Sockrattes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_poisons

I was just referring to this meme: https://memeguy.com/photos/images/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-good-person-23656.jpg To answer your question: According to the Buddha enlightenment is the end of all suffering.

What does "it" mean?

Have you seen/played the new Episode of Black Mirror on Netflix already? If not, you should. In my teenage years long before i started to have mystical experiences i imagined samsara, or the cycle of death and rebirth, as something that happens when we really die and are reborn. Like one live after another. I actually didn't believe that rebirth exist but conceptually this was my understanding of samsara. But now i realise with many profound astral, lucid and psychedelic experiences that everything i have imagined was wrong. I know now that i'm living this life i'm living right now over and over again. For hundreds or even thousands of years. And the strange part about that is, that i (my body) wasn't born nor it died once. I'm transitioning from one life to another and then i forget about that i transitioned. Samsara therefore is a trick of the ego (or something else). I'm realising that i'm trapped in this for a long time now. Do you have similar insights? Can you relate to what i'm saying?

Jordan Peterson is not as smart as he thinks he is. Sure he can be very inspirational when you are 15-25 years old but after that you should start to recognise his limits.

Not necessarily. You think, because you are convinced that Advaitas, Zens, Actualizeds-teachings of non-duality are right, therefore Tao must be that same awareness too. But it's not. In my understanding Tao is coming from a whole different direction. If there is something like absolute and relative truth then non-duality probably refers to the former and Tao to the latter. But ultimately absolute and relative truth are probably two aspects of the same truth so we are probably just talking about perspectives here.

You will always encounter this statement in this forum when you talk about enlightenment. In every single thread.^^ Don't take it too seriously when it doesn't fit to your disposition. Most people here are following the Zen-approach. Which basically means "Stop thoughts altogether and consciousness will shine trough". It makes sense. Yes. But as Swami Sarvaprijananda said: "Do you need to stop the movie to get what a screen is?" I personally don't think so.

Sorry for my bad english. Bear with me. Terence Mckenna talked a lot about them. He experienced them several time, when he was on DMT. I have also experienced them. In fact, they are occurring in my dreams every day for like one and a half years now. They feel like they are "angels" or something. I'm not entirely sure why they are occurring and i don't know what they want from me. It feels like, they have a message for me, and honestly i'm too lazy and to dejected to really think it through. But everything i'm experiencing convinces me, that there might be something beyond 'absolute infinity'. Absolute infinity or the void or whatever you want to call it, seems more like a state, in which we are trapped somehow. Think about it. When you experience ego-death, you become one with everything we know of. But what makes you so convinced, that this is everything there is? In this regards i really like Andy Weirs egg analogy. What if, we are still an unborn god? Everything this universe ever was, was inside this egg. Eternity and Infinity, every human being or even every living creature. Simply everything we can have access to. Those Machine Elves seems like Entities beyond the void. They had no problem to talk to me, when i was in this void. It felt like, they were controlling me. And it felt like, they were deciding, which insights i will have, while i was there. So my question is: Do you think, there might be, something beyond enlightenment and oneness or do you think, that's the end of the story?

Actually i'm just using the terminology from Swami Sarvaprijananda from the Ramakrishna Order. But your statements in this part of your comment are kinda patronising and maybe you should open yourself up to further explanations and insights. You are talking about the illusionary state of objects which is common for many die hard Advaitans. When i hear something like this i immediately must think about the notion of fake-enlightenment and how i have felt into this trap myself repeatedly. You have no clue what i know. Don't be so condescending. ^^ I'm honestly not sure if you are enlightened. Why are you claiming that truth must be experienced directly and then you go on and state that the existence of an absolute truth must be logical?! If you ask me, there is not one or many truths. Truth is "not-two"... non-dual. Which implies all truths, since uncertainty is the very fabric of every singularity. It is like dividing by zero. Your calculator will say "error". Mathematicians will say the result is not defined. Does that make the equation "divided by zero" nonexistent? In that sense @Emanyalpsid might be right.

To be fair: That's an unproven axiom.

Yes. That's my question. Where does the contents come from and why? Brahman is existence-consciousness-bliss and hindu scholars and scriptures are extremely convincing in what they are claiming. But i can't abide in it as long there is no real explanation why all this is. "Brahman makes all this to know himself" or "this is a game" won't fit to those deep philosophical explanations of prasthanatrayi.

@Preetom Thank you. You clearly know what you are talking about. I have a question and maybe you know what Advaita (or Hinduism in general) says to this: If i'm the witness consciousness then who is making what i'm witnessing? Any sources on this?

