Kserkkj

Honestly, some of the best content I've ever seen regarding spirituality/personal growth. The stuff he talks about really blew my mind. He doesn't talk about enlightenment directly, but much of his content really imo facilitates the process and points towards it more than you think.

@Kuba That was fking amazing, ty man

@Prabhaker I thought enlightenment relieves you of much of your emotional baggage and mental illness. Wouldn't that be very beneficial for the body-mind complex? I'm assuming that enlightenment works like a double edged sword; if you survive the "tribulation", you breakthrough, and if you don't, the result is your body being fried due to lack of foundational work? Your thoughts on this?

@Aamir King Careful man, I think you're being too competitive. Just Relax, Chillllll, accept where you are now, and don't aim to become better than another, walk your own path and live 100% every single day, which I can tell you're not btw. I don't mean to burn yourself out everyday, to live is to enjoy life fully everyday by being your greatest version which you already are. I feel you because being the best and surpassing all was my ambition a year ago, but now I realize how naive I was.

@Callum A Problem is, easier said then done. I would add one more point, and that's to forgive the mind for judging. Personally from my experience, it's very neurotic at first when you start developing awareness over your thoughts, developing the tendency to control and criticize oneself for judging. A video I watched today actually by Ralph Smart reminded me of this simple point which might orient some of y'all actualizers, and it's to treat yourself nicely, by empowering mental talk. So the next time you be like, "Oh no, not this shit again, I need to stop judging ..." Say to yourself, it's alright for being dualistic, as "large non-duality" is all emcompassing. It's a blessing to be on the path, and I myself have a lot of delusions/baggage to clear up. Cheers.

Lols at this Questioner: Can you tell us what happened to Adolf (Hitler)? Ra: I am Ra. The mind/body/spirit complex known as Adolf is at this time in an healing process in the middle astral planes of your spherical force field. This entity was greatly confused and, although aware of the circumstance of change in vibratory level associated with the cessation of the chemical body complex, nevertheless, needed a great deal of care.

