Tim R

@BipolarGrowth I say this in the most loving spirit: please be careful not to delude yourself into thinking that you hold the answers. Haven't seen any "I'm enlightened, AMA"-threads in a long time. Almost lost faith in all you unenlightened folks??

@Giulio Bevilacqua I'm glad that you asked because you're confronted with one of the biggest misunderstandings in (Western) spiritual circles. Which is the duality of: effort - effortlessness or you could say doing - non doing People start listening to some spiritual teacher and will soon come across the idea of letting go - which will include letting go of desire, effort, struggle, etc. But this can be so, so easily misunderstood. In Chinese Daoism there is a very important principle called "Wu Wei" (無為), which is often translated as "not-doing". And people who first hear about this think that it literally means to "do nothing". But that's not at all what Wu Wei means. Wu Wei means rather something like "doing just as much as is needed, but in such a way, that all goals are fulfilled". Wu Wei doesn't exclude effort. You can put in a lot of effort in an effortless/surrendering way. Think of it this way: What do you do when you are very skilled at something which requires effort? I for example am very skilled when it comes to riding my bicycle. And when I do so, I am so engrossed in the activity (which does very often include a lot of effort!) that it becomes effortless. I become so one with what I am doing, that everything "I do" is the same thing as "me". I melt into riding my bike. There is no more "me" who forces the pedals to move, there is just pedaling. And that's Wu Wei. in the West, we call it "flow". You see, you don't exactly have to "balance" effort and surrender, because they aren't really any different from each other. But for you to understand this, you need to enter a state of flow (which I'm sure you already have at some point in you life). Because then, there is no more forcing, even though what you're doing may be very difficult or hard. It's easy to enter the flow state if, in the first place, you like what you're doing. Otherwise you will obviously have to force yourself and then it's very difficult to be in Wu Wei. So, in conclusion: surrender doesn't mean passivity. It doesn't mean to surrender activity itself. It means to surrender yourself into activity.

@Hulk Consciousness is it.

Ah yes. But you know just as well as me that there is actually nothing positive about the sensation. If there's nothing positive or negative about it, if it's not even neutral - then what? Still Dukkha?

@BipolarGrowth Who said anything about "positive sensations"?

What about it?

@BipolarGrowth The "greatest spiritual goal"? It's not a "goal". It can't be achieved, by nobody. It's something like the 10th picture I'd say. Remember we talked on the phone about this? I told you "Buji" (無事). Nothing special, nothing to do. An excerpt from the Línjì-lù (臨済錄 - "the record of Línjì"): Huangbo says: "The hundred-odd kinds of knowledge do not compare with non-seeking. Th is is the ultimate. The person of the way is the one who has nothing to do, who has no mind at all and no doctrine to preach. Having nothing to do, such a person lives at ease."

Intellect is part of God, so it can't grasp God. That's like asking "Don't you think your finger can grasp the hand?" Actually, it isn't. What do you think God is?

@BipolarGrowth I think your understanding of Dukkha differs from mine. See this is where I would disagree with you. Why do you think that?

@BipolarGrowth Oh ok?? I just woke up, pardon me. Yeah. I don't know if the acceptance/love of Dukkha is actually the cure for it. Because Dukkha is the symptom of ignorance, so you need to get rid of that first, otherwise there will always be more Dukkha. And the whole problem with accepting Dukkha is that if you could accept it, there would be no need for you to do so (not even if the first place!!). It's not that loving Dukkha will get rid of Dukkha - it's that so long as there is Dukkha to love, you can't love Dukkha, or there would be no resistance/suffering/Dukkha to begin with. That's why Dukkha is the wrong place to start the journey. It can't be done. Ignorance is the problem, not Dukkha.

@BipolarGrowth It's true that I created my own Dukkha, but primarily out of ignorance, not Love. Yes, I love one thing and not the other thing - and thereby create duality, frustration and suffering. That is Avidya, ignorance. And the resulting Dukkha is just the other side of my ignorant Love for the duality that I set up. It's not my Love for Dukkha because when I'm ignorant, I don't even know that it's me who created my own suffering! In a sense, ignorance comes first. And as I said, if you could love Dukkha, it would cease to be Dukkha.

