Osaid

This comes naturally when you're enlightened because you clearly see how monumental the potential for delusion is. This is why private workshops exist. And why some teachers even refrain from calling themselves enlightened. I'm sure you've seen the dysfunctional ideals the statement "reality is love" creates across this forum. Holykael is a prime example.

Yes. This is not being denied. Experience is different but truth doesn't change. The difference in experience is what Ralston calls "state." The unchanging truth which permeates across all experiences is what Ralston calls "enlightenment" or "consciousness." States are ephemeral. Truth isn't. Thus the distinction. Truth exists in all states, so it's misleading to call truth a state, as that implies other states exist which are not truthful.

He's not calling that a state. He agrees with you. He's saying that he's skeptical of people who call it "love" and he believes that they aren't actually conscious of what they're talking about, and are instead referring to a state they previously experienced. So, for them, it would be a state. Ralston is particular about how he words these things. When he says "consciousness" it means absolute truth. When he says "state", he is saying exactly that, it's just a state that comes and goes and has nothing to do with "consciousness" or truth itself. If you aren't experiencing what you are talking about right now, it truly was just a state, and thus it is just a memory now. He is saying that for many people love and oneness is just a state, and he is right. This is a very crucial nuance. The states which allow you to become enlightened temporarily are being put on a pedestal. Hence, "higher-consciousness states", hence "more understanding", hence "chasing truth forever." This is the crux of Leo and basically this entire forum.

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It's a measure of what people think their behavior is, not behavior. It's indirect. And it's absolutely not behavior itself. So it's really important to keep that nuance. So yeah, the latter. It becomes a big red herring I think, and I think this is the right direction. Like, recently we had a post here about college leading to more depression or whatever, but like, depression also occurs outside of college. So the college setting becomes a red herring. It's not a college issue. It's something more fundamental that's not being addressed. Changing the college system could mediate it or reduce depression, but it doesn't actually touch on depression at all, it just touches on the college system, and then depression is reduced as a side effect. Which is good, but it has not much to do with depression. Many people would look at this and say "college causes depression" or "this aspect of college is causing depression." This turns into a rabbit hole of chasing causes which are inferred from previous causes and so on. Imagine trying to measure the behavior of a black hole by measuring the gravity of the Earth. And then inferring the gravity of the black hole purely from the gravity of Earth. This is the same indirectness and leeway being given to quantitative behavioral science, but this discrepancy is shrugged off by most because there's this bias when it comes to being quantitative that is like "If we relate it to an actual object, it becomes more true and objective." And, in you or some scientist reading this, there might be this fear that comes up which is saying "But then, we can't measure anything! Science is lost! This is stupid because now we can't do science anymore!", and this very clinging to science is purely just dogma. I am not saying that this fear or sentiment is true, but rather, you should just be completely open to this possibility, and it shouldn't be a fear. As a scientist, you should be completely open to the idea that science might not work here, or that certain things just can't be measured. Or, as an even better scientist, you should be inspired by this to try and revolutionize science by seeing its limits. I'm reminded of this Niels Bohr quote: "How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress"

I get what he means there now, thanks for explicating. If the baseline state is not enlightened, the experience becomes memory, memory becomes identity, and delusion occurs. No matter what. Can't escape the need for enlightenment.

Yep

People just suck at observing things. Is it a science to ask people what they think? I mean it can be, but you gotta take it with a grain of salt. I'd argue social sciences can be a thing, they are a thing, but trying to make conclusions from it is JUST based on what people think. It is limited to that. It's not a failure just a bad interpretation of what you gathered. I don't think it's coincidence that it has become a big thing though, because it seems like something is there that people are trying to point to. So maybe quantitative science can be like a finger pointing at something and saying "hey this needs to be investigated." Hope what I said made any sense.

Rare to see proper skepticism here. How can you be sure that the color red is not the color blue? Sometimes, the need to be sure of things is unnecessary when it is right in front of you. There's no need for you to be sure of colors. Of sound. Because they are experienced. Focus on experience. Being "sure" is not something reality requires. It becomes an unnecessary input at times. Colors cannot be communicated. Sound cannot be communicated. Your experience cannot be communicated. Nothing can truly be communicated. Communication by definition is not the thing. It's an abstraction of the thing. Yes, maybe. For sure. How can you be sure of anything? Sorry, but you're not escaping this question, haha.

This is the correct conclusion.

No such state really exists. The state that was experienced is being anthropomorphized as "you get whatever you want" but this never actually happens as exemplified by the "but you get bored after."

Seems healthy enough to me. This is a reaction I would consider. Depending on how combative/open-minded they seemed, I might have asked him to explicate what was bad about my manners.

Depends entirely on how clean your teeth are. I would say probably yes. Also, years? You definitely have plaque build up, right? Might be weird, but the thing that motivates hygiene for me is just me imagining a future romantic partner or something being with me. And I wanna be clean and proper for them. Also another motivation is just personal health in general. I'm very health conscious. Have you ever had cavities filled before? Do you get cavities at basically every check up? Wonder how good your oral health actually is. If you do, that is NOT normal and NOT sustainable. You can't be getting fillings all the time. It's a sinking ship. All that aside, I find this to be a very odd sentiment that you want to remove your teeth. They're so useful. Why would you wanna do that? It's like wanting to go bald to not deal with hair, or removing an arm so you don't have to take care of it anymore. Some odd psychology happening here, I think.

