Osaid

Yes, my imagination is actually much more rich and fantastical now because I don't constrain it with my identity. I don't assume things about it and how it relates to me. I just don't practically use it to imagine myself anymore. I think this ability to imagine without constraint is what makes you "feel like a kid again." It's exactly like that Spongebob episode with the box lol. Previously, imagination is mostly seen as a tool for survival, but right now it's like this magical ethereal thing that just generates perceptions out of nothing. It's like playing a video game in my head. I still use it for survival, but I don't use it to make existential assumptions. When you use imagination to make existential assumptions, it shrinks and limits reality, and it also shrinks your ability to imagine things, because your imagination itself is part of existential reality too.

Right. It's because your imagination wasn't as caught up in your identity. You have less memories about yourself as a kid, because you didn't live as long and so you experienced "less time." Identity accumulates over time if you have an ego, because the ego exists in time. It's like looking at a tree and thinking "I've seen thousands of trees in my lifetime" VS. "wow, a tree." As a kid, you didn't have as many ideas about "how the world is." It was basically endless exploration and learning, but now as an adult you "know everything."

No. The ego is as functional as Santa Claus.

"non-dual way of thinking" is a hilarious oxymoron You can like art made by someone you don't like, in the same way that you can like pizza made by someone you don't like. If you don't want to eat pizza made by them because it gives them money which they are using to support themselves to buy weapons or harm other people, then you make that decision. There is no moral code to follow here other than just following what actually exists consequentially; there is just looking at what your actions produce and then deciding what you want to do based on that.

The ego mind desperately looking for an identity to latch on to, bewildered by the new metaphysics of its experience.

How blissful is believing that you are Jesus?

What is there to handle? Does it matter how your mind describes reality? Why do you micromanage that? What is the point? It is just mind. It comes and goes like the wind. It says nothing and returns to nothing. Reality can't be thought. Physicality can't be thought. Taste can't be thought. Sight can't be thought. Why would you want any of it to be thought? Why would you want your experience to become a thought? Why think about it?

Rephrased: What is beyond the absolute? Leo would say, many more degrees of consciousness. Any enlightened person would say, nothing.

Enlightenment = everything/experience/existence Humans have the capability to imagine that they are not "everything/experience/existence." They have the capability to imagine themselves as something they are not, this is what an identity is. This imagination/identity itself is also part of "everything/experience/existence" by necessity. Being an "enlightened person" is realizing "oh im not the thing inside my imagination." But also, at the same time, your imagination did not change anything metaphysically, it is the very thing enlightenment is "made up of." "Unenlightenment" is a human invention through imagination. It is specifically the human capacity to entangle your identity inside of your imagination. When someone untangles themselves from their imagination, you point to them and say "that person is enlightened!" because they are now acting in accordance with what they actually are, not what they imagine that they are. Hope that made some sense.

Same, good chat.

We're going in circles. You do you.

Sounds good.

Yes, it could. There is no "I" claiming to be enlightened. I am simply just communicating with you using words. All words existentially point to one thing, which is your experience. If I gave you an answer, would it really be an answer? What is my answer going to be made of, experientially? Is it really going to explain things, or is it just going to make you imagine a new narrative on top of your experience? By the way, I totally get the sentiment. What the fuck is this? Do you think this feeling will go away once you come up with a smart answer?

Up to you. I already gave you solid heartfelt advice before, I think you get stuck in your head a lot, and you seem to kind of enjoy that. I think you would just turn my answers into more mental masturbation. It's fine, but if I feel like my answer isn't gonna help you then I won't engage.

Yes, I am enlightened.

Enlightenment is not: - A logical or metaphysical conclusion, like "this does not exist, therefore I am this." - Something that is "higher" or "lower" - Dualistic - A specific state or experience or quality - A logical or intellectual puzzle to solve - Philosophy - Something which becomes deeper or refined over time Enlightenment is: - One, singular, ever-present, undivided, etc. - Being aware, not being aware of logic > As an example, logic is not awareness, however, you can be aware of logic. > Enlightenment is the same as being aware of sound, touch, taste, etc. It is experiential, not a logical formula. - The immediate relinquishing of all metaphysical questions about experience, reality, and yourself. - Subtractive. Undefined. Not a thing. "Nothing." - Becoming aware (not through logic, but by looking at logic) that there is no "you", or any "things", at all. - Outside of past and future - What you always are, even if you imagine otherwise

I could define it in many ways, but it is simply just realizing that you cannot imagine yourself. You are nothing, as in, not a thing. You cannot be defined by anything you imagine that you are. This is the same as "realizing what you are" or realizing exactly what your experience is.

Again, enlightenment is not a model. In the same way that a glass of water is not a model. Or the sound of music is not a model. Or the taste of vanilla is not a model. The idea of "higher" and "lower" is always a mental model, because it is a duality created through thought and inference. Leo does not propose any "models of enlightenment", he does not even believe that enlightenment exists anymore.

You are talking about a model of "higher and lower consciousness." Enlightenment is not a dualistic model. Your question is mostly secular to Leo's own model of reality, not enlightenment.

You can't keep separating what is "absolute" from your current experience. You might as well say "you can't experience the absolute" or "the absolute doesn't exist." You say the distinction is useful but it isn't, because you are using the distinction to make an existential statement about the absolute. You are confusing the map for the territory. Nothing is relative, you're just imagining that. Nothing. Nothing. No thing. You are conflating survival, and life itself, with self. That is an uphill battle, to say the least. Language itself is made out of distinctions, that is how communication works. I am not conceding to anything by communicating. You made the distinction of "uniqueness" or "certain characteristics that people have", and I am pointing to that and saying "this is not self."

The ego does not exist. It is not anything. You are confusing the map for the territory. Realizing that the ego does not exist is "God." The ego is just what you think your experience is. You have no ego, you just think that you do. Thinking that you have an ego is what ego is, it is not anything beyond that.

Might as well ask: "Am I sinning against God by doing x?"

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.