Osaid

You are pointing out how an enlightened person "is a certain way" and comes in "different shapes and sizes", or at least you imagine that as a reference, which points out their "uniqueness". You seem to view this uniqueness as "self." It is the domain of life, which is lived out afterwards, yes. It means I know what I am, or what "I" is. It means I know exactly what my experience is. This should not be mistaken for knowledge, because knowledge is not inherent to experience. That is why you can seemingly lack knowledge and still exist. The "shift" with enlightenment is meta to knowledge, it informs what constitutes knowledge in the first place. It is seeing what knowledge is made up of, so to speak. You don't gain or lose knowledge in the process. You also cannot figure out what knowledge is with more knowledge, which is what happens in philosophy, because that is the old analogy of the hand trying to grasp itself. There are certain measurable differences but they are more like side-effects. For example, if you don't fear things as much, there will obviously be less cortisol produced in the body. I talk about some measurable symptoms here: Perhaps, but it actually becomes much easier. For example, when you aren't enlightened, you have to speculate and theorize about what emotions and mind are. When you are enlightened, all you have to do is look at your own experience and then try to explain it conceptually. Certain enlightened people will have a better conceptual grasp of what they are experiencing, because that is still in the domain of language and communication, which is not really inherent to enlightenment. An insight is an intellectual formulation derived from experience, it is not experiencing itself. This is why experiencing the same thing twice does not create the same insight again, it's because you already remember the insight in your intellect. So there are such differences that can occur. However, they have nothing to do with an actual difference in development in those areas, because you cannot develop having "no self" further, you either see that the self doesn't exist or you don't. And then, aside from that, anecdotally I also see that simply being able to see your perception clearly actually trickles into pretty much every other domain of life as a consequence. I would still have to learn how to make a pizza if I want to be a pizza chef, but perhaps my way of learning it would be enhanced. I think you only say this because you have some idea of "self" which is not actually what it is. Although if you wanna be funny about it and act like a wise mystical sage: "Yes, there is no one which transcends self, because the one who transcends it is the one that is transcended"

Something which does not exist cannot be changed. So in that way, yes. You don't gain or lose anything, you just recognize that nothing is there. Survival does not contradict no self. This is a very common conflation, but the idea that "no distinction" means you stop doing things is just not accurate. There is survival, and there is a recognition of survival, but there is no need for a self in the equation. There is uniqueness, which you seem to take as "self." The world is actually comprised of physical and biological "motivations" which have nothing to do with a self. For example, you do not need to imagine yourself to feel physical pain, because physical pain is not imagined. You do not need to imagine yourself to prefer the taste of vanilla over chocolate, because taste is not imagined. It is specifically the motivations which stem from imagining yourself, which are self. The rest are just existential and biological occurrences. You are doing something similar to looking at a tree or plant, and then saying "it has a self because it is trying to survive." You are anthropomorphizing it. The plant organism is simply operating in the world with its own unique intelligence, and that does not involve imagining or perceiving a self at all. I think part of what drives this conflation is the sense of control you think that you have. When you feel pain from touching a hot stove, you think that "you" moved your hand away, and so then you attribute that with a self. The part where you physically moved your hand away is not self, but the part where you think that you did that is self, because you are imagining ownership over the experience.

Thanks, figured.

Dunno if this is what you really think or what the context is, but this kind of logic is commonly used in an abusive relationship. "I did all of this for you, therefore you cannot complain." I am not saying the logic itself is inherently wrong or abusive, or that you are those things, but that it can be used for such things. The abusive relationship offers certain benefits which make you feel happy and comfortable, in return for being abused. Leaving the relationship often creates financial and environmental instability, which you can of course potentially recover from. This part especially highlights the dynamic: In certain situations, simple criticism will have actual objective consequences. For example, you criticize the cable company, causing them to change their policies and remove their services to you. In other cases it is just a vague moral stance which is self-imposed, like "I'm not allowed to complain because they did stuff for me in the past." In the former case, there is an obvious gray area, and so it is important to look at the pros and cons and then decide from there what you believe is the most intelligent thing to do. The latter case is essentially just emotional/psychological brainwashing, often imbued in the psyche by a narcissistic personality.

🎯🎯🎯

Plants and vegetables get expensive to produce and sell. Gonna have to stock up on lots of different plant stuff to feel satiated. If you're not satiated and properly nourished, you are also going to end up buying and eating more as a result. I imagine there could be a more efficient way to do it, but it will take some trial and error and research. Vegetarian is much more doable IMO, could easily live that way personally. On the other hand, meat is very very expensive for the type of nutrition you get from it. So I actually don't agree with the initial statement at all. I think it is badly worded, perhaps it is trying to say that being vegan is just more expensive than most diets in general.

