. It may be something else entirely, but whatever the case may be, I’m sure the bait was very shiny and attractive, yes? :lol It turns out that they don’t give you the full story when you start playing the game. What I’m about to share isn’t meant to discourage people on the path, but simply to help them be conscious if and when these things start occurring. These things don’t necessarily mean that something has gone wrong, although it may certainly seem that way. A helpful book to those who are experiencing the following symptoms is You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up! Now, if spiritual awakening was to come with a series of warning labels, what would be printed on those labels? Warning: All your beloved attachments are going to be taken away from you. Everything you hold near and dear to your heart you must be completely and utterly willing to lose them. The more you hold onto them, the more you’ll suffer. It is only in the willingness to let go that find your freedom. By the way, letting go as a technique to trick the universe into granting your freedom, as in saying that you let go while peeking over your shoulder to see what’s to come, that doesn’t cut it. You can’t B.S. your way there. Believe me, I’ve tried… No one else has been able to pull that one off either. :lol Warning: You will experience dark nights of the soul. You will experience your entire world crumbling down. You will experience intense emotional roller coasters, to the point where you literally may feel like you’re going crazy. Warning: You must let go of all of your judgments and false sense of worth. You know all those accomplishments you’ve achieved in this lifetime? What do you brag about? You must let go of holding onto any of them as a way to enhance your self-worth and boost your sense of self. Your trophies and medals, while certainly valuable in their own right, they must lose their importance as something that makes you feel better or worthy. You are not valuable because of anything you have ever done or ever will do. You are valuable simply because you are. Because you exist. All the blows to your pride and are ways to help you let go of your false sense of worth and open up to the realization of your true worth. Warning: You must let go of all your ideas about God. In order to find God, you must quit telling yourself you already know God. All the ideas that you’ve grown up hearing, being taught, holding onto, or rejecting, all of them have to be let go of in order to be seen through. Warning: You will find yourself entering a place with no rules, no shoulds and shouldn’ts, no technique, no strategies, and no room for all of your egoic stuff and the energy of division. Warning: Your ego will throw fits. Your painbody will go crazy. Your buttons will get pushed. Your ego will throw out every trick in its book. When you start learning how to get past its tricks, it’ll become more sneaky and subtle. As you advance, your ego advances. It all happens to bring more awareness to the energies within, to help you let go of that which you previously have been unconscious to. Warning: The egoic dangers don’t end after awakening. In fact, as Adyashanti points out, the dangers after awakening get more dangerous and there’s much more of them. For example, one can settle in to seeing the Absolute as the only valid perspective and disregarding the world of the relative because it’s all “illusion.” This can lead to some very unconscious behavior and a letting go of changing that because “it doesn’t matter” and “there’s no one to change it.” Remember, the world is illusion, yes. Brahman alone is real, yes. BUT, the world IS Brahman. This is true non-duality: seeing the Reality in the so-called illusion as one. Warning: Just because you wake up, that doesn’t mean that everyone will love you and you’ll never have any struggles in life again. Just look at Jesus if you have any doubts about that one. Warning: You must come out of hiding. All the dark stuff within you that you haven’t been wanting to look at and be truthful about, it’ll all come up to the surface. All that stuff you hide from other people, the things you don’t want to show to others or to yourself, your inside will become your outside. There’s no hiding ANYTHING from anyone. It’s a deep deep level of vulnerability, sincerity, and self-honesty. Warning: All your life lessons will come to the surface. You’ll have to look at and accept everything. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to go. You can only be here, now. There’s no one to become. Waking up isn’t a self-improvement course. Although it may appear this way on the surface, the point of waking up isn’t to become more spiritual, more loving, more enlightened, or more acceptable in the eyes of God. It’s about Self-realization, about realizing who and what you really are. You return back to your natural state and be who you really ARE, that which doesn’t have to be created, manifested, or maintained. Warning: The farther you go, the more painful it becomes to deviate from the Truth of your being. Think of it this way: If you walk into a tree at 2 mph, it’s no big deal. If you whack a tree while running as fast as you can, it’s gonna hurt. The deeper you go into Being, the more painful it is when you lie even just a little bit, hold back your Truth, don’t allow yourself to be who you are, resist what is, judge another, or in any way violate natural laws. You get a lot less slack. In Zen they call it walking the Razor’s Edge. Deviate even a little bit and you quickly get cut. Warning: You have to take complete and total responsibility for everything and everyone that shows up in your life. As your consciousness begins returning back to its natural state of timelessness, manifestation starts happening much more clearly and the link between inner thoughts and vibrations and outer manifestation becomes REALLY clear. No longer do you get the luxury of blaming others or judging others. Everything you see as a problem in others instantly gets turned around and becomes your problem. You’ll begin taking on