VeganAwake

Rupert Spira thinks that the meaning of life is to find happiness...he is a smart man!! For me personally existence = meaning = being...

Those are good ones...yeah definitely no limits to the potential. Thanks for sharing ❤

I guess I would say my meaning to existence is existence itself as in you can't lose or win so it's just neutral. Zero for me, being and isness is enough. It's just nothing and everything.

@Beginner Mind also along with staying present remember to accept your current situation... a lot of pain and suffering comes from resisting the present moment like Eckhart Tolle talks about. For example if you don't currently feel happy just accept it, don't resist it. In a sense this brings true happiness. There can't be good without the bad there can't be light without the dark there can't be up without the down and so on.

@Thewritersunion are they yin and yang lol I crack myself up. Life is good!! No seriously what are your 2?

We definitely need to balance things out there could be a way where we can let the animals live out their whole life help us fertilize the plants and not keep breeding animals just to use them as food. They should be able to walk on a path eating lots of tasty plants along the way shiting and fertilizing the soil somehow getting a chance to mate naturally things like that. Maybe the future really is that lab meat.

@King Merk This is an amazing video that does a great job describing some of what you have been asking. Yes you're right it's a falling away process not a gaining of knowledge... I like the way Osho explained it: The further the distance is from your current self to your future self is more space for the ego to grow. Great inquiries ❤ ❤

Jesus says: Unless you are born again you shall not enter into my kingdom of God. A kind of rebirth is needed. The ordinary birth is the birth of the bodymind mechanism, but your spirit is only a potential - it has to be actualized. Abraham Maslow has called this process self-actualization. Gautam Buddha would call the same process "no-self actualization." Abraham Maslow has no idea of the ultimate; he is thinking about it, speculating about it. He has stumbled upon a certain truth, but he does not know how to express it. He has not experienced it himself; it is only an intellectual understanding, hence he calls it "self-actualization." But in that ultimate flowering the first thing that disappears is the self. In fact, the self is the only barrier for that flowering. The self is the hindrance, not the help. The self surrounds you like a wall; it is not the bridge. When you are really born, born to life or to God - to me both are synonymous - you are no more, no more as you understand yourself to be. A pure emptiness prevails, an utter void prevails, a silence which is soundless. A music is there certainly, but without any sound. The Zen people call it the sound of one hand clapping. That no-self is your original face. When you are not, you are, and you are for the first time. If Abraham Maslow had experienced the ultimate state of flowering he would never have called it self-actualization; he would have called it "no-self actualization." You are born as a self, as an ego. This is the seed and the seed has to disappear before the sprout can start growing. The seed has to die in the soil; then and only then the life that is hidden inside the seed will start manifesting itself.

They can already grow meat in labs and I'm sure soon they'll make it with higher protein and less saturated fat with lots of extra amino acids for healthier consumption. Sounds kind of weird but that will probably be the future of meat consumption or it will just go to mostly plants like the impossible burger or something like that.

It's meaningful in its meaninglessness enough said hahaha.... we're all saying the same thing I think?

@King Merk you have experienced truth my friend don't doubt yourself remember the ego always wants more more more. The further the space from your current self to your future self is more space for the ego to grow. Let things unfold on their own they will. If you've had the Deep realization you described it will happen regardless. Good luck my friend!!

For me I feel like the whole eating meat process(the way most people do) is unnatural. They breed these animals take them away from their mothers almost immediately and then fatten them up as fast as possible to turn a profit. I honestly feel like I love animals too much to eat them when there's other options. This is a very tough topic to describe for myself I feel like it almost goes beyond my understanding.

A lot of talk on here about right or wrong doings and self-improvement you are already perfect there are no right or wrong paths or anything that needs to happen, but if you choose to change something about yourself that is fine also, the important part is that you understand you are already perfect, action and non-action are the same. There is only the Dao this is what's understood. There are three options when it comes to controling the present moment... the option to resist the option to accept or the option to attempt to change the current situation. These are the controls we have. Don't forget it's just a game!!

we are free we are free it was your own mind holding the jail cell key we can still play the Divine game of Lila and it's fun and it's good enough for we...

It's a realization that you are completely free and it's who you've always been we are free we are free ..it is your mind holding the jail cell key if they lock me up I will Enlighten everyone or not and that will be good enough for me do you see can u see? Are you willing to let go and see what's already there?

This video can include how the spiritual ego will sneak in the back door during your spiritual Quest and take back over without you even knowing. Having to be right arguing bickering more knowledge more secrets of success more more more the spiritual ego says seek but do not find.