I'm guessing you relate to this sentiment? I think you could even bring up this "realization" right now if you wanted to. No need for psychedelics. Surely the same mechanism exists across all states? But then, what actually is it? How does consciousness accomplish being disgusted by itself? Are there states where this doesn't happen? How does consciousness accomplish those states where it doesn't happen? Are the states which have no disgust anti-truth/anti-consciousness? Or maybe it's not inherent to consciousness at all? Food for thought.

There's no need to be sure of what exists. You have no difficulty in being sure of the color red or the color blue because the "sureness" arises from existence itself. "Being sure" is an unecessary input on your part. Existence doesn't need you to be sure to exist. It absolutely does not matter what I do or don't tell you, because it just exists as something I told you. Never the thing itself. What matters is what you are experiencing right now. Whether it is or isn't the "ultimate truth", it has absolutely zero effect or bearing on your current experience, this is something important to take notice of. Does knowing that the color red is the ultimate truth change your experience of the color red? Does it stop being red? No, because it's just knowing, what you know never touches anything that is experienced.

Hi. I am curious as to what exactly you are "realizing." How is it that your experience longs for non-experience? Does your table long for non-experience as well? Is your table not "God" as well? Next time it happens, in your experience, I want you to point to where "stuck" is. I want you to point to where "bored" is. What does it look like? What does it smell like? What color is it? If you can find it, great, now you can neutralize the problem. If you can't find it, great, there is no problem.

The end of seeking. Being yourself. Yourself. The appeasing of an imagined self, so as to assimilate it into yourself and become "whole." <<< all of these are the same thing just from different angles Seeking anything should be impossible considering you are everything you seek, always. What does music seek? What does the color red seek? What does your table seek? What do you seek?

Can be turned to baseline permanently, which is enlightenment. Millions of ways to describe it, but the "resistance" which comes back is just a very genuine belief you have right now that there is actually some place you can go to which isn't now. It's not really a forgetting. More like the opposite. "You", or that "peace", operates outside of forgetting and imagination. It's embedded into reality and exists without logic. It's a remembering of belief systems and identities which "covers yourself" again and tries to override that part of reality. Really, if you forgot everything, you would reach that state again. Your memory and imagination is being used to cover yourself. But it doesn't have to be used to cover yourself, of course. It can co-exist with yourself. That co-existence is enlightenment, you could say. The baseline state can have a different flavour, but that's purely a difference in content. You can be a peaceful worm or a peaceful cat or a peaceful human. The peace, the love, the "you" stays the same throughout, because it is truth and truth can't change.

So the "Jesus Christ" part is real, and the rest is fable? How did you come to this conclusion that you are specifically the Jesus Christ figure, and that this figure is real? Are the other characters real as well? If not, how do you tell which ones aren't real?

You say the real crucifixion was shamanic, did you go through the real crucifixion then? You must have went through the real one, if you were always Jesus Christ. And then is the Bible is simply a documentation of what you went through? What if your memory is wiped, do you stop being Jesus? Is Truth lost forever, then?

What happened to the Jesus Christ that is mentioned in the Bible? Was that you? Did you become him? Were you always Jesus Christ? How can I tell who the real Jesus is? There are many who claim the same as you.

Of course. Words are just words. This is conceptual knowing because the orgasm isn't being experienced anymore. The orgasm knows itself perfectly, because it literally becomes you. When it ends, it's gone, and it stops being you, and so any knowing becomes memory. Anything you experience after the orgasm is not an orgasm, and thus it is concept/knowledge/memory. It doesn't matter if your knowledge of an orgasm relates to a previous event, it is never the orgasm itself, it's just a concept, and so it is always concept/knowledge. Yes, because it's an explanation, not the things being explained.

I'm talking about conceptual knowing, AKA knowledge. There is knowing/understanding in experience as well, but it is completely different from conceptual knowing, which is knowledge. Not the same at all. As different as red and blue. "I know" is always conceptual. "I am a human" is conceptual. "Lamps are objects that create light" is conceptual. All of these are knowledge and are not experienced as anything that isn't concept. Ultimately there isn't a thing that has to know or a process of knowing, so the implied subject-object relation is completely redundant and it is just based on more knowledge/self-knowledge. Bit of a language barrier. Hope this clarifies.

Doesn't point to anything. It's purely just a word/concept. The thing that decides what is right is also a worldview. Worldviews validating worldviews. Of course you don't know these things. It's not you. It's knowledge. It is never necessary to know about yourself because you have no choice but to exist as yourself all the time. It's a useless input on your part. You don't know any of these things exactly because they aren't you. Yes, correct. By definition all knowledge is not really about anything which exists. You can't know a lamp that is in front of you. Knowing becomes a useless input on your part. Knowing is only useful when the thing you're knowing doesn't exist in experience. Right. In this case, the desire for a solution creates a problem that doesn't exist.

Can you point to "confusion"? Can you point to "lack of truth"? Where is it experienced? What is the solution to music? What is the solution to the color red? What is the solution to your experience? Is the sensation of touch confused? Is sound confused? Is your experience confused? Namaste.