Whatever makes you happy.

I didn't say it because I don't like you. I'm saying it because I care about you. You obviously enjoy making these topics, I don't mean to necessarily take that away from you, but it is worth questioning why it is enjoyable for you. What does it do for you?

Jokes aside, I really do think it is a serious issue, for you. Doesn't hurt to be real with yourself and others once in a while. Maybe there are benefits?

CEO of mental masturbation

Yes. No. Enlightenment is a permanent shift which prevents you from imagining yourself ever again. To clarify, your imaginative capacity stays the exact same, you just don't react to it as if it is yourself. You aren't prevented from imagining things, but it just makes absolutely no sense to do that in relation to yourself, so you don't engage in it anymore. It's like imagining a unicorn that you want to take care of, it doesn't make sense, so you just don't do it. Attachment is just a fear of losing things in the future. It is a specific type of fear based on an imaginary self. Consider that the reason Gautama showed up a certain way is because having no self and possessing something are not mutually exclusive. It is the fear spawned from possessing an object which is attachment, not the possession itself. If there is no self in the future to lose it, there is just the self which currently exists and has the possession. There can be a lot of self-inquiry and spiritual practices involved prior to it, but the actual event itself is very simple and it can occur in many different ways. It's like realizing you forgot your keys, it happens in an instant. It's not stoicism or just "fighting against your fears", it is clearly realizing that the entity which was fearing things does not exist, and then going on with your life. You just realize that there is nothing to transcend because the thing you were trying to transcend does not exist. It is not coming up with insight or logic about why you shouldn't fear something, it is seeing that there is literally nothing there to fear. All fears related to past and future experiences immediately vanish, because there is no imagined self to fear any of those things anymore. It's not a matter of willpower, it is a matter of just seeing what exists. There can be incremental improvements in how you handle fear, through certain insights and therapy. However, this is just more "belief-changing." It is still in the realm of beliefs. You're still just fighting beliefs with beliefs. Enlightenment is seeing through that entire structure as a whole by getting rid of the fundamental belief of "who you think you are."

All these ideas are ego. There is no one "taking themselves" to be a certain way. There is just knowledge about "who I am", which is just knowledge. When you realize you cannot turn yourself into knowledge, the ego goes away. Yes, because you believe that you can think about yourself. You have turned yourself into a concept, which is what self or ego is. This is conflation. Surviving is not the same as believing that you can die. Surviving is not death, therefore you can still engage in it. This also completely depends on what you personally desire. You can have some religious zealot who doesn't mind dying for their God or whatever, so this is not a good metric. You don't need death to be motivated to survive. The idea that having no self removes all your motivations is false. It just removes imagined fear relating to past or future. If you are being motivated by imagined fear, it will remove that.

Notice that there is ultimately only one decision, not two. Forget all your theorizing, you only ever experience one choice, which is the one that you pick. You don't make two decisions, you "pick." But what did you pick from? Your imagination? Do your choices vanish when you stop imagining? Contemplate!

You're trapped in a bubble? Speak for yourself.

The solipsism discussed on this forum is just shared psychosis. You can't experience it, you can only imagine it, because it is based on a duality of "you" and "other." Much better to contemplate how dualities and distinctions are perceived in the first place.

That is knowledge, not ego. Not all knowledge is ego. Ego is the belief in knowledge about yourself, to put it another way. "Self" is just what you think you are, and that is a form of knowledge. There are still psychological habits and beliefs unique to you which can be left over, but they really have nothing to do with a self. They are just habits and beliefs. You simply never encounter "yourself" in past or future ever again, but everything else stays the same. You live from exactly what is occurring right now. Yes, and I am saying there is no difference between your true nature and what you are currently experiencing.

Not fundamentally. Desires and emotions are fundamentally just what you want for yourself. All emotions are desires. If you are fearing something, it is because you simultaneously desire something. The fear is your reaction to the desire. Emotions only become problematic when you think you can imagine yourself, because now you are feeling fear in relation to something imaginary and limited which does not exist. This is also why fear seems synonymous with limitation, but that is only exclusive to imagined fear. There is no perceived limitation in fear which is experienced in relation to the present moment, because that type of fear does not occur in relation to an imaginary and limited self. Emotions are intelligent, they follow exactly what you desire. If you desire to perpetuate an imagined and limited version of yourself, your emotions will serve you in doing that. If you want to imagine yourself as limited, you are free to do that, but at the end of the day, it is not actually a limitation, it is just imagination. No, you have conflated forms with limitations. Something which is experienced cannot be limited. Your idea of "unlimited" is itself a limitation because you are trying to remove certain aspects of your current experience. I am saying that not a single part of your experience is limited, your perception of limitation is actually just made out of imagination, it is a perceptual illusion.