@stevegan928 @ajasatya I would have to disagree with notions such as effortless effort, or nothing to attain. This is a excerpt from the book Mastering the core teachings of the buddha. " The "Nothing to Do" and "you are already there schools" On a somewhat different note, I feel the need to address, which is to say shoot down with every bit of rhetorical force I have, the notion promoted by some teachers and even traditions that there is nothing to do, nothing to accomplish, no goal to obtain, no enlightenment other than the ordinary state of being, no practice or tradition that is of value, no technique that will help. The other side of this same coin is the point of view that you already are realized, already there, already completely accomplished, and you essentially should just be able to be told this by them to understand it for yourself, which, were it true, would have been very nice of them, except that it is complete bullshit. The Nothing To Do School and the You Are Already There School are both basically vile extremes on the same basic notion that all effort to attain to mastery is already missing the point, an error of craving and grasping. They both contradict the fundamental premise of this book, namely that there is something amazing to attain and understand and that there are specific, reproducible methods that can help you do that. Here is a detailed analysis of what is wrong with these and related perspectives. Some defenders of these views will claim that they are the most immediate, most complete, highest and most direct teachings that one could promote, but I will claim that they do not lead to much that is good that cannot be attained by conceptual frameworks that are not nearly so problematic or easily misconstrued. First, these notions encourage people to not practice. The defenders can say what they like, but again and again I see people who subscribe to these sorts of notions resting on their cleverness and grand posteriors and not actually getting it in the same way that my accomplished meditator friends get it. It seems so comforting, this notion that you are already something that you, in fact, are not, or that there is nothing that you could do that would be useful. The notion that people already are something begs the question: What are they? These views tend to imply that they are already something such as perfect, enlightened, realized, awakened, or something even worse such as Awareness, Cosmic Consciousness, The Atman, an aspect of The Divine, etc. all of which cannot actually be found. While Buddhism does sometimes go there, using terms such as Dharmakaya and Buddha Nature, these are very slippery, high concepts that were added later and require a ton of explanation and practical experience to keep them from becoming the monsters they nearly always become in less experienced hands. Awakening involves clearly perceiving universal characteristics of phenomena. While one can attempt to rest comfortably in the intellectual notion that these universal characteristics are there anyway and be comforted by teachings such as easily misconstrued statements like, “I have gained nothing by complete and un-excelled enlightenment,” the whole, core, essential, root point of all this is that there is something to be gained by becoming one of the people that can actually directly perceive the true nature of things clearly enough to change fundamentally the way reality is perceived in real-time. The straight truth is that the vast majority of people do not start out being able to do anything even close to this, and most are lucky to be able to stay with three breaths in sequence before wandering off into their neurotic crap, much less understand anything liberating about those breaths. The notion that everyone already is someone who can perceive reality the way the masters do without effort in real-time is a fantastic falsehood, lie, untruth, and in short, one great load of apathy-creating insanity. If one goes around asking people without very good insight into these things, i.e. the unenlightened, about basic dharma points, points that are obvious to those who have learned to pay attention well, one does not find that everyone already is a person who is perceiving things at the level that makes the difference the dharma promises. Further, even those of lower levels of enlightenment generally have a hard time saying they really are able to perceive the emptiness, luminosity, selflessness, causality, transience, ephemerality, etc. of reality in real-time at all times without having to really do anything. In short, the notion that this is as easy as just being what you already are is wildly off the mark, as the vast majority of people are woefully underdeveloped on the perceptual front in question. Thus, all reality testing reveals that the two schools are missing a very fundamental point: while the universal characteristics are always manifesting in all things and at all times, there are those who can perceive this well and those who cannot, and meditative training, conceptual frameworks, techniques, teachers, texts, discussions and the like can all contribute to developing the internal skills and wiring to be able to realize fully what is possible, as thousands of practitioners throughout the ages have noticed. I myself have known before and after, meaning that I know what I was capable of perceiving and understanding before I underwent meditative training and after, and no amount of being fed the concept that I was already as developed as I could be, was already enlightened, was already there, had nothing to do, nothing to develop, was already as clear as I could be, was already perfectly awake, etc. was going to make the difference that practicing for thousands of hours over many years did. It would be like saying: you are already a concert pianist, you just have to realize it, or you already are a nuclear physicist, you just have to realize it, or you already speak every language, you just have to realize it. It would be like saying to a two-year old: you already understand everything you need to know so stop learning new things now, or to a severe paranoid schizophrenic: you already are as sane as anyone and do not need to take your medicines and should just follow the voices that tell you to kill people, or to a person with heart disease: just keep smoking and eating fried pork skins and you will be healthy, or to an illiterate person with no math skills who keeps having a hard time navigating in the modern world and is constantly ripped off: no need to learn to read and do math, as you are just fine as you are, or saying to a greedy, corrupt, corporate-raiding, white-collar criminal, Fascist, alcoholic wife-beater: hey, Dude, you are a like, beautiful perfect flower of the Now Moment, already enlightenedyou are doing and not-doing just fine, like wow, so keep up the good work, Man. Would you let a blind and partially paralyzed untrained stroke victim perform open-heart surgery on your child based on the notion that they already are an accomplished surgeon but just have to realize it? Would you follow the dharma teachings of people who feed other people this kind of crap? Those who imagine that everyone somehow in their development already became as clear and perceptive as they could be just by being alive is missing something very profound. Do they imagine that you can just remind people of these things and suddenly all wisdom and clarity will suddenly appear? This is mind-bogglingly naive. I have gained so much that is good and lost so much that is bad by learning to practice well, learning to concentrate, learning the theory, learning insight practices, going through the organic process of the stages over decades, reading the stories, reading about the lives of the great practitioners, having dharma conversations with dharma friends, debating points, wrestling with difficult concepts and how to apply them to my actual life, teaching, learning, studying, playing with the powers, writing, realizing how things are, and delving deeply into the sensate world that I am astounded that anyone would want to try to reduce something so grand, wonderful, deep, rich, amazing and profound to such a paltry, ridiculous concept as the notion that all that is already in place in everyone regardless of what they have done or not done. All those benefits, skills, abilities, powers, states, stages, experiences, insights, and fundamental perceptual changes simply were not available until I did the work, took the time, participated in the process, and no amount of anyone telling me it was otherwise would have helped or made it so. I know of no examples where the necessary and sufficient causes for the arising of these benefits did not involve some kind of work. In short, I say to those who persist in promoting the Nothing To Do School and the You Are Already There School: STOP IT! You are spreading craziness, and this is craziness that many people will not be able to tell is craziness, and that appears to include those who promote these fallacies. While I usually do not go so far as to tell people that there is something so deeply wrong with what they think and how they communicate it that they should stop it immediately and forever, this particular point is a great example of something I consider abhorrent and worthy of profound revision. Regardless of any kind intentions, the teachings of these schools take a half-truth that seems so very nice and seductive to neurotic practitioners who can barely stand another achievement trip and have such a hard time with self-acceptance, and that half-truth is distorted into sugary poison. There is no need to tie the three useful concepts of 1) no-self, 2) self-acceptance in the ordinary sense, and 3) the notion that the sensations that lead to understanding (if clearly perceived over and over again) are manifesting right here, right now, to such a perversely twisted yet seemingly benign and similar concept as the one they unfortunately promote.