This just reminded me of the Michael Douglas movie The Game. Games within games the realization of existence: lol sounds funny. The best game in town right? What else does there need to be?

@Mu_ thank you great video yes I had this realization about a year ago. I like to describe it as the sun is always Shining behind the clouds and the clouds are actually not real. ❤ ❤ Have a great day!!

I got you, yeah there are no prerequisites to Enlightenment work, no should or should nots. It's the pathless path to the gateless gate where nobody discovers their everybody.(my experience) My thought process or belief system differs a bit, as in I don't believe in belief systems. For example: I don't believe anything has to be done a certain way, but if in the moment I feel like perfecting something I will, but if I don't I don't. I don't hold myself to a standard. Now if it's for my job and I don't want to get fired yes there are standards one has to follow but I don't buy into their standards as a way one should live their life. I don't believe in right or wrong ways to live life and ultimately from what I can tell "nothing really matters". But that's just my opinion haha. Awesome and interesting conversation thank you!! I'm going to read about the Buddhist right action you talked about.

From Osho: Only a nonachieving mind can be at peace. But a nonachieving mind is possible only with the background of a cosmic purposelessness. If the whole existence is purposeless then there is no need for you to be purposeful. Then you can play, you can sing and dance, you can enjoy, you can love and live, and there is no need to create any goal. Here and now, this very moment, the ultimate is present. If you are available the ultimate can enter you. But you are not available here; your mind is somewhere in the future, in some goal. Life has got no purpose and this is the beauty of it. If there was some purpose life would have been mean — just futile. It is not a business, it is a play. In India we have been calling it leela. Leela means a cosmic play… as if God is playing. Energy overflowing, not for some purpose, just enjoying itself; just a small child playing — for what purpose? Running after butterflies, collecting colored stones on the beach, dancing under the sun, running under the trees, collecting flowers — for what purpose? Ask a child. He will look at you as if you are a fool. There is no need for purpose. Your mind has been corrupted. Universities, colleges, education, society, have corrupted you. They have made it a conditioning deep down within you that unless something has a purpose it is useless — so everything must have a purpose. A child playing has no purpose. At the most, if the child could explain he would say, “Because I feel good. Running, I feel more alive. Collecting flowers, I enjoy, it is ecstatic.” But there is no purpose. The very act in itself is beautiful, ecstatic. To be alive is enough, there is no need for any purpose. Why ask for anything else? Can’t you be satisfied just by being alive? It is such a phenomenon. Just think of yourself being a stone. You could have been, because many are still stones. You must have been somewhere in the past, sometime, a stone. Think of yourself being a tree. You must have been somewhere a tree, a bird, an animal, an insect. And then think of yourself being a man — conscious, alert, the peak, the climax of all possibilities. And you are not content with it. You need a purpose, otherwise life is useless. Your mind has been corrupted by economists, mathematicians, theologians. They have corrupted your mind, because they all talk about purpose. They say, “Do something if something is achieved through it. Don’t do anything which leads nowhere.” But I tell you that the more you can enjoy things which are useless, the happier you will be. The more you can enjoy things which are purposeless, the more innocent and blissful you will be. When you don’t need any purpose you simply celebrate your being. You feel gratitude just that you are, just that you breathe. It is such a blessing that you can breathe, that you are alert, conscious, alive, aflame. Is it not enough? Do you need something to achieve so that you can feel good, so that you can feel valued, so that you can feel life is justified? What more can you achieve than what you are? What more can be added to your life? What more can you add to it? Nothing can be added, and the effort will destroy you — the effort to add something. But for many centuries all over the world they have been teaching every child to be purposive. “Don’t waste your time! Don’t waste your life!” And what do they mean? They mean, “Transform your life into a bank balance. When you die you must die rich. That is the purpose.” Here in the East — particularly the mystics we are talking about, the Upanishads — they say, “Live richly.” In the West they say, “Die a rich man.” And these are totally different things. If you want to live richly you have to live here and now, not a single moment is to be lost. If you want to achieve something, you will die a rich man — but you will live a poor man, your life will be poor. Look at rich people: their life is absolutely poor, because they are wasting it transforming it into bank balances, changing their life into money, into big houses, big cars. Their whole effort is that life has to be changed for some things. When they die you can count their things. Buddha became a beggar. He was born a king, he became a beggar. Why? Just to live richly… because he came to understand that there are two ways to live: one is to die richly, the other is to live richly. And any man who has any understanding will choose to live richly, because dying a rich man doesn’t mean anything; you simply wasted yourself for nothing. But this is possible only if you can conceive that the whole existence is purposeless; it is a cosmic play, a continuous beautiful game, a beautiful hide-and-seek — not leading anywhere. Nowhere is the goal. If this is the background, then you need not be worried about individual purposes, evolution, progress. This word progress is the basic disease of the modern age. What is the need? All that can be enjoyed is available, all that you need to be happy is here and now. But you create conditions and you say that unless these conditions are fulfilled you cannot be happy. You say, “These conditions must be fulfilled first: this type of house, this type of clothes, this type of car, this type of wife, this type of husband. All these conditions have to be fulfilled first, then I can be happy.” As if by being happy you are going to oblige the whole universe. And who is going to fulfill your conditions? Who is worried? But you will try for those conditions, and the effort is going to be so long that they can never be fulfilled really, because whenever something is fulfilled, by the time it is fulfilled the goal has shifted. A meditator needs a nonachieving mind, but a nonachieving mind is possible only if you can be content with purposelessness. Just try to understand the whole cosmic play and be a part in it. Don’t be serious, because a play can never be serious. And even if the play needs you to be serious, be playfully serious, don’t be really serious. Then this very moment becomes rich. Then this very moment you can move into the ultimate. The ultimate is not in the future, it is the present, hidden here and now. So don’t ask about purpose — there is none, and I say it is beautiful that there is none. If there was purpose then your God would be just a managing director or a big business man, an industrialist, or something like that. Jesus says…. Somebody asked him, “Who will be able to enter into the kingdom of your God?” Jesus said, “Those who are like small children.” This is the secret. What is the meaning of being a small child? The meaning is that the child is never businesslike, he is always playful. If you can become playful you have become a child again, and only children can enter into the kingdom of God, nobody else, because children can play without asking where it is leading. They can make houses of sand without asking whether they are going to be permanent. Can somebody live in them? Will they be able to resist the wind that is blowing? They know that within minutes they will disappear. But they are very serious when they are playing. They can even fight for their sandhouses or houses of cards. They are very serious when they are creating. They are enjoying. And they are not fools, they know that these houses are just cardhouses and everything is makebelieve. Why waste time in thinking in terms of business? Why not live more and more playfully, nonseriously, ecstatically? Ecstasy is not something which you can achieve by some efforts, ecstasy is a way of living. Moment to moment you have to be ecstatic, simple things have to be enjoyed. And life gives millions of opportunities to enjoy. You will miss them if you are purposive. If you are not purposive, every moment you will have so many opportunities to be ecstatic. A flower, a lonely flower in the garden… you can dance if you are nonpurposive. The first star in the evening… you can sing if you are nonpurposive. A beautiful face… you can see the divine in it if you are nonpurposive. All around the divine is happening, the ultimate is showering. But you will be able to see it only if you are non-purposive and playful. – OSHO