a lot more pressure once everyone’s problems start to become yours. The world truly is your mirror. All the problems you really have with others really are problems you have within yourself. Get to work on surrender. It becomes a much more necessary skill later on. Warning: You must accept that you’ll never “get there,” that you’ll never “arrive.” You could spend an entire lifetime on this journey and never wake up. Indeed that has happened to many people. In fact, so long as you cling to your desire to get somewhere, you’ll never actually wake up to what’s already here. You must surrender completely your desire to succeed in your path of awakening. You must accept the fact that you may embark on the journey, never to actually get enlightened. Warning: You may feel very connected and One with Source/All That Is at times, and you will also experience yourself feeling totally disconnected, lost, confused, and cut off. It’s a horrible feeling. It’s the experience of pure separation, they very illusion we are trying to see beyond. Warning: Even if you get a glimpse of the Truth of your Being once or twice or a hundred times, the egoic structure may rebuild itself, leading to the experience of being unenlightened, or what we call a non-abiding awakening. Adyashanti reports that it usually takes people anywhere from 3-15 years for the momentum of awakening to settle in. Although it doesn’t happen in the future and can only happen in the now, don’t expect an overnight insta-fix. Warning: Just because you have a clear seeing of who you really are, that’s not the end of the journey. The first question is “Who Am I?” Once that’s discovered, it now becomes a matter of how what I AM manifests itself in this world. The second question upon realization is, “How then shall I live?” It’s not enough to have the inner realization. That realization must express itself out through the totality of your being for it to become a living realization. Warning: You must completely and utterly let go of control, of even controlling your survival, much less your destiny. You must be willing to die, to face the fear of death and surrender into it without attempting to stop it or control it in any way. The fear of death and the unknown become your friends. No longer will you be running from them. Warning: The more you begin living in the moment and letting go of the domination of your consciousness by your mind, you may begin experiencing memory loss. Whole blocks of memory will begin falling away. It’s not exactly like Alzehimer’s, but there very well may be some significant loss of short-term and/or long-term memory as you begin relying less upon memory and more upon a deeper intuitive knowingness. Warning: You may have intense kundalini awakenings to where it will feel like your entire nervous system is being overloaded. Many people have literally gone insane from this. It can be helpful to seek out some helpful resources including other people who have experienced similar symptoms, various practices you can do to work with the energies, and even a guru to help guide you safely through the process. Warning: You may experience cycles of confusion and clarity. In one moment you may be very wise, deep, loving, and compassionate, and in the next moment the cloudiness of the veil will return and you will no longer have a clue as to what’s going on. You may become sucked right back into your ego, experiencing your deepest and darkest fears. Warning: There is tremendous value in working with others, but you must learn to stand in your aloneness. Many of your relationships may change. Friends and family that have been close to you your whole life may be let go of. Some people will come, others will go. Some stay for the long haul. Which ones will stay and which ones will go? Who knows? The flow of the river will determine that more than any conscious decision. You can try to make it a conscious decision, but that will actually be more of a resistance to the flow and a desire to control than anything else. You don’t get to control the process. It happens. The you you think you are doesn’t make it happen. Warning: You don’t get anything as a result of awakening. There’s no thing you get as a prize such as a good feeling such as a constant never-ending wonderful enlightened experience or a boost to your self-esteem. (What self would we be talking about anyways who has a self-esteem?) You get nothing, but BOY what a nothing it is. By seeing that you ARE that nothingness, and that you ARE the entire universe arising from that nothingness, you realize that what you ARE is already more than anything that could ever be wanted, as Gangaji so beautifully puts it. Whew!! Now as I say all of this I’m laughing. In certain moments it can be a crazy, wild, intense, OMG-I’m-gonna-die experience, yes, particularly when you’re in the heat of the moment, but it’s like waking up from a dream at night… You recognize that it was all just a dream and it doesn’t feel like it was actually all that real. What you ARE is infinitely more real than anything that appears in this world. Those experiences will begin to feel so distant and faded, like a memory that you can only partially and vaguely remember, as if it happened to another person entirely in another far-off world. That said, it’s worth it. It’s all SO worth it. The direct realization of who and what you really are is SO worth all of the bumps and jolts that we experience along the way. Things to lighten up as you do. Not everyone will necessarily experience every single thing listed above. For some people, some experiences may be more profound than others. In fact, there are many other things that one may experience that haven’t been listed in this post. Either way, there is a book I’d HIGHLY recommend that people check out titled You’re Not Going Crazy… You’re Just Waking Up! by Michael Mirdad. You can read my full review of it here. For those of you who’ve also been walking the path for a little while now, what “warnings” would you give someone who’s getting started and doesn’t know what to expect? By: Ariel Bravy

