Sockrattes

Am i going back to sleep voluntarily, or am i making the same mistake, whatever this mistake might be, over and over again?

Love that. Thank you. I can resonate with that comment a lot. If my godly consciousness is of infinite intelligence, how big are the stakes, that everything i'm experiencing is predetermined? @AlwaysBeNice Let me put it that way: I remember snippets of past lives. And hell... there was a lot of suffering going on there. And this one wasn't easy either. Especially the past 2 years made a crecendo and i literally can't think of anything other than freedom. So for me being here is a mistake... hate that game..:D ^^

I honestly don't know if that statement is true. Jnana-Yoga (yoga of knowledge) is the most important path in Advaita Vedanta according to Shankara. Advaita Vedanta IS hindu philosophy. That's actually the whole point.^^ And there is another problem: It seems like, different enlightened beings have different insights or at least different interpretations of what they have experienced. I'm counting myself in it. I've seen some stuff which i can't deny, but basically no one can resonate with me. It feels like, i've opened a whole different book from the enlightenment-shelf than you guys have. So whenever i read something about the absolute truth, it feels like i reading the obvious and i'm myself experiencing different "more important" things: For example Sri Ramakrishna said, that the "divine mother" is real and we should pursue in finding her. And i swear to all that is holy to me, i've seen her to. And god damn, she was the most beautiful "women" i've seen in my life. Or a few days ago, "someone" appeared in my dreams and told me, where i can find a proper translation of the bhagavad-gita for free. That's what i'm trying to point to: In my experience God is not just the "ultimate me" (don't crucify me for that phrasing). There is something greater than that/beyond that/next to it, even if it feels counterintuitive. I don't know if that makes sense to you. I know, this sounds crazy and like illusion and so on... yeah.. but everything i'm telling you is true. Hope you guys won't miss it.

Everything written here makes perfectly sense to me. I believe it. But damn, i can't feel it. Something is missing here and i can't put my finger on it. Is enlightenment becoming God? If it happens am i able to alter my reality as much as i want or am i still bound to some rules? Just curious.

Actually this question is based on a dream i had a few days ago. In this i or better say a light which looked like a green flame which was in my head, was wandering from body to body, while a narrator commented all what was happening. Even Tom Cruise was there. It was really funny but serious at the same time. And one thing the narrator said sticks with me till today: "And that was the first time i woke up". I'm trying to make sense of it, and i thought i might get some help here.

@winterknight Does evil exist?

How can i make sure, that i will make my surrendering unconditional? I've been there a hundred times. And then i start thinking "please don't make this or please don't be like that" and then i'm stuck here again and the whole story begins anew. Does that make sense, what i'm trying to say?

I doubt the Ananda part. At least i can't feel it. That existence and consciousness are essentially the same thing, makes totally sense to me. I literally can see it. But the bliss part is absolutely missing for me.

@winterknight Sat-Chit-Ananda?

I feel you bro. First of all: It's not your fault. Stop judging yourself. Second: I know you don't want to hear this, but in the end nobody cares. Learned that lesson the hard way. But i've learned, that i don't care about others either. Ultimately all of us are alone. Everyone only cares about their own problems. Finally: Being there for others without expecting something back helps a lot. I feel deep down in me, that i can't solve my own problems. They are way to hard, i tried to often and failed... yada yada yada.. But for me personally it was always extremely easy to help others. It feels like a piece of cake to solve the problems other people are extremely struggling with. You would be aghast if you would know with what kind of problems many people walking around for many years. Problems you could solve in minutes for them. That's the kind of things, you should look for. Be there for others and as soon as you can tell, you will have your dream-life without even knowing how the heck you've got there.

"Any human being who thinks what he doesn't know does not exist, wears the crown of ignorance."

I think the whole problem is rooted in the First-past-the-post voting system. A system like this tends to split the population into two and less often more blocks. Candidates with mixed convictions, not liberal and not conservative but something in between, can't be elected that way, because those candidates will only harm those candidates, which are closer to their own views. For example a libertarian candidate will basically always spoil a republican candidate. But a libertarian voter tends to be closer to a republican than to a democratic candidate. Same applies to democratic and green candidates. So a voter is basically forced to vote a republican or a democrat if he doesn't want his vote to be wasted. This is voting for the "lesser evil". Candidates who wants to win don't even need to try anymore. In fact nobody cares about wether they are telling the truth or not. Candidates only needs to push a few buttons and go on tour with a few buzzwords and dog-whistle technics, and they are good to go. This and gerrymandering of course. As an European i have to say: It's truly embarrassing to have such a voting system in a nation like the US. Democrats had at least 12 mio. more votes than republicans in the midterms. This means, they should have had 244 seats in the HOR.

