r0ckyreed

Of course. You are never going to completely excel at something you don’t enjoy. There will always be resistance and obstacles there. But meditation isn’t about excelling at anything really. It is about connecting with Absolute Truth and Beauty/Perfection and basking in your true nature.

The way you are meditating seems like suffering. Forget about the stages for right now. Meditation is about being aware of this moment and falling in love with the beauty of the now. It sounds like you are making meditation really mechanical when it is really as simple as noticing the beauty all around you and connecting to that. You are not going to progress to higher stages until you can really enjoy your “practice.” You backslide because the way you are doing it is mechanical and not enjoyable I am assuming. Look up Leo’s video on Satisfaction Meditation. Also, do TMI technique to quiet the mind, but don’t forget to not overlook the beauty all around you and for making this time for yourself! My technique is called Absolute Beauty Meditation. It is similar to Satisfaction Meditation except it adds the recognition of beauty all around you and bask in the beauty for as long as you can. Close your eyes, quiet your mind. Then open them like you are seeing the world for the first time. Then, stay with that feeling of beauty and newness for as long as you can. Then, after your “practice,” carry that with you throughout the rest of your life!

Really amazing question! For me, it would be to be set up with a career that I love. Everything else, I already have and feel complete. I already got the girl, I just now have to slay the dragon. I did it backwards but oh well! ?

For any follower of Buddhism or of any thought system, this is going to piss you off, but it is what you need to read, think about, and deeply consider. If you push any Buddhist in a corner and ask them "What is Buddhism, and what is the goal of Buddhism?" They will say something along the lines of "Nirvana. To alleviate suffering, to find a solution to it, and help the world overcome suffering." Notice that the goal of Buddhism isn't Truth. It is to alleviate suffering. Notice that there is an assumption that Truth = Suffering (or the overcoming of suffering). But what if suffering and the overcoming of it is part of the distraction to keep one away from pursuing Truth? Ever consider why The Buddha was so focused on suffering but yet silent on God? By definition, The Buddha was not concerned about God (or Truth) but about suffering. You can see how this is an issue. How can you understand suffering and overcome it without opening yourself up to God? Suffering is a distraction from Truth. You can spend your whole life trying to alleviate the suffering of yourself and of others but what is the cost of that? What would happen if you prioritized Truth instead of alleviating suffering? Another thing is to doubt whether Buddha even existed or not. Notice that all of your ideas about The Buddha and Buddhism are just your ideas and not your actual perceptions. Start to question the motive of Buddhism. If Buddhism is in alignment with the Truth, then you should have no problem questioning it and deconstructing it. Rule of mind: Whenever you are defensive or afraid of questioning anything, that is a sign that you are trapped in a belief and belief is ultimate not Truth. Beliefs are very helpful for your survival and for overcoming suffering, but don't think that your beliefs have anything to do with reality as it is. Think for yourself. Don't lock your mind inside of the bubble and worldview of anything. Unlock your mind from all worldviews, programming, beliefs, and ideas that aren't yours. EDIT: I forgot another important reason why you should be really skeptical of Buddhism. Buddhism demonizes thought. If they had it their way, you would be a mindless (or thoughtless) meditator. Meditation is good for alleviation of suffering and achieving peace of mind. But if you want Truth, you have to consider that peace and truth may not be the same. If you want Truth, you have to start questioning the costs of meditating all day and what you are getting yourself into. Meditation can be easily used by cults as a form of brainwashing to program followers to not think for themselves. It is easy for Buddhism to be turned into a cult because it already discourages thinking and demonizes "thinking as dangerous." Hahahaha! They only say that because if you deliberately thought and deeply questioned anything, it would ultimately collapse and you wouldn't need Buddhism or any mental prison anymore. No worldview, ideology, or mental prison can survive contemplation. Why are you so attached to Buddhism? Examine your feelings of my critiques of Buddhism. If you care about truth, then why are you so defensive? Do you care more about being right or truth? Namaste??

But… the planet earth is imaginary!! ???? The only one who can awaken is me!! ???? If plant earth exists, then that must mean external world exists outside the human mind. The external world is held within universal mind.

All schools of thought are criticized. Buddhism is picked out specifically because it is so prevalent in spiritual circles and is the hardest religion to deconstruct that I know of. The myth of Buddhism is up there with the myth of science. If science is a myth, what do you think Buddhism is? You haven’t transcended religion until you have firstly deconstructed Buddhism.

This is such a joke and troll. Your notion of intelligence is finite and petty. Intelligence is way beyond grammar. Hyper intelligence is realizing grammar is imaginary and not giving a f*ck.