no it most certainly wont ...then again it might produce the ability to have sex with the entire universe.....

@Shin That´s a crazy idea! Serve me knowledge noooowww!!!! ;-)

My line of thought: 1.We´ve learnt so much about how the body works the last century but still the recomended diet hasnt changed much: eat a bit of everything. 2. Our bodies have evolved with the food we eat. For instance its made to take care of an apple as it is, but not if you extract and purify one component of it. Such as sugar or even vitamins (in pills) 3. We think we understand nature, we make a map of the reality but it´s just a map and we´re not clever enough to understand reality. For instance we think we have a problem with a plant so we import a animal to eat it, changing the whole eco system and creating more problem then we had. This is the common problem of the intellect and thought. We try to control reality and when we act we create more problems which we try to solve and end up creating more problems creating a never ending spiral (Maybe in a similar way we created our ego cause we couldn´t face the void) Following this line of thought I fear that we think we understand how the brain and body works and according to this understanding we bring in a new parameter in the system that has never been there before in that shape and form (a purified selection of compounds, ie nootropics) in order to make it better. But we have no idea of the reality of the situation, only our concepts of how it should work. Then again this is how we learn, we dare to try new stuff.... I can´t help to think that the difficulties we have as individuals are in fact what we need to learn and become better. If you are depressed and take a pill it makes it better but you don´t solve the problem. If you have no energy and solve it with drugs then you don´t solve the problem. If you lack motivation maybe a pill isn´t the answer, maybe you have to change you´r lifestyle, friends, philosophy, work etc and grow as a person. But there is a part smaller or bigger in all of us that don´t want to change. Still, I might be trying nootropics myself

@Solace

Haha i´ve actually had that experience so many times playing adventure/puzzle games. I try and try, run around in circles doing crazy stuff that has little to no correlation to the problem and suddenly I find that OOOhh I just needed to do that! ofcourse! how can I be so stupid! it´s one of the best moments in those kind of games...to realize how stupid you are To the question: careerwise I have no idea other than work harder than everyone else to the brink of mental breakdown, but be careful not to go over. Don´t think non duality will help your career thou if money is what you´re after. But try lucid dreaming, you can use it to practice real life issues, if you have a problem talking to a crowd practice it in your dreams. Or, ive done this: if you don´t understand a book, summon the author and ask :-) The way I see it you ask yourself but stuff you normally are unconscious of. Also unconditional love go hand in hand with non duality as I see it cause you need to erase the border between yourself and others in order love unconditionally.

@Jack River Yea pretty sensible. But until we see THE truth it seems inevitable that we will communicate and experience from our dual state. I think that´s why buddhist say no text is sacred, no text is true but it might help pointing you in the right direction and when it has, leave the idea behind. @tsuki Sorry to hear you had a harsh day, hope this one is better From a non dual perspective there is no thing such as self inquiry cause who does the inquiry? but like text to Jack R. above we need the I to realize that the I don´t exist or else we would already be enlightened. Science need a tool to find out what reality is or else it could only ask the question but not find out. Yes and material reality is an illusion. Right now science believe it´s not but it´s come so far: from Newton to quantum physics, answered so many questions science is now looking at answering what really happens when the material world breaks down at the edge of a black hole down into the quantum word. It is looking at distances as small as plank lengths. It is searching for one unifying answer. There are already solid well supported ideas that our world is a 3d projection, among many other theories. Science have in my eyes via quantum physics already started to realize that the material world is not what it thinks it is. There is a spirit in science to curiously and objectively follow the lead wherever it takes you. This might only apply to a few scientists but still, it´s more truthful inquiry than Religion and Myths that only seeks to hold the frightening truth at bay, to hold a light against it´s darkness when we should accept the darkness, the nothingness. Right now science is a myth in the same way I still see myself as a myth. But by inquiring I hope both Science and I shall find THE truth.

