thesmileyone

I see it as people's definition of the ego is incorrect. The ego, aka the default mode network, SHOULD BE AN INTEGRATED TOOL for people to use to survive in the world we live in, in the physical plane. In the conditioned unawakened person, the ego runs the show and all the ego cares about is the seperate self. People on the path seem to think that the ego after enlightenment will be the same ego as before enlightenment and therefore the ego is the enemy, and has to die. But, and I say this is MY OPINION because I cannot speak of enlightenment because I am not enlightened, I think enlightenment is simply the permanent merging of the ego and the real you, Nonduality = no duality duality = the dual aspect of living from an ego and the real you. I also find it funny when not-enlightened people tell me it is a FACT that I am wrong. You can actually see their ego get triggered by your statement. I have highlighted the important aspects of my reply in red to show the irony.

That's good news. the ego is the default mode network. He claims enlightenement but isn't enlightened, yet.

You need to connect the feeling of the Absolute that you feel when meditating, to the feeling of the Absolute that is there when not meditating. Currently, you don't feel it when not meditating by the sound of it. it is there, underneath all the garbage that is "you". Once you can connect to it in day to day life, just keep some awareness on it at all times. Over "time" it will be there more and more until eventually.... And this is where I stop giving advice because I do not know yet what happens when it is there 100% of the time outside of meditation. And as @Markus states, there's cycles of purging constantly. Cycles of depression and it's opposite, constantly. The good news is you get used to recognizing the cycles for what they are.

that everything i think i know is pointless. that everything I think I am is false that I am pointless and false my whole life is pointless and false I'm not sure what happened I was just sitting here on the tail end of a dopamine / seretonin high (binge eating carbs) and had this realization and its like everything under me collapsed, all the dominos have knocked each other down. I haven't meditated for a few days or anything either. I'm pretty lost

Thank you, that's not quite my point though. I have done thousands of hours of meditation now and still not experienced some of what people talk about, for example the full blown "ego death" that one experiences vaping N-N-DMT. When i try and get advice from really "advanced" people they often compare meditation to a psychedelic experience. When you tell them you have not done psychedelics they dismiss you and your experiences as "basic" or similar. I recently found out that I have never meditated "properly" as in you are supposed to do samatha breathe or object meditation and then when you go through the jhanas you switch to formless / nirguna meditation, I always went straight to formless ie shut my eyes, get comfortable, an itch occurs, ignore it, POP! into the void. So I didn't know what jhanas were. Which didn't help when talking to people either But of course thousands of hours of nirguna meditation has given me quite an advantage because some people never move from Samatha breathe/object meditation. I don't think there's a problem with not using drugs rather I wonder if I am missing something by not doing so. Most people on the path to enlightenment have their awakening via drugs then try to get it again via meditation, there's even videos like "How to have a natural DMT trip" by remembering your DMT trip and getting into the same headspace...I can't do any of this as I have not done the drugs... I'm like a guy with a PHD in Physics who never went to school and learned how to write...

The main lesson is really honesty. A few weeks ago I was raving here about nonduality then shit got depressive then deeper and made me realise I know nothing... and how silly I feel for giving people advice when I know nothing ha ha So I am sort of limiting myself to this thread, which I will update when and if...