Lucasfilm is a trademark of The Force! The Force is not an original idea from George Lucas. He doesn't own The Force, it owns him. Look at Aztec Philosophy, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. The Force is the most effective pointer because when you think of The Force, it is Infinite, Supreme Balance and Balance is nothing other than Absolute Perfection, and that is what Leo seems to suggest by calling It God.

There is no end point but God-Becoming. The highest thing a human can do is not only realizing you are The Force, but actually becoming Force-Like or God-Like. Only a few humans have ever achieved that and they are all dead.

The Force or Tao seems like a better name than God. God has too many images and baggage associated with it, whereas The Force is already naturally mysterious and abstract. God is portrayed as a personal, powerful king. The Force is portrayed as impersonal, mystical energy within all things. The Force is a better pointer to Infinity. The Force is Infinity.

You have never encountered anything and no world but your own mind. Everything you see, hear, taste, touch, smell, feel and think is what the world has always been. What you call “the world” has been nothing but consciousness. When you close your eyes, your mind still constructs a world that is not seen. Distance is still being constructed, hearing, other minds, feeling/pain, language, etc. are all still being constructed by your mind when you close your eyes. In fact, all you are doing when you close your eyes is you are making the world black. When you open your eyes, your mind creates color, visual distance, shapes, visual objects, etc.

I am not sure how taking responsibility for my own authority and direct experience is self-deception. I see putting faith in a teacher to deliver you truth rather than you seeking it yourself to be the deception. Kill the Buddha. Be careful conflating Absolute with relative. That realization that there is no you to give away responsibility comes after you have taken responsibility first. The authority I am talking about is direct experience. When I say take responsibility for yourself, I mean to operate from first-hand direct experience, not secondary experiences like thoughts, beliefs, teachings, teachers, others, etc. It is essential to deconstruct the ego, which includes all thoughts, beliefs, teachings, others, etc. Your first-hand direct experience is more so in alignment with what is actually true than anything teaching. All that other stuff is fog on the mirror. To play your game, you might have heard of the story of the Buddha just sitting with a Lotus Flower as his teaching. That is what I mean except you actually have to do that yourself and throw away all the ideas of a Buddha.

Neither. False dichotomy. Your direct experience is the only thing you can trust because it is Absolute Truth. All professors, gurus, and spiritual teachers are yourself, but they secondary sources because your mind has to construct them first in order for them to exist. Your dream characters including your spiritual gurus cannot be ultimately trusted nor can they ever awaken you or give you awakening. It is only when you take complete ownership and responsibility when you have any chance to awaken. As long as you put off your responsibility to others (distinctions your mind is constructing), you have no chance to awaken nor live authentically. There is nothing wrong with learning from your dream characters if you wish to keep dreaming within the dream. If you want to awaken, eventually you need to think for yourself, walk your own path, and deconstruct everything "human," which includes all spiritual lessons. You are imagining your guru's awakening. How they awakened may not be the same for you or anyone else. Edit: It seems like your chain of reasoning is about providing justifications for why you should give away your intellectual and spiritual authorities away to your professors and gurus.

How do you know? If I am blind, how can I know that others can actually see and aren’t just faking it from what they have heard from people who “appear” to see? All ideas of enlightenment are unenlightenment. Edit: What has really helped me cut through a lot of BS is adopting the mindset of a Pyrrhonian. Of course, you will want to transcend Pyrrhonism as well because that defeats the whole point of it lol. Pyrrhonism is nonattachment from all beliefs and ideas, suspending judgment completely. When you do this correctly, you can experience ataraxia, which is complete intellectual freedom. So much anxiety comes from clinging to ideas (that aren’t always ours).

You have to contemplate what it really means for something to exist.

If you ignore Solipsism, you ignore Truth. But yeah there is no point in seeking Truth, Solipsism, or even living a good life. You can take the red pill or blue pill. It doesn’t matter. The fact of solipsism still remains that you can only be certain that you/consciousness exist. Everything else is a belief. Even simulation theory and aliens are a belief. You can only know that, whether or not it is true or false, appearances are happening now.

If I am not awake now, then I am not awake. All of my previous and future awakening experiences are as imaginary as yesterday and tomorrow. I know that if I say or proclaim I am awake, then my ego will adopt that identity so that I never fully deconstruct ego and access God. That’s how powerful and tricky the ego deception is! To claim I am awake is to put me further back to sleep. Too many of you fall into this trap. When you awaken, the last thing you should do is try to “share” it with “others.” First learn to fully dissect it and integrate it so that you are aware of God now. After you are able to live from an imperturbable state of God, then you are at a place where “sharing” just happens naturally. You also have to wonder, if I have awakened, what are some tricks my ego will use to pull me back asleep? “Oh yeah! Sharing and posting about it! Ok I get it now! Why do I want validation and verification for my awakening? Oh you sneaky ego!” I also know that there are many states of consciousness that I still have yet to explore. Deeper awakenings to be had. The ones I have had were mere glimpses, but I am conscious right now that those glimpses never happened beyond my constructing of them right now. I really don’t even know what it even means to “be awake” anymore these days. Being awake to me means being aligned with what is most truthful of my experience right now. If I claim to be awake, that will do nothing for me but stunt my growth.