I´ve been doing some self inquiry work lately and it seems that what you need to do is to relentlessly ask the question who am I? Or like Jed mckenna did, try to write down a sentance that is true. Just anything. This questioning can go on forever since the deeper you go you still cannot find something true. We start out by thinking "I exists and am seperate from other objects" but when we try to ask where the boundary really is we only realize there is no boundary. It´s like metaphorically splitting an object into infinitly small parts. Like Leo says, self inquiry is like doing science on yourself. Follow your experience. Science doing self inquiry as well! it´s trying to figure out reality, and as perspective it says that reality exists, lets figure it out. But the deeper science inquire the stranger it gets. I´m not as pessimistic about science as Leo seems to be, there is alot of new science that dare to ask questions about what consiousness is and it´s relation to "reality" from a traditional materialistic point of view. At some point science as a collective surely have to realize that thought and intellect cannot grasp reality. That reality must be an illusion because reality keeps slipping out of our hands as soon as we think we understand i. This collective realization should spark a new era of humanity. And dare I say I don´t think its very far away from where we are now. What´s your take on science?

Thanks both, that makes it more clear to me. What do you think of other creation myths? do they not "ring true" in the same way? Or the idea of scientology: "75,000,000 years ago, Xenu headed the Galactic Federation, which was an organization of 76 planets that had already existed for 20,000,000 years. The planets were suffering a tremendous problem with overpopulation. Xenu's draconian solution to the matter was to gather large numbers of people, kill them, freeze their thetans (souls), and transport the frozen thetans to Earth, which they called Teegeeack. The thetans were left in the vicinity of volcanoes, which were, in turn, destroyed in a series of nuclear explosions." What is it that makes the 9th dimiensional lemurian collective true and the xenu overlord not?

@tsuki But from a non dual perspective there is in the end no distinction between the scientist or the object. There is no distinction between science and the area it studies. So it is studying itself by studying it surroundings. What is needed thou is a objective mindset that follows any evidence even thou it might point in a direction that would shatter the basis upon which it was created. In the same way when I do inquiry I find experiences and ideas that have the potential to shatter my understanding of myself. Science as an organism is closely tied into politics and money, so it has a kind of ego. But what differs science from politics or religion is that it does wow to follow the evidence wherever it takes it. Some scientists take this to heart more than others. For example relative theory and quantum mechanics have had the potential to destroy foundations that science was build upon but we explored it anyway in search for truth. And it did destroy scientific foundational understanding but we realized science wasnt destroyed. As long as scientists do this and not fall into the humans concepts created by money and politics surely we would come to realize the non dual state of our reality? Exactly in the same way as long As I persist in following the evidence of my experience without fear or buying into concepts like religion or society I will come to realize the truth.

@pluto Could you describe this "energy of the information provided"? with what eye do you see it? @Arkandeus How do you know this is the truth? Sorry if I sounded demeaning earlier, this is just sooo far out there for me. But I am interested

Wow this is some of the weirdest "thing" i´ve seen. In my ears this is just as crazy as L. ron hubbard version of aliens and stuff in his sci fi religion scientology. Then again to alot of ppl non duality probably sounds as crazy haha We are all truth seekers here right? What is it about this truth that makes you think its actually true and not just some crazy idea?

@RichardY No since that would not be economically sustainable, it would fall victim to speclutation. As we are located quite close to a city the value of the land will rise alot and ppl who need money will sell to ppl with money who don´t care about our community. So the organization owns the land and we rent the land from it

@Girzo On top of my head: We are in the process of buying the land and getting an ok for building, the layout etc. Houses will be constructed with natural resourses mostly from the land, ie wood, clay, hay etc We will grow as much food as possible but will not be able to grow it all. We will have some animals We will provide our own energy and water We will clean our own water in a natural way and our poop etc. We use Permaculture as a core value (google it, its very cool ) hydroponic gardening + alot more projects to come One main problem is that we grow our stuff in one place and the biproducts is flushed out in the ocean or put someplace else. Long term our soil is drained. The energy you take from the land MUST be restored to the same place. But it´s not gonna be a place where everyone has to work like socialism, individality is very important to. We are also not against technology, quite the opposite we need to use it as much as possible.