I live in Vancouver BC, and there doesn't seem to be any good ones around. Any suggestions??

@Visionary I think once you have some mindfulness down, it's time to start investigating the 3 characteristics of reality according to a book I read. Maybe you're falling into some traps, or you're lacking the concentration needed for clear investigation. I'm a newbie by the way, and haven't done any noting practice before so can't say much about your case.

@OhHiMark I can relate to you, this happens with my ego very often and tends to be very destructive. So far I still haven't developed enough clarity to pacify this shit. Once enough clarity is developed all neurosis dissolves. You need more understanding, and the reason you do what you do is none other than - you believe it'll relieve your suffering. The root of all desire is compassion which can actually lead to liberation although when filtered by ego becomes more suffering instead. Desire and compassion is like a continuum, as your understanding develops desire will purify itself into it's true nature. As a fairly unconscious person, I'm merely parroting what I've seen and haven't experienced this for myself although I do assume this is true. There are many nuances to this topic and I can't say for sure I'm correct. As for a more practical approach, I think facing it head on by both fully feeling whatever resistance you have, and taking action that makes you feel most vulnerable would be as best as it gets. Good luck, cheers.

@username Damnn, I feel bad for you bro. If you're young, then it's definitely a stigma in nowadays. If you're the type that gets distracted by sex, and don't know how to harness your sexual energies like me who masturbates on a regular basis, then probably yes, it's an obstruction to consciousness work. But if you're able to transmute it and penetrate through the desire while making love with your partner, that could be a boon to your consciousness work. Desire directed in the right place can lead to liberation, and vice versa. In terms of the absolute, it doesn't make a difference whether you're engaged in the secular world or not. Both has it's ups and downsides, it can be a blessing or a bane depending how you see it. Good luck on your journey, as you gain more understanding this shouldn't be a problem for you.

I like the beginning of what Leo says. Truthfully speaking, yes ego is an illusion, although you need it for practical purposes, once the ego serves something greater than itself, the destructiveness quality disappears I presume.@Deep

@Martin123 That's just more conceptualizing, your framework is deluded bro.

@Martin123 I don't think it's about infinitely expanding your consciousness to the 4th,5th,6th........ dimensions. It's realizing your true nature which is already infinite, but only limited by the veil which is your conceptualizations.

@Deepak sadhwani You mean non-dualism? There are plenty of ways to have enlightenment experiences, self-inquiry, meditation, yoga, zazen ...... As for the second question, go experience for yourself.

@Leo Gura How many hours a day do you meditate on average now? Not during retreats.

@OhHiMark I have a similar issue actually. I used to and even now feel incompetent about my language and expression skills; I focus on words I don't know and whenever I encounter an unfamiliar word or one that I forgotten that I presume people my age would know of, it would arouse great feelings of inferiority. Thus, I became obsessed with words due to my language inferiority. Anyways, my tips for you would be - Beliefs, beliefs, beliefs, this is something that really needs to be stressed, and with enough conscious awareness you will discover this whole shebang is caused by your beliefs. 1. You assume people are better/worse and judge yourself and others accordingly which is a false assumption. 2. Beliefs filter your attention in a way where if you believe something to be true, it will become a natural tendency for your attention to notice evidence that justifies that belief, hence, filtering a huge chunk of information. Next thing I would point out is, let bygones be bygones. Accept the past for whatever happens, forgive yourself and others and stop wishing for it to be different somehow. Lastly, the most general answer I could give you is to increase your awareness. Without awareness, it's like being on autopilot; you won't ever get outta the rut you're currently in without enough understanding which can only be realized through enough awareness. All it takes is to fully observe the processes of your mind that lead you to feel and behave a certain way to untangle it if it doesn't serve you. Cheers.