Advaita is only one out of many schools in Hindu philosophy. There is Dvaita, Dvaitadvaita, Bhedabheda and so on. So there are many different interpretations of what is really going on. Advaita is the most popular one. No doubt about that. But it wasn't before colonisation in India happend. It became what it is, because of Vivekananda in the 1890s. Does that mean everyone else before him was wrong? So don't take it for absolutly granted otherwise you will only see what you want to see (confirmation bias). Religion and philosophy are two seperate things in the west. Religion is about faith and philosophy is about logic. In eastern spirituality both are the same. Therefore hinduism, buddhism, jainism and so on, always was a debate. There is nothing to believe in. That's the main problem with Advaita in the west, in my opinion. People here tend to believe, they've discovered the ultimate truth, because they've seen something. They are using Advaita like a religion. But it was never meant to be like this. So my advice is: Always stay open minded even if you have seen a few things.

This is the whole problem. You are trying to get a girl the easy way. Like an achievement on PS4. But she is a human being. And if she is beautiful, she has 20 other guys who's trying the same thing as you. Stop texting. Next time call them. Be different.

Everything is possible. But it is highly unlikely. Attraction on the internet functions differently than in real life. Tinder is only suitable for few "lucky people".

Who is judging?

I had reality spinning and unfolding like a flip book once. That was really cool.

Ancient Greece had no philosophy like non-dualism. But they had monistic philosophies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism#Monistic_philosophers The polytheistic approach of the greek pantheon is not based on a particular philosophic school, but on the richness of the topography of the mediterranean sea and its countries surrounding it. Many lakes, rivers, seas, islands, forests, mountains, natural phenomena like rain and storm and so on. So every aspect of live which is not immediately explainable was a god. That's actually the reason why monotheistic religions like judaism, christianity and islam originated in desert lands. Hinduism is hardly a religion. Every imaginable school of thoughts is debated in it, so there is no definitive worldview to hold on to. Thats why there are so many gods.

@hikmatshiraliyev Subatomic particles form atoms. Atoms form molecules. Molecules form cells. Several cells form you as a living being. And consciousness is produced in your brain. This is more or less your premise. But this is exactly what you have to let go of if you want to understand what Leo & Co. are talking about. In this concept consciousness actually comes before the subatomic particles. Everything happens within consciousness.

I'm not fully enlightened yet. But "someone" from, i would call it "the spiritual world" is helping me to get there. But these are the things i've found out and connected together thoughtfully: The word Advaita has been chosen very carefully and must therefore not be used synonymus with other terms like oneness. Oneness means, there is only one. Non-dual means, what appears to be two, aren't two. This doesn't necessarily implicate oneness automatically. You have two hands and both appear to be separated, but essentially both hands are part of a bigger body. Even if both hands are experienced as part of a bigger body, this doesn't mean that both hands are the same hand. So the term non-duality must be thought more in a sense of "superposition" in which both existence and nonexistence are in a state of uncertainty. In consciousness this would mean, that Atman isn't part of Brahman, or the other way around. It doesn't mean both are the same either. It does mean, that Atman has Brahman in it and Brahman has Atman in it. The drop which is in the ocean, has the whole ocean in it. So the question is if experiencing oneness can be even described as enlightenment, since it is a certain determined experience, like experiencing day to day duality. If you are a hand, it isn't your inevitable fate to become the other hand one day. The whole point of Indian philosophy and spirituality (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism etc.) is to obtain moksha. Moksha is the liberation from wandering trough the life experience which is called samsara. So seeking moksha is trying NOT to become Hitler or Mahatma Ghandi at "one point" in our lives. About "mental mastrubation" which is brought up here from time to time: Jnana-Yoga is the yoga of knowledge. It is one crucial way to obtain liberation.

Two charts with side by side comparison of Don Becks Spiral Dynamics and Ken Wilbers developmental altitude colors.

@Leo Gura I must confess, that i often tought, that your responses were somehow ego-driven. And therefore i was questioning sometimes whether you're enlightened or not. But your Zen-teacher-analogy clears everything up. Keep going on, man.

That sounds a bit harsh to me. Hinduism is not about believing something, but about seeking. So non-duality is in essence something that has to be questioned and discussed over and over again, like the Indians did.

It is more likely, that he's just a confident and intelligent but deluded boy diving deeply in stage orange. He hasn't integrated green yet, because he has no clue what that is. But that's ok. He is just 24.

@thehero Different perspectives are important and necessary, but this does sounds like real bullshit. 12 stages and the later 6 are "enlightened versions" of the first 6 stages? Come on.. He is using and altering Spiral Dynamics to his own benefit, because he is craving for hierarchies. It sounds lie he just wants acknowledgement for his intelligence and he's using SD to justify that. But Spiral Dynamics never spoke about enlightenment. It isn't a system like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Basically everything he says about Spiral Dynamics is just him wanting this model to be like this. SD is about values and resulting world views. Not more, not less. I don't get why his were posted here from time to time.