FoxFoxFox

Ignorance is just a thought.

@Anton_Pierre Yes that is prana moving through the sushumna which is an energetic pathway in the middle of the spine going all the way from the perineum to the middle of the eyebrows. This is also the path kundalini shakti might travel. If you have a good sense of prana, you might want to pick up Kundalini Yoga.

It is only unreal from a very specific viewpoint, which is of the neophyte meditator. There is no such thing as 'asbolute', 'maya' or 'real'. This all sounds very confusing, no? To get people interested in the work, teachers often use bad metaphors and analogies. It's like how they teach you Newtonian physics before quantum. I find this approach to be more confusing than helpful.

I fully agree with the assertion that Godman's interpretations is shaky. Actually I would say that he misses the point entirely. Back in the day, it really threw me off. It took me a long while to fully understand how to do self-inquiry properly.

@AlphaAbundance Right. Unconditional happiness is your nature, but mistaking the concepts of experience with the reality produces the illusion of unhappiness.

What you believe in will largely dictate your experience

@Aakash Who is having these thoughts? Find that "I" and let it dissolve. @Jkris It's like every other thing. Practice makes it easier. Also, it's funny how we have it backwards. It's not you who lost consciousness. It's consciousness who lost "you". consciousness loses "you" every night! "You" returns every morning and says, boy I had a great sleep last night. How does "you" know this? Only by inferring it from consciousness. Consciousness never sleeps. It is never lost. In sleep, consciousness is being aware of pure void. There is no content in the void for the mind to identify with, so there is no sense of separate self. But the real you, consciousness goes on. Being enlightened is exactly like sleep, only the the void is not empty.

@SoonHei That silent mind is the perfect position to chase the feeling of "I" and allowing it to dissolve.

@Giulio Bevilacqua Not necessarily. Enough energetic intensity can overwhelm the mind and lead to surrender. Witnessing is a useful tool, but by no means the only way.

@Giulio Bevilacqua No witnessing and complete dis-identification are not the same thing. The latter is synonymous with liberation when it's complete. The former is one step away. With witnessing, there still the sense that one is a separate being who is literally a witness to everything. There is still a subtle, formless "I" which dominates being. With liberation, this sense of being an "I" is gone.

@herghly Everything is a siddhi if you think about long enough. Anyways i say that because it's very important to be honest about why you pursue enlightenment. Many people here actually don't want the truth, they want something else masked as the truth. For example they might want fame or money and think if they somehow get enlightened they are gonna get those things. Well there is almost always a better, faster way to get material stuff than enlightenment. I guarantee you. Yet still there are people who are deeply unsatisfied with their lives and use enlightenment as a sort of escapism. This one could actually work if the dissatisfaction translates to genuine desire, but I'm not sure what the chances of it working that way are.

@herghly Well, the answer to that question is both yes and no. But anyways for the sake of simplicity: Kundalini yoga. I gotta say, if you pursue spirituality for the sake of Siddhis, you are not going to get them.

@herghly They happened by themselves but I have an active Kundalini.

People who believe they are not enlightened are unable to judge someone else's realization. How can they when they don't even know what to look for?

@herghly Extra sensory stuff. Almost as if seeing into another world that is superimposed on the normal one. Auras, souls etc. But hey, as Ramana said, the greatest Siddhi is self-realization. I agree with that now.

Yeah a few.

@Aakash Nope. "I am the witnessing" is still a concept! Go back to self inquiry. Who is it that is making these assertions? Where is this "I"? You previously realized that when you inquire into the "I" there was no answer and that gave you a brief glance into liberation. Go back there, and stay there. Don't allow the mind to create the world again.

Nope. "I am the one that is aware of what is going on" is still subtle identification with "I". It's still more concepts. You are not inhabiting a human body. That is just more and more concepts. Infinite intelligence is still a concept. Fettas(?) and Buddhism are still concepts. Purification is a concept. Liberation is not even absence of concepts, it's absence of concepts BELIEVED. Liberation is complete loss of any sense of being an individual "I". There is no individuality in enlightenment. That is because any understanding of existence as an individual is in the realm of conceptual understanding rather than direct, experiential understanding.

@tecladocasio You are right! "I" is not enlightened.

@Aakash No. Have you read the book "The Dice Man"? In that story a guy chooses to leave all of his decisions to the roll of a dice. He does that with the purpose of being enlightened (even though he doesn't consciously know this) but fails in the end because it never occurs to him to stop the "i-thought" from dominating existence. He just ends up as a very random person. The most important thing in this work is to become conscious of the "I-thought" and how it is focal point through which your life is currently being experienced. Constant awareness of this "I" and repeated revelation that it is not founded on any concrete trurths is what causes the notion to be come less and less manifested. That is the goal. To never, ever be limited in any way, shape, or form ever again. I recently read The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston. I think that book nicely demonstrates the matter. It's also very long, detailed, and at times arduous which should be suitable for a strong mind such as yours Ultimately surrender implies absence of someone who surrenders.

@thesmileyone Sahaja Samadhi is your nature already. It's just that the mind's stories dominate your existence.

@Javad There is no correct answer to the "who I am" question. Let that sink in enough and then you realize.

@Tony 845 Self-inquiry and Kundalini Yoga, but ultimately surrender.

@Paul92 What is the mind? Inquire into that as well. Does it actually exist? The real 'I' is already fully in control of the narrative. But it is not the 'I' who you think you are. @Anna1 It means the "I thought" never arising in the mind ever again. It will temporarily happen when you do any (real) meditation correctly. Once it becomes permanent that is liberation. I recommend proper Self-inquiry as well as Kundalini Yoga.

Inquire into this "I" you believe in so thoroughly. Is it actually there? Can you find where it comes from? How certain are you that this sense of being an "I" is actually founded in reality and not an illusion? The point is not to identify with nothingness, the point is to lose all identification - which is surrender.