@Azrael Hey man, good to know you're interested moving to Vancouver cause I live there too. Looking forward to knowing you one day .

That's not enlightenment, just a state of mind or enlightenment experience. Enlightenment is acceptance of everything and 0 differentiation for all experience, it is beyond any state of mind.

@Leo Gura Would like your thoughts also, on affirmations/visualisations/law of attraction. Do affirmations work for enlightenment? My guess is no because enlightenment isn't something you believe or attain. Second, do you think it's easier disposing positive beliefs over negative beliefs?? I'm reading books on law of attraction and they basically tell you ways to tune your thought process and beliefs into positive more conducive ones. Personally, I subconsciously hold many negative beliefs eg. ( My communication sucks, my english sucks, i'm shy, anxious, and not very attractive , I'm a dull person to be around, not very knowledgable).... Right now I'm dedicated 100% to truth-realization, mainly through meditative self-inquiry, and it's a long grueling process which I don't think i'll find anytime soon. Do you think it's worth it for me to spend time on affirmations converting certain beliefs I hold? Am I taking a detour by doing this??

Can you open my mind with some examples please, he claims to be completely enlightened, and I'm pretty much absorbing everything he says. P.S. Do you think he's an enlightened rube? xDD Oh an also, why is it necessary to have a deeper conceptual understanding, I thought a lesser understanding is rather helpful for discovering and navigating truth???

Hey guys, so I just bought Jed Mckenna's book "spiritual enlightenment: the damndest thing" and am now half-way through. Honestly, it put me in deep depression, and i keep falling in/out of depression the past few days. Even though I hear many ppl say, "don't search for enlightenment" bla bla bla, it kinda dawned on me that my meditative practice still had that subconscious intent for enlightenment or at least a glimpse/enlightenment experience. Right now idk what to do anymore, somewhat rudderless, but not as despondent and depressed as a while ago. After watching Rali's interview with Martin Ball, I'm just kinda chill now rather than the hardcore seeker I used to be ( Meditated many hours a day with an assortment of techniques, read books, almost all my youtube recommendations are enlightenment/personal development videos, Enlightenment apps, Facebook feeds are mostly enlightenment related ) but yeah, you get what i'm saying and I'm just really fucking burned out. A few days ago, I went to my college campus for the first time, and holy shit was I anxious as fuck. I feel like I just repressed all those feelings, put them under the rug all along despite all this meditation, which complemented to my depression. I feel like before reading the book, all I was searching for was that overhyped experience of samadhi/satori which was very delusional. My goal here is absolute liberation from the ego, and I know the grueling work I'm gonna have to face eventually which I don't know how. I don't wish to meditate merely for some cheap thrills of samadhi and be reverted back confined within the ego. Jed's technique was basically to write what everything you think is true, but I feel like there's not much to write. Any suggestions? Should I keep meditating? Is it okay to lay back and forget all this enlightenment business for a while? How can I break through the confines of my ego and realize that I'm "dreaming"?

@Prabhaker Interesting stuff, first time hearing of the bodies concept/framework of enlightenment and spirituality. So if spiritual awakening and enlightenment is awakening of the 5-7 bodies, would it require a solid foundation in preceding bodies 1-4? Eg. would a kundalini awakening be necessary for deep enlightenment? And also, what if you had a birth defect leading to incomplete development of the physical/ emotional / intellectual bodies, would it be disadvantageous for that person to awaken further bodies?? If I had a spiritual awakening before kundalini awakening, would I have skipped the awakening of the 4th body??

Like what?

@Azrael Hey Azrael, is this substance addictive? I hear from spiritual teachers like adyashanti.. saying spiritual experiences are by far the MOST addictive experiences, and I only plan on doing this substance 1 time for a long while, don't wanna get caught by my parents.