Misagh

@Mu_ In absence of a guru I am very apprehensive of doing specific yoga poses. It usually makes things worse. Although, I have done insane yoga poses in kriyas. Stuff that I couldn't even dream of doing otherwise. It was great because it was a moment of total surrender to God, as if the body was a puppet on strings.

It's funny because despite all that is said about how radical enlightenment is (and yes it is radical), I've never felt that way. I never had a moment when I freaked out about the Truth. It was more like, "Oh okay so that's what it is. Yes it has always been the only Truth." What I mean is that there was never a moment of great shock like many people said there would be. Sure it still came to me in a snap, but there was no great mindfuck accompanied with it. I think its because prior to getting self-realized I already had a pretty clear idea of how its going to be through intense work with imagination. Also this is gold: "This is why you shouldn't try to teach nonduality to your cat." @Leo Gura

@Nevon Sure i'll look into it. Hardly done any work with the throat chakra.

^^

@ChimpBrain This also seems interesting and quite the opposite of the other suggestion so i'll check this out as well

@Your place at Heart Thank you. I will check it out.

The world @Joseph Maynor described is the world we have right now. A world where every soul is enlightened would not look any different from the world we have right now.

@tentacion The Self is God. “I am” is God. If God is apart from the Self, He must be a selfless God, which is absurd.

There is too much theory and it's all the machinations of the ego.

Realize that nihilism is basically the ego attempting to copy the Self (which is empty of all effort, meaning, delusion, confusion, thought etc) and failing miserably, and you are good to go!

The irony is not lost on me friend. I do not usually take the role of the guru, yet Leo seems to believe that there is more to 'it' than self-recognition. Wanted to try that for myself. That is the real lesson here for me

@Jack River Isn't seeking Freedom without desire of states itself seeking? And isn't freedom without desire of states itself a state?

Unless I am mistaken (which i may very well be), your approach to enlightenment is to bring the ego up to reach an enlightened state. What I am saying is that this approach will never work, and instead you should simply step out of the ego-game.

@Joseph Maynor Help me out here

@Jack River Again, if by 'self' you mean anything other than your true nature (existence, consciousness, bliss) then I would have to disagree. Also I'm not really sure what is meant by "holistic movement of self."

@Jack River Fear is only ONE emotion that can be mistakingly identified with, and hence cause ignorance. It is not everything.

You seem to assume that fear is the main cause for ignorance, while false identification is the main cause; whether it's identification with fear, lust, envy, happiness etc etc. "So if we do all that we are not free, enlightened, actualizdd, realized, liberated?" Not really. Like I said before, you CAN be liberated and there still be an ego who is engaged in all that activity. Liberation is misidentification with the ego, not its elimination. All those things (the ego, the "I", fear, hatred etc) are all either thoughts or emotions. Either way they are illusion. "the most important thing was skipped. self reflection." This is not really the most important thing. If by self-reflection you mean contemplating on thoughts/feelings, i say it's a waste of time (hence the trash analogy), although someone like Leo disagrees with me on this point.

@Jack River Yes If you engage with the fear at any level it will only cause further illusion.

No worries, im just clarifying things for myself

Well im confused because you call Ramana's teaching a game and say that engaging the little self is the way to go (which is the real illusion/game).

@Jack River One question: are you self-realized?

What do you mean by the complex self? Is this the Self or the structure of the ego?

@Jack River I don't seem to understand what you are saying. You might wanna explain your position

I refrain from saying "If we feed fear it continues." because I rarely ever bother with the content of my mind (not a psychologist). I just throw it all out to immerse myself in the Self. There is a good teaching by Ramana which is particularly instructive here: If you are asked to throw out the trash, you throw out the trash. You don't go through the garbage bag, examining every single piece one by one.

Yes. My point was that the ego does not immediately die with self-recognition.