@Emerald I think the individual can do alot. Corporations are a few people ruling the masses. Why the masses don´t revolt is beyond me. We do live in a democratic world...not in the way of politics but in the way of money. We vote with every single dollar we spend. If we take a loan to get a house we vote for banks. If we buy gas for the car we vote for war on people and the planet. If we buy cheap clothes made in china we vote for slavery, if we buy solar electricity we vote for renewable energy instead of coal etc etc

Im one of a core group of people who are creating a ecological village, a way to live so that we take care of ourselves, the people around us and the nature we live in. It´s part a concept to show the world that it´s possible to live in another way and part because we prefer to live in such a way. But man it´s challanging! It´s also hard to balance the small jihad and the large ie external conflict and internal.

"Beware of unearned wisdom" - Carl Jung Your ego will recreate the experience to suit it self. It might lead you astray even more. Or it might help you if you are ready for it.

@FredFred To get back to your question. Very nice observation! well done When I was at a Vipassana the 2nd day I had a major headache. I asked the teacher if I should take a pill for it. He said no, the reason for my headache is that I try to hard during my meditation. I force my concentration to much. I trid to relax more and voila, my headache was gone! Quality meditation is the middle way, its "effortless concentration" Its the same with your posture when you meditate: you should sit up straight but in the same time be completely relaxed. Instead of concentrate on your breath I would say "rest your attention" on your breath. The two states you mentioned exist but there is no on and off transition. If I were you try to locate the transition that you speak of and be there Take my words lightly thou as I´m not very far on this "enlightenment path" or what you´d call it.

You really should get new friends if you wanna get somewhere in life <3

@Barna There is truth to that. But on the other hand, not liking something is a spark for change. For example I don´t like working in my company cause I don´t really like the kind of work, it takes up to much time in my life, and I don´t really feel the company is creating happiness and wellbeing in the world, rather opposite it´s supporting egoic greed. I could practice acceptance and stay and try to be happy since I create my own happiness and there is no I who feel unhappy. Or I could change, learn some new skills and work at a better company and try to work less hours and spend more time with my family. Which is the path I currently take. Sometimes when I see a person begging for money with a picture of christ I cant help but think that instead of begging christ to help you, help yourself. Don´t accept the situation because its the will of the lord or something along those lines. Like if you´re in a destructive relationship you can stay and accept your situation or leave for a better relationship. Im really torn this way about the "spiritual" path and the egoic path. Isn´t there a reason why we have an ego in the first place? Must it be evil? What´s the point of being able to be untouched by terrible situations? There is such a loss of meaning (says my ego) down the spiritual path it scares it. Just dont know man. Some situation acceptance is the "right" way but others it is not, that´s the only way I can see it now. Maybe it´s like the greater and lesser jihad. Be practical in your lesser jihad and spiritual in the greater.

@DEV I understand why you ask this questions but the answers will only bring you expectation which your ego will value and you will have a more distorted / less "true" experience on the retreat. If you have a history with mental illness or you are currently in a bad place in life, it might be good to come somewhat prepared but if not, go with eyes and mind open @Peanut Thanks for you story! I have some addictions as well (such as starcraft) but the way I dealt with it is to let myself game if I really wanted to, but before gaming I´d become really aware of my situation, I asked myself "is this really what I want to do?" - Consider the long term effects. If then the answer still is yes dammit! I really want to play a few games! then I´d let myself. But more and more often the answer becomes no. Some people can quit addictions just like that. Not me, it takes time. But I let it take time so it´s ok. @Freakyboo If you´ve never had an awakening after 10 Vipassana retreats what makes you go back? I´ve only been to one and I can relate to your text. Nothing special happened but there was alot of small changes in my attitude after. But I am having a hard time going back to a retreat if that is the only effect. I think I´d have the same effect going on a trek in the woods or some other relaxing vacation which is actually fun. Vipassana is hard work! (at least for me)

Thanks for the report! From now on I´ll do some sungazing everytime I can see the sun in those hours

I have no idea but I want in!