I have been awakened for some time but I am not enlightened or anywhere near it in my opinion, though this seems to depend on what enlightenment is; for some enlightenment is simple nondoership nonduality ie Gary Weber who claims to never have thoughts all the way through to people like Dan Ingram who claim Arahantship and therefore have freed themselves of all 10 buddhist fetters, something I highely doubt btw. I had a huge shift yesturday, but different to most shifts where some part of "me" is chipped away and promptly replaced or uncovers something below it to replace it, this time round it got chipped away and nothing replaced it. Hard to put into words. These last few weeks I have felt somewhat lost, reading into different systems and different paths and different definitions of the usual definitions we use here. Then yesturday this shift occured and I don't feel lost anymore, nor do I really have questions either. I don't really have words for how I actually feel. I got drunk earlier, like totally hammered, just because I was bored, and didn't enjoy it, the whole time I was drunk it was like the, and I put it in speech marks again because it doesn't feel like the definition' "Consciousness" was pulsing away. I am done with drinking now, I feel like I no longer need it. The funny thing is I watched a video about how alcohol and spirituality are a no no and instead of commenting and arguing I realised I might be wrong about it...whilst I was fully drunk. So even when fully drunk I was not behaving / processing like I used to when I was 100% "me". Maybe this is an accurate way to explain how I feel actually. I feel like "Consciousness" which has always been in the background is now further in the foreground. Does that make sense? It also feels like it tried to force it's way fully into the foreground the other day but I saw it as "ego death" and had a panic attack about it (hence my thread a few days ago) so it held back and came in a different, more subtle way. Yeah that explains it. It feels like there is less "me" and more "Consciousness" inside my body (but also in everything outside the body) whereas before it was pretty much 50/50. It will be interesting to see how it takes shape in the long term, if it becomes more or less than "me". The only other thing I have noticed is I have been watching older Victor Oddo videos and when i watched them before, I didn't really get them, now they feel like reinforced second nature. I guess because I have experienced what he said vs trying to learn/process it via the mind.

Is Buddhism wrong? Are the 10 fetters wrong? Buddhism and the 10 fetters seem to extend far beyond nonduality and explaining that enlightenment = formlessness (ie that that is beyond the mind) nonduality is only a combination of the first 4 fetters.

But equally balanced by the danger of not being able to either handle the trip / the drug in some cases, nor be able to integrate their experience into life. As a teacher / guru you should advocate both sides of a coin not just the potential good side.

What do you think to the theory that we live in a simulation and that that we individually experience is only "projected" upon looking at it? Like a computer game where the landscape is only rendered as you turn to look at it?

the problem with not using drugs is THere are no answers This is the problem of the unpsychedeliced sage. One can only have 100% proof by experiential reality. A path without drugs is slow. I am quite amazed I have got this far. Thus Does one require drugs to "unlock" some part of the brain required to reach enlightenment? Is enlightenment even the path? Hmm

DMT carrier wave...

Financial independence is my only concern. If my income went to $0 tomorrow, my only concern is the bottom tier of Maslow's heirarchy of needs - a roof over my head, cheap food and water and basic healthcare to last me until I die. Anything else; car, insurance, wine, even heating (because ketogenic diet will convert bodyfat into heat) are all just bonuses therefore sacrifical to me. Ie my only concern is making enough to LIVE off in "reality" without having to go to work. For me that's money in an index fund performing better than 2.6% (approx rate of inflation over a decade) so that my purchasing power stays the same, ie $1 in 2019 is worth $1 in 2029 and not $0.20.

wat My awareness that all this in the dream matters not helps me take risks. I would probably be good at stock/shares but knowledge of how that works means I won't entertain the idea (the really rich aka rothschilds etc all do insider trading, which is illegal for us mere mortals but not for them). I will take huge risks with money because to me fiat capital means nothing at all. I don't care if my networth is $10m or $1.

My question is how do you know you are enlightened? How do you know what enlightened even is? In all your posts you have this vibe of nondual nondoership ie there "is no you" so how can you make the statement "I am enlightened" when living from the view that "I" does not exist?

I read about a Guru who fucked a devotee's wife to relieve him of the attachment of marriage. I thought it was both funny but kind of practical at the same time. They got divorced shortly after... attatchment dissolved if you will.