"Atman" literally means "i" and refers to a self. And many Hindu schools even some Advaitans refer to a "Jiva", which is an individual soul. @Emanyalpsid I don't know much about Buddhism but there are at least 2 kinds of enlightenment in Hinduism: Moksha and Kaivalya. And there is probably many many more. And if i remember correctly Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism has different views on Nirvana, since they have a different view on "the self" or "no self". So i don't think you can just solve this debate and draw lines in something which is going on for at least 2500 years. But it is safe to say that many Hindu-teachers and Buddhist-teachers had no love for each other, because of their fundamental differences. Even someone like Ramakrishna who was Hindu (Shaktism, Vaishnavism and Advaita), Muslim and Christian seem to dislike Buddhism. But his chief disciple Vivekananda said that Buddhism was the "fulfilment of Hinduism". Then again some Buddhist teachers said that Vivekananda had no clue what he is talking about. The war was always and probably will always going on, because of course everyone thinks their own truth is the only real one and everyone else is deluded or something. And patronising is real as well. Everyone is trying to describe the world from his own certain point of view. "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." - Arthur Schopenhauer There are differences in concepts. Maybe there are even different stages of enlightenment. Maybe we have to get enlighten gradually from human to god and all the way up to God. Maybe you are a Babygod. Maybe you don't exist at all. Maybe maybe. I don't know. I will tell you if i find that out. :D^^

A teacher of mine once told me this when i had a period of no dreams: "You are dreaming too. Every night. You just can't remember." For many years i thought i wouldn't dream anymore either. But they came back spectacularly.

For me dreams are already more than just movies. Sounds strange and it took me a while too understand that (or better say, they had to tell me that! And even then i couldn't believe it before i read about them from Ramana Maharshi): I'm experiencing death people in my dreams. "Death" might be misleading, because they seem like they are more alive than me. And they are speaking to me directly calling me by my name. Making cool and funny things to comfort me and making me laugh and so on. Every single night they are coming up with more cool things. The sad part is often i'm not conscious enough to appreciate it fully.

Still alive, Dude?

You're welcome man. About your acid-trip: LSD might not be dangerous for your physical or even your mental health (at least i don't know anyone with long term effects), but don't take that to lightly. It's not a nice walk in the park. When you are in it there is no escape anymore. And a trip can easily last for 12 hours. That being said, don't trip alone if its your first time. It doesn't matter how tough you are, or how much experience you have with other drugs, psychedelics are something else and it will hit you with something unexpected which can be frightening. When i took LSD first time, my initial comment to my trip-guiding friends was "nothing in this world could have me prepared for this. This is something entirely different from what i have expected" and i'm glad you guys are here. It is amazing. No doubt. But it's not a toy either. Its medicine if you ask me. So be cautious.

I honestly don't think this is true. You were doing so many different practices and now you recognise that quantity won't make you happier. This sounds like a healthy shift from orange to green to me. The existence of this thread is an indicator for that. Just stay with the practices you like the most. That should be enough. And you should still do the other things but only when you feel like it. Try to recognise what really helps and what is actually pathological behaviour and adjust.

Empathy is the ability to simulated someone else's processes in their brains in your own brain. If you can truly understand someone else, you will have no grudge against him anymore. Easier said than done, yes. Try 5 whys and you will get to the root cause at least in a sufficient manner. For example: 1. Why did he stole my money? - Because he needed it too buy groceries. 2. Why hasn't he no money to buy groceries? - Because he is unemployed. 3. Why is he unemployed? - Because he was really bad at school. 4. Why was he bad at school? - Because everyone else was mocking him and he was too afraid to participate in class. 5. Why was everyone mocking him? - Because he was the smallest guy in class. Something like that. You probably won't get to the ultimate truth about your brother with this, but at least you have thought long enough about him in a non-judgmental way, that every grudge you will hold against him, will slowly fade away.

"Neo" is an anagram for "One". So... what does Ole mean?

@thehero Unfortunately not. Law of diminishing marginal utility. It's actually "unhealthily" orange.

Sounds like you are looking at personal-development like a commodity. "The more you put in, the more you get out of it." In spiral dynamics terms, this is a orange way to look at things.

@Vinnie Are you sure, it was an astral projection? Sounds more like a lucid dream to me. Your "heavy body"-experience sounds like a sleep paralysis which is typical for a lucid dream. Your body was already asleep while your mind wasn't.

This assumption is based on a very limited definition of masculinity.

Who can guarantee you that your pain will stop when you kill yourself?