Mu_

I can only imagine man. You've had a hard life, not many people can honestly say that, no family, the legal felonies over your head, homelessness. I'd say do your best to create some stability for yourself and girlfriend via work, really look at whats important to you and really go for that. And you also seem to have a lot of anger about people, maybe life? Looking into this somehow through inquiry or finding help with someone who you can talk about some of these issues, because they have a high chance of undermining your life. Hell I'll try and help you if I can What is it about comfort that irritates you so much? Why don't you trust anything? You can message me if you don't want to speak publicly.

Whats your goal for starters? By the sounds of it, you are looking for something that you believe that by contemplating or being present with will get you closer to or farther from depending on which you do more of. ??

I actually think you were in the "right" to begin with, but at this point its probably time to drop it, look within or take the action you want and try to get this forum moderated to your liking through time and investment along a path of choices you would need to take.

Don't worry your not the only one struggling with this question, its been in the hearts and minds of many a student and teacher for centuries. There's two camps of thinking on this matter (and infinite variations in between). On the one side you have a multifold path like Buddhism in which you cultivate the mind and body with meditation, practical work/duties, mantra's, scriptures (although they call it something different), silent retreats (that can sometimes last for years) all the while keeping in mind that this is a life time work and not to get to frustrated and bullheaded that you need to do it as fast as you can, all now, cause the world is going to burn down if you don't. Then on the farther end of spectrum you have traditions that speak to the silliness of trying anything to recognize whats already your true nature. Any spiritual seeking is a new story clouding the already present truth of your true self, already full, already true. By the sounds of what your doing to improve your life, I'd stick with that. If your all over the place and confused with non-duality/consciousness, just drop the dialogue at that time and don't put yourself through the mental mind fucking. I can tell you first hand its not going to get you any closer, and if your honest with yourself and let in the nature of what non-duality is potentially pointing to, panicky dialogue in your head is not the route, right? Working with someone on these matters can be really helpful sometimes as well, especially with these particular topics, who knows the terrain, the trappings and the usefulness of certain practices. I can't say I'm that person, but I do have 20 years exposure to this path. Let me ask you what do you mean by ". After learning about non duality and what increasing ones consciousness is supposed to ultimately lead to, it makes me question whether this life purpose and vision I have set out on is truly the right path for me. I'm wondering if this self concept tied into my purpose and vision would hamper the consciousness work and finding who I truly am at the core as well as seeing reality for what it really is. " What is your purpose and vision first of all? What did you learn/read about non-duality and consciousness (are these two separate things in your current understanding) and why do you feel it might be the wrong path for you? What do you mean by self concept tied into your purpose and vision?

Thats awesome.

There's something very familiar in your inner questioning if you should try and help, its close to one I went through for a few years of my life (hell I still go into it to a degree). And while I don't have a specific answer to your dilemma something does pop out about your comments. You seem to have a lot of frustration about other peoples conditioning and react to "dumb" (What is dumb anyways) comments. Perhaps its a good opportunity to inquire into this and learn something about yourself and maybe grow as an individual so your not suffering so much as a result of other peoples comments or your own view on their opinions. I will say this though to your question, you don't "need" to comment or interject if not asked directly, but you have a right to if you want, and if your heart is well intended then why not and learn from the interaction.

Lol well said.

So this is part of something I've been trying to articulate and synthesis for the last 10 years or so. There's been many influencers and life experiences that have gotten this view to this point (Leo being one of them, we seemed to have had very identical awakening experiences). It's not complete and probably will never be, but I wanted to put it up and see what people thought in its current iteration. Isn't it true all current models and opinions of reality (or perhaps anything for that matter) take their position based upon evidence that comes through human experience (since, well there’s only humans having these conversations on this planet). This can include experiences ranging from the subjective experiences of individuality, division, separation, distance, and time, to the mystical classifications of experiences, such as no-time, oneness, being, a sense of god or being god, or non-duality. For example doesn’t science seems to make claims about reality based upon the 5-6 subjective senses of human experience or pose questions on the subject of something called “objective matter” based on such. A simple claimed given (experience) of up, down, left, right seems to require the subjective sense of such to make such a proposition and base further science on. Or doesn’t time require a agreed upon constant or measurement and subjective experience to point to and form a questions about or make a claim about. For example the statement I dropped a ball down the hole at 30 miles per hour seems to be coming from a unquestioned agreement that a “ball” went “down” a hole (subjective seen/felt experience) at “30 mph” (agreed upon seen/felt/labeled subjective experience). From my experiences of “non-duality/oneness” such a statement seems silly because there is nothing moving in any direction at any speed, all is one with no division, there are no moving parts, all is experienced as oneself. AND, the position of non-duality seems to be a experience of its own claim resting on “self/subjective experience” as proof of its own a statements (purists would argue neither subjective or objective, but a merger of the two). And interestingly at the same time, neither is invalidated, since both could hold the position of a possible actual truth. Free will is another that can be looked through this lens. Isn’t free will only proven by the self/subjective experience of such. There doesn’t appear to be objective proof of this accepted notion. And same for determinism, no-free will, the everything is happening out of our control, a result of genes, determined by the brain, effected by the environment. None of these seem to have actual proof that is not arrived at from anything other then the subjective senses/experience or measurements coming from a subjective sense/experiences. And yet again interestingly, none of these can be invalidated. Now I don’t want people to get the idea that there is no experience (because experience seems to be the only constant in this framework of comparison,and no I’m not saying there can’t be something without experience because its very real that the sun could exist without an experiencer, but thats a topic for another day), but the claim that materialism/individuality, free will/determinism, oneness/non-duality seem unprovable and rest upon a particular type of experience to prove their claim about reality and all further expressions from them. Experience seems to be whats most real, profound and an unknowable mystery, encompassing the very ability to feel and see everything so far spoken about as ones life, neither validating or invalidating the materialism or non-duality/oneness views. This claim seems to have implications into the realms of psychology/morals/reasoning as well. A realm in which everything seems self referenced. Is this right or wrong, good or evil, for example, a questions that for a materialist/individual appears to be asked to oneself and an answer appears, generally backed by reasons on a felt/believed sense and backed by life experience/conviction. The same question asked to a “evolving” individual/non-dual/more encompassing “realizer” is again answered from a self referenced experiential sense/experience using the words such as knowning, realizing, seeing, felt in the heart, etc (all subjective/self referenced)(and yes I’ve been here). Again experience seems to be the constant here in both, but the actual of the content remains a profound mysterious happening, that can take the many infinite forms between materialism, and non-duality/oneness, the yet created, the neither of these, and perhaps in alien unthinkable dimensional experiences incomprehensible by humans. Also I’m not saying science is not useful or value judgements should not happen because obviously these have some human benefit, which maybe needs some addressing in this piece (or another piece). But that far to often we find ourselves battling with the opposing camp we find ourselves in (and even within ourselves) on matters if we are honest with, we will find that our basis for being right boils down to the same thing, our "Experience".