No, the self completely vanishes because it is seen as a non-existent entity. That is what enlightenment is. You can still care for family, just not your imagination of them and how it relates to you. It's just that simple. Attachment is just clinging to your imagination of things. Attachment is fear of losing things in the future, but this type of fear cannot exist without an imagined self. There are no degrees of attachment if you cannot imagine yourself, there is just "what can I do right now?" Because I am someone who likes to care about things. Nothing more to it.

Fearing something is not the same as perceiving death. Survival is not the same as death either. That is just life. I am not saying you don't have to survive, I am saying that you can't experience death, by definition. If you are still here, you are not dead.

No, it is not mine. I am not attached or identified with anything. It's just that your idea of what that looks like is inaccurate. I think you are mistaking "taking care of something" as ego or self-image. If I want to take care of my arm, that is not self-image. That is just something I want to do which does not involve a self, because my arm is not imaginary. Your arm is not a self, and it is not "mine", it does not need either of those things to exist and be cared for, because both of those are literally just made of imagination. Again, you do not need to imagine something that does not exist to survive. Your imagination still operates after enlightenment, that is why I can worry about my arm, however, the imagination does not waste energy imagining a separate self. Taking care of something is not attachment or identity, you don't need either of those to take care of something. If I started worrying about future or past events related to my arm, that would be self-image. Taking care of it in the present moment is not self-image though. Your idea of no-self is not actually no-self. Your idea of no-self is that you can't feel pain, or that you can't take care of things. This is not what "no-self" really is, and you can see this by looking at anyone else you consider enlightened, because they are all functional and do show care towards things.

You can't perceive yourself experiencing death or birth. If you were perceiving either of those, you could not exist. Yes it is, because you can't perceive it. You can only imagine it by thinking about the past or future. This is just a biased perspective that psychedelic users pick up because they cannot function while in their drug-induced states. You can be entirely functional. You do not need to imagine something which does not exist in order to function. The ego does not exist. Losing something which does not exist will not make you dysfunctional.

No such thing. Consciousness is not relative. Can't be "more."

You are conflating distinctions with sensations. This is a very common conflation. This is why you get people saying "if non-duality is true, why don't you eat dirt off the ground if it is all the same." What you call a limitation is not a limitation, it is just an actual sensation, which itself has no limit. The sensation of pain is not a limit. Only things you imagine are limited. Your idea of unlimited reality is that certain sensations are not allowed to exist. This itself is a limit you are imposing on to reality.

This is like saying "imagination creates imagination." It creates imagination. "Difference" is the experience of imagination. It is an intellectual inference which is not experienced outside of intellect. No, it's not operating anywhere, for anyone. You're just imagining that it is. I would feel pain, adrenaline, and worry. But none of those have to do with a self. Those are literally just sensations and intelligence operating. You don't need a self to do anything other than imagine something that doesn't exist, that is my point. The desire to fix or heal my arm is not a distinction or difference, it is just a desire. My desire cannot alter the metaphysics of my experience. It has nothing to do with a separate self. You don't need a separate self to feel pain, you don't need a separate self to feel adrenaline, and you don't need a separate self to worry about something. Not to mention, none of those things have anything to do with distinctions either. Pain is not a distinction. Adrenaline is not a distinction. Worrying is not a distinction either. You cannot locate a boundary or distinction for any of these, or any experience in general. The idea that the ability to feel pain is a distinction is a complete misinterpretation of how distinctions work. The perception of pain is not a distinction. The different qualia that you experience have no limitations, therefore they do not have distinctions. Again, it does not exist in any case, it's not there. When you act as if relativity actually exists, you are mistaking the map for the territory; the map that exists in your imagination. Your experience is not made up of distinctions, that is logically impossible because distinctions are always parts of the whole by definition. You never experience a part of something, only the whole thing. I'm not trying to be abstract, you can observe what I'm saying in your current experience. You have separated experience from consciousness and I am just trying to figure out why because I don't see a difference.

Is it a limitation to desire something? Is it incomplete to desire things? Do you always have to desire something out of fear? Does desire always have to be tangled with fear? You're not entirely wrong, fear seems to be accompanied by limits, but it is actually not mutually inclusive. This is only the case with psychological fear or imagined fear. When it comes to fearing physical things, like a bear, you do not have to imagine any limitations to do that because the bear is not imaginary. When it comes to psychological fear, you do have to imagine limitations.