Some more to add. I really hope this helps someone, even a guest, because everyone's path is different yet has many crossovers. - It's like, lately, I spend time researching "conspiracy theories" (some are real or close to the truth) so my, whatever you call underneath the EGO mind, can sort/filter/process old stuff without me getting in the way. Then it all queues up, and I feel the need to meditate, or I get heart palpitations and other phenomena that tells me it is time to meditate. This has happened quite a few times over the last 8 months or so that I have been on the path alone with no support network. Anyway when this does happen, crazy stuff happens during the meditation in terms of either visuals or feelings then I get samadhi, you know where one second you are there, the next second you blink and 3 hours have passed by. Then after that I normally get some wierd experiences consciously. Last night I kept seeing flashes of white / silver, very quick flashes, randomly, with eyes either open or closed, and in the shower. I also woke up in bed a few times because it was like I was a different person re-living life from a different perspective, this is kind of difficult to say though because it was like I saw someone elses entire life flash by within 1 second of my conscious life. Then I woke up today in no-thought state as usual then had this ephiphany that all the choices I made in life lead up to this moment in life, the dukkha (suffering) I experience due to having no friends, and a sad miserable life. I knew this already from the POV of the mind ie logically but this was on a much deeper level than that. And it makes me question myself because...all the nondual teachers, they teach that you don't make decisions. That there is no personal choice. There is nondoership and you are just along for the ride. This ephiphany is completely contrast to that. Like, I am typing this out of choice, or am I typing this because "Consciousness" (and I really do put this in quotes now because it seems to me that "Consciousness" does not exist as we call it "Consciousness") wants me to - ergo nondoership? I am fully aware of the dualities between duality (reality) and nonduality (underneath reality) yet I am not getting the nondoership either logically (mind) or experiantally. Consciously I feel like having no friends, the dukkha caused is outweighed by the peace caused. No arguements, no drama, no trying to navigate the complex interelationship dynamics of multiple people. I have tried both and far prefer this way, yet the epiphany said this has caused suffering. But Buddhist Noble truth #1 states life IS dukkha - life IS suffering - so how have I caused my own suffering because anything I did do in life would be suffering? Do I even need to understand this? Maybe the ephiphany just was...and I shouldn't try to get it. Maybe the sky is just blue and we shouldn't have an explanation why the sky is blue? Sorry for the essay. I feel compelled to write it.

Everything, all the way down to the letter "a" and anything that letters or words are used for are concepts. Not only that but anything sensed is also a concept, converted to "reality" by the brain. For example if you stand two people in front of a red door and one of those people is blind, that means in the blind person's personal world that door does not exist, yet to me and you it does exist, because our brains turn it into the concept of being a red door.

I think different people get different siddhis. My mother gets this feeling in the pit of her stomach when we go into certain areas...the town of Winsford for example is a no go area for her, she cannot explain why. I had the same feeling about Manchester...exactly 7 days before the ariana grande bombing. Also certain areas make all my hairs stand up, which humans equate to fear but for me seems to be more energetic transfer, mainly happens in forests or looking at pictures of enlightened people. I can heal people via tonglen too, but I don't anymore, unless people ask, so I honor free will. Occasionally I will do it regardless of free will, like if I am in a hospital, I will do tonglen for the entire hospital, with no intent to heal specific people, but knowing it is possible I might heal some people... I think I heal people on different planes ie on the astrals when asleep. I can also send energy to something like a picture or something I make and people can recieve it, which is wierd and I cannot explain it as a picture is just 1's and 0's that don't exist. I trained myself for some while to try and unlock active-clairvoyance and it didn't work, hence why I think at a certain spiritual stage you unlock what you get and that's that.

Those quotes are completely contradictory. The 10th fetter is strong in you.

No one really knows.

Life experience

Sorry but, picking litter up off the floor is about as honest as you can get and there are always vacancies for such employment.

There are two traditional paths to enlightenment, the left hand path and the right hand path. Dissolving attachments in the right hand path - take everything away, the aesthetic life. The left hand path is what satanists are. Those people who sacrifice children etc... the abhorrent things which are taboo in society but if you look at it from the perspective of the Absolute, are not abhorrent or even evil. Anyway the left path to enlightenment is to bask in the Self (Self as in ego) and live out all your dreams including the dreams of your shadow self (hence the abhorrent to-society behaviour) and apparently after you have done everything you could ever want to do including rape and murder and cannabilism, there is nothing left and you become enlightened. There's also some occult stuff involved where you invite demons in, I don't feel comfortable speculating on this as I have no experience of it other than watching people who claim to fuck with demons being wierd on Discord / Zoom during group meditations.

How do you know you are "enlightened"? I can't imagine a truly enlightened being saying such a statement if I am honest.