Then you really didn’t awaken. When you awaken, there should be no doubt whatsoever. That’s correct. Your ideas of Absolute Solipsism are ultimately false. Solipsism is beyond how your mind could ever try to define it as. Other is a duality and construction of your own mind. You imagine parents in the same way you imagine others. When you really contemplate what other is, you are left with nothing but your own mind because other is constructed by the mind. Other is as real as Santa Clause, yesterday, your mom, and your imaginary friend. Without your mind constructing it, it would no longer exist. You are Me! Edit: If the external world doesn’t even exist beyond your mind, what does that tell you about the nature of other?

This cannot be answered through words. But I will try lol. Mind = Direct experience. Everything I experience is a mind. I am asking what a mind is with my own mind. I cannot grasp the mind because I am the mind. Just observe and bask in the mystery of being. Self = identity based off of the illusion of separation. It is the mind tricking itself into thinking it is behind the eyes look out at a world. The mind isn’t behind my eyes. The mind is what I call the world. Nature of Substance = Cannot be answered through language only experience. Another = Myself. I create other in the same way I create a self. Life = In short, direct experience. I am inside of a living mind. Everything is alive. Socially, life is a moving thing that we believe has consciousness of its own. But all there ever is, is Myself and Myconsciousness. I am Life itself!

That is a misunderstanding of Solipsism. Solipsism with the recognition of Beauty, Intelligence, and Love is what is meant by Awakening or Absolute Solipsism. Again, there are no others conspiring against me. I am conspiring against myself to create myself and reality. Why do I trick and delude myself? Life is a dream or self-deception because I have to be asleep/tricked/deceived in order to dream or create reality. If I am not becoming more selfless and aware of Beauty, Truth, and Love, then I don’t understand Solipsism. There are enormous benefits when I am aligned with Truth and not self-deception. A good life is aligned with Truth. The benefits I have attained from Truth is emotion, intellectual, and spiritual freedom. Nothing matters so why ever be depressed or bothered by anything? There is so much freedom in realizing that nothing matters and that everyone is you and everything is love.

What is the ultimate fear, the mother of all fears? I used to think that the ultimate fear was the fear of death. But now that I look at it, I think the ultimate fear is the fear of loss, fear of eternity, and fear of not-knowing. Why fear any pain if it is temporary? Why fear death if you knew what death is? What you ultimately fear is loss, the unknown, and experiencing those simultaneously for eternity. There is much deeper to fear than death. Fear of death boils down to the fear of loss, eternity, and not-knowing. All fear is based on the illusion of ego - a separate self. Fear isn’t bad or good, it is part of survival. Without the impulse of fear and without the energy of love, you cannot accomplish greatness. Why do you fear death? You are afraid of losing your attachments, the ultimate being yourself. Now, think for yourself. Throw away all Buddhist and Actualized.org Bullshit and answer: What is the ultimate fear? What is the root of all fear?

No problem. But before you say something is not true, think it through. If God’s nature is selflessness, then fear/anger is going to put you in ego or selfishness. But God is so selfless and whole that it allows for selfishness.

Experience includes all that you see, hear, feel, smell, taste, and think. Experience is absolute. Your emotions are God's emotions. I could say the same thing about awakening, cessations, psychedelic trips, meditation, etc. All of it comes and goes just like emotions. Emotions are linked to states of consciousness. Certain emotions like peace correlate with unity, oneness, and awakening. Regardless of whether you think emotions are relative or absolute, they do correlate with your level of consciousness nonetheless. Edit: It is not like you are less you when experiencing an emotion, it is just that some emotional states can help or hinder you in seeing who/what you are. Peace/Love is connected to God, and anger/fear is cut off from God.

I would question that assumption. Emotions is a state of consciousness and has everything to do with awakening. Some emotions will hinder you from awakening. Don't underestimate the importance of emotions. True. No other mind can ever verify my enlightenment because fundamentally, I am the only mind and they are me.

There is no technique per se. Meditation isn’t a technique, it is a lifestyle like contemplation. Just sit down, be present, do nothing, watch, and be satisfied with just this right now. Very simple. Or is it? Another thing you can do is sit down, observe direct experience, and realize that I am the only mind that exists. Repeat the mantra "I am the only mind that exists." Sit in that solipsism and bask in it until you awaken.