Osaid

Knowledge is the present moment. It is presently happening. It was not suggested that knowledge should be shunned away or anything, that is the proper function of thinking. However, the belief that you can think of yourself is a belief, not knowledge. It's not possible to experience that. This belief is what creates the separate self or appearance of duality that I was referring to.

Prioritize feeling. If a thought feels bad, let it go, just because it feels good to do so. Go back to what is real and fundamental. You can't "mess up" reality by thinking wrong or feeling wrong. There are no such rules here, you're unlimited. ❤️

It really comes down to the dualities (thoughts) you're entertaining. "Existence", "non-existence", yadda yadda. There isn't anything separate experiencing what those things are describing, so no one is at the affect of it.

"You" don't exist at all. That "separate piece" isn't there at all. To say it another way, you can't know what you are. If you knew something about yourself, that knowledge about yourself would limit you. It's by design, in order to be unlimited. In a sense... You're not supposed to know about non-existence, because something that exists can't know non-existence. You're not supposed to know about the future, because something that is always present can't know about something that isn't present. etc. etc. Knowledge is a subtle way of limiting and separating yourself.

There is no such feeling. Only thoughts about feeling, like "I am glued to the body". Go to a pitch black room and feel for the body. That boundary called "body" simply isn't there.

Duality vs non-duality has always been a common contention.

Done. Peace!

There is no evidence that anything is conscious, or ever was, or ever will be, because that is impossible. There's nothing in the cave!

It's not just about mechanically cleaning it. It is also entirely dependent on how you eat. Otherwise it doesn't matter how well you clean, the rate of buildup wont change. On cheat days, my plaque build up becomes like 20x faster than normal. In the morning there wont be any, and by the end of the day there will. I have no idea about acid reflux, but I do know that acidity dries the mouth, and dry mouth will speed up bacteria and build up.

Yeah something like that. Before enlightenment, it's like you're a sky which believes it is the cloud inside of it. After enlightenment you realize you're the sky and you encompass all the clouds, thus you aren't limited by the clouds, no matter what shape they appear as. Clouds are analagous to "thoughts", sky is analagous to "unity".

There is one thing, which is you, or existence, or life, or reality, which is what you always will be. There couldn't be something that is separate from life or reality, or it would not exist by definition. This means that all comparisons are ultimately false. All conceptions of higher or lower, up and down, etc. Thus all separation is assumed, never actually experienced. By inspecting the assumption, it can be dispelled. The most common way for separation to happen is through the concepts of time, specifically past and future. The false self constantly tries to define itself through past and future, even though it is never actually experienced. You cannot experience past, present, and future at the same time. It can only be one at a time. You can't experience the past from the past, and you can't experience the future from the future. You can only experience what is happening now. It is not correct or incorrect. What matters is your goal and what you believe the mind is doing. The mind is a tool. If you have a belief, you must traverse the mind by questioning the mind. This is self-inquiry. In order to realize Santa doesn't exist, you must ask questions about Santa. Who experiences Santa? Where is he? etc. You should explore every single concept in your mind until you are sure that there is nothing there for you to find. It is not true that your thinking is unlimited. There is a limit to thinking. In fact, all thinking is made up of limitations. Thinking is the mind's ability to divide. By seeing that you can only think in limits, it opens the possibility to see what is beyond those limits. If you clearly see why thoughts are unable to divide you, that is the moment of enlightenment. It is just your natural intelligence playing itself out. Your body listens in on everything you believe and think. Everything is connected without exception. That is why your heart starts racing when you think of something stressful. That is why you physically laugh when you think of something funny. If you assume you are a unicorn, you will act like a unicorn. If you assume you are a separate self, you will act like a separate self. The body serves your beliefs. It's a conduit for your beliefs. The "Real Self" is always here now, it never moves or goes anywhere else. The body moves but you don't, unless you assume that you are a body, which is not the Real Self. Ramana Maharshi had a relevant quote: "You are where you have always been. It is your body that moved till it reached this ashram." The seeking happens because you think there is something valuable in thoughts which can define you. If I tell you there is treasure in a cave, you will seek the cave. If I tell you there is treasure in thoughts, you will seek thoughts. Enlightenment is realizing that there is nothing valuable in thoughts because thoughts can never define you; the entire assumption which drives the search is false. When the assumption is realized to be false, that is enlightenment. There is a fundamental misunderstanding with how knowledge works. You think that you can define yourself through knowledge gained over past and future, but this is false. Realizing why it is false is enlightenment. As long as you believe it is true, there will be an imperative to search for knowledge in thoughts. There is no other option than to be. There are simply assumptions and beliefs which you have built which must be questioned and torn down. Envision this for a moment. Throw away all knowledge about what you are, about humans, about reality. See how freeing and limitless it feels. That is what you are trying to realize. It is an absence of beliefs and limitations and knowledge, it isn't something gained. And that absence feels amazing, because in that absence you are not limited or defined by anything anymore. It is pure potentiality. It is fine. You must explore the cave first to realize there is no treasure. Similarly, you must explore the mind to realize there is nothing there.