Haha me to... nice to meet you!!

@Matt8800 you have some great information my friend!! I don't think Osho is really describing a path to enlightenment. It's more of a recipe to live a happy non achieving non grasping non-attachment way of life. You just live free and spontaneous. It's a you can take it or leave it mindset. I believe his Buddha story was just an example of how you don't have to physically be rich to live richly. I looked up the definition of asceticism: Severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons. This was not osho's work nor my own. I love what you said here: Whatever one does, they should do it all the way. Nice !! ❤

@ivory wow that makes complete sense I totally agree. You are a great person to have around especially on a forum like this ❤ I love how Osho describes living spontaneously like a child, living in the moment and doing what makes you happy without needing any Rhyme or Reason. My friend described a great example of this: he saw a child hitting a metal bar on a tree and listening to the funny sound it made and laughing. Being free to do what makes you happy. Yes purging yourself of the conditioning is wise indeed. This is my work also, I would describe it as becoming nobody so you are free to be anybody or shedding the layers of the false self to realize what you truly are. No person can enter the gateless gate so be nobody. Here is a video that describes this path so well I stumbled onto it after my own Awakening....thank you!!! ❤

@ivory Well of course I know Osho didn't say that because I read it thoroughly before I posted it. Why would anyone do nothing until they die, is that what nihilist do? Yes we are free to play and enjoy life. I guess if I had to place value on life it would be equal across the board, as in nothing would be higher than the other. Do you think children know what they value when they enjoy life? These are really interesting thoughts thank you.

Thanks, I understand what you mean. Nobody has to adhere to any values though. Like there are no real responsibilities. Those are just beliefs. Meaning, purpose and value of life = The meaning, purpose and value someone places on it. I dont believe our existence requires meaning purpose or value, existence is enough. It is so very beautiful ❤ ❤