Important to note that enlightenment isn't an understanding that you gain, it is an undoing of a false understanding. It's the removal of a belief. That belief is the separate self. This is the same belief that drives anxiety and all other psychological suffering. It's not a motto you adopt like "yeah I just gotta push through my anxiety", it's realizing that the belief in "I" which drives anxiety isn't actually there in the first place, you just assumed it was. It's not gaining understanding forever, it's realizing that what you're trying to understand doesn't actually exist. There can be understanding of things afterwards but it's not spent on non-existent dualities. Obviously there is no shortage of profound and beautiful experiences afterwards, such is the nature of unity.

The tool you are using to define yourself is incorrect because it divides you into two. Mind can only divide. When you realize exactly why it is useless to try and define yourself, that is enlightenment. The core belief of duality is that the mind can define what you are, when in actuality there isn't a "you" separate from mind which can be defined. In actuality, it is all one undivided perception. There isn't something separate from that perception which could be somewhere or lack knowledge about itself. You will never find a version of yourself in the future which understands yourself better, because that itself is the misunderstanding. The future is a mental reflection of yourself, and so is the past, but there is no one in the present who experiences either. There is absolutely no function or need for you to acquire more knowledge about yourself because the knowledge you have now is all you will ever have. You don't have to travel back in time in order to gather memories of yourself, because those memories appear now. You don't have to travel into the future to gain knowledge about yourself because you never experience the future by definition, only what you experience now. When it is completely realized that all knowledge about "yourself" is false because there is nothing present which is separate from that knowledge, that is enlightenment. There isn't anyone who acquires knowledge over time, or will acquire knowledge in the future, there is ONLY the knowledge you are perceiving now which contains all ideas about past and future. Knowledge is its own self-contained perception. In the exact same way that you don't need something separate from hearing to hear, or something separate from seeing to see. No one "has" knowledge. No one "has" seeing. No one "has" hearing. Everything is a self-contained perception which perfectly regulates itself. You are ALWAYS experiencing exactly what you are no matter what you think or believe about yourself. How can something that is only itself ever lack itself? It is self-knowledge which says "maybe I don't know what I am", but that "I" is never found in experience, it is an assumption. The error is that you can't know something which does not exist. Duality does not exist.

Wise!

It's very simple in hindsight, isn't it? It is actually a common trap in self-inquiry. The goal of self-inquiry is to examine direct experience. But mind says "I will be enlightened and more conscious in the future after I do this and that" which actually points to something which isn't directly experienced, AKA the future. The mind constantly churns beliefs about yourself which aren't actually experienced. Mind overcomplicates everything, don't fall into it!

Right, but whether you do or don't contemplate, you never experience Santa.

Not speculation. Two experiences is a belief. "5-MeO makes me more conscious" perpetuates that exact belief. 5-MeO might temporarily remove the belief, which in turn creates beliefs about the experience like "it made me more conscious", which is just the perpetuation of the same belief. When someone who does a bunch of psychedelics comes up to Ralston and tells him that, he can see that the belief is still operating just from that statement. You don't need a psychedelic experience to undo the belief precisely because the belief isn't true in the first place. It's not something he can only claim after having hundreds of psychedelic experiences because it is absolutely true, which means the belief can be falsified from anywhere, with or without psychedelics. That is what it means for something to be absolutely true. It requires no relative parameters. You don't need psychedelics to realize that Santa doesn't exist precisely because Santa does not exist. The only reason you would need something to realize a truth is precisely because the truth does not exist right now. That is why you need it. That is why you need psychedelics. That is why you need higher states of consciousness.

The reason why enlightenment doesn't directly relate itself to anything relative like genetics, luck, etc, is simply because the non-enlightened state is a belief. This is also why people will say stuff like "you are already enlightened", because all that is happening is that you believe in something that isn't actually there. It's similar to if a kid came up to you and said "How do I get off of Santa's naughty list?" You obviously don't need to do anything from the perspective of someone who knows Santa doesn't exist, but in order to see this you have to undo the belief first. Because there is no problem in the first place, there is only an assumption that Santa exists which can be dispelled by looking at your experience of Santa. Analogously, you can imagine someone who believes that gravity does not exist. Even if they don't believe it, they are still anchored to Earth. Similarly, you can believe the separate self exists, but everything will evidently point towards the fact that it doesn't exist. There is simply a belief operating which isn't actually experienced. It doesn't matter your luck or genetics, you will always experience gravity. Similarly, being enlightened is literally just the default state where you aren't believing or assuming that there are multiple experiences of yourself.

Yes. There is no such thing as being aware of something that is aware. It's a recursion. This is why the "self" is truly a simple belief or assumption. Just like believing in Santa. You never experienced it. You only assumed it through thought. And this belief is what drives all perception of duality. A separate entity must live in a world of separation, or it can't be believed to exist. These are standard observations. I recommend logically going through all the senses. See if you can see the seer. See if you can hear the hearer. See if you can touch the toucher. See if you can smell the smeller. See if you can think the thinker. Why does the confusion arise in thought? It is also very helpful to examine your perception of time. The self exists through assuming the past and future. If thinking is always perceived now, then who experiences what you know about the past and future?

Yes. It's the separate entity which claims perception. "I saw that" >>> Who saw it? Who is separate from seeing that can see things? "I am thinking" >>> Who is thinking? Who is separate from thoughts that is thinking? When you look at your other senses, it is obvious that there is no separation. We only become confused with our ability to think. This is what must be examined. For example, you can't see the one who is seeing, since that would be more seeing. There is no separate entity needed to see. But the belief in the separate self is that there is someone separate from thinking who is thinking, and that this separate entity is also experiencing all the other perceptions.

Both are good. Any effort to observe self-referential thoughts I would place in the realm of "self-inquiry." Ramana's is a more meditative approach, in the sense that you simply hold a thought or question without any further expectation. He also advises to ask "to whom is this thought occurring?" whenever a thought occurs, in order to return back to the current sense of awareness which he defines as the sense of "I". This question severs the subject-object relation to the thought by making you realize that you are presently watching the thought and that you aren't in the thought. If you ask the question you must say "me", which brings you to the singular watcher in the present moment which he calls the sense of "I".

For me personally, it's hard to forget being attacked by a ghoul hahahaha I barely think of it now, and there isn't a need for drama, but definitely a memorable and cool experience IMO.

It can definitely aid. And I think it could be possible. But it is tricky to define what causes it in the way that you are trying to do. The way I see it mostly happen is after some sort of inquiry or questioning. Perhaps meditation helps you get closer to that. I had a spontaneous desire to just meditate for a few days because I became fascinated with watching my thoughts. I went back to normal self-inquiry afterwards though. Self-inquiry in tandem is what really does it IMO. Meditation can create a natural disillusionment. Because if you do it long enough, it's like "woah I haven't had anxiety for like an hour now, what's going on, maybe my thoughts are actually illusory!"

I'm guessing you didn't have the privilege of seeing shadow people or having voices enter your head? hahaha