@Greengrass No need to worry everyone who meditates regularly will at some point experience something very much like what you experienced. It's completely normal. You can allow this sort of thing to happen. This is where the fun begins Next time you meditate, you don't even have to think about whether it will happen again. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, doesn't matter. And if it comes up again: now you know that it's perfectly harmless. You can sit and watch it, like you would watch a movie. And see what happens when you don't immediately snap out of it

@BipolarGrowth You can't love Dukkha, or it wouldn't be Dukkha.

He says: "There's almost nobody in the world who I can communicate with, that is conscious enough to be able to understand the deepest insights that I've had about reality. And this has presented a problem for me, because in the past I was able to share those, they were at the level of communication, I was able to share those with you. But now I'm getting the point where I can't even share them with you anymore. And lately my insights have become so profound that I started to realize and sort of come to face to face with the prospect that I won't ever be able to share them with any other human in the universe. I try but - and there's different levels of insight that I have - but the highest levels basically are going to be completely unshareable and I've had to resign myself to that." Ok @Leo Gura but I have to ask anyway - and I obviously don't expect you to actually communicate the insight itself - but is there any chance you could try to hint at what you mean? I thought you've reached the deepest stages with your "outrageous experiments in consciousness"? Or are you talking about new insights you've had since then? Also... does this have something to do with the new psychedelic you mentioned at the end of your video "an advanced explanation of god-realization"? And when will you share it with us?

@BipolarGrowth How could there be a cause to reality, implying separation from reality? Reality is causeless, it's its own "cause", creating itself spontaneously on the fly. Daoism puts quite a lot of emphasis on recognizing this aspect of reality.

@Sonny What you're experiencing is called "Solipsism" and there are dozens and hundreds of threads about this on the forum. You are consciousness. You are not a separate entity/soul who "has" his/her own consciousness. You are not conscious. You are consciousness itself, and so is the rest of the universe. Every person, every animal, every plant, every rock and every cloud is consciousness. Everything in this universe is of one and the same fundamental nature, and that is consciousness. Awareness as such. There is not a single entity in this universe. Nobody "who is conscious". Only consciousness itself, appearing as "different" beings. You think you are looking through your eyes. You think there is somebody behind your eyes and you hope that there is somebody behind the eyes of other people. Well I've got news for you, there is nobody inside your head and nobody inside other people's heads. And yet there is consciousness. And this consciousness is absolutely everywhere. It's infinite and its center is literally everywhere. Everywhere is "I". You are me. There is only you, only me. Only "I am". You won't understand what I'm saying by reading it. You must see into your true nature directly and then you will understand. Don't turn this into philosophy. And lastly - Solipsism is a meaningless problem. If you were the only person in the universe, then who would you ask to prove/disprove this for you? You couldn't ask anyone, since there wouldn't be anyone but you. It's a non-disprovable philosophy, so why bother with it? Also: notice, that by saying "I am the only real entity in the universe" you set up a duality between "yourself" and "them" or "it". Solipsism is nothing but a distorted view on reality. You're projecting and speculating, notice that. There is nothing to be afraid of.

"Everything is mind" -Mind You see the joke?

This... is utterly amazing. Holy sh*t. This is a video about the embodiment of Love. Does it get any deeper? Does it get any better? I hardly think so... I took a little bit of acid earlier this morning and decided to listen to this. Wow. This is some real sage level wisdom right here. This is where you will end up eventually. Embodying Love, more and more. As the result of realizing that you and everything are Love, all resistance will dissolve into Love. Over the last few months I've been realizing to ever deeper degrees the importance of Love. My understanding now is that: enlightenment is the embodiment of Love. "How awake are you (to your true nature)?" is the same question as "how loving are you?"

LOL What do you think all this is?!? "not God"? "If reality is consciousness, then why survival?" You say it as if survival was any different from consciousness.

@Snader I didn't even know how much I needed (and still need) to forgive myself. You can't begin too early with this stuff...

@Leo Gura I understand that all of existence is Love. If enlightenment is not the embodiment of Love, then - is there anything "special" about enlightenment being Love? Since all of existence is Love anyway? Because again, my current understanding is that Reality=Love , only that we can't always see that, and so the deeper one embodies Love, the deeper one is awake/enlightened to one's true nature as Love. Of course enlightenment is love. Everything is. But that doesn't mean that we are awake to that. Edit: Didn't you even say somewhere that you measure the degree of enlightenment of a teacher by his/her understanding of Love?

What is there but Truth?

Yup. You as consciousness are nowhere. The universe is nowhere. Think of it, where could it even be? Consciousness is nowhere. Your mind is nowhere. The body is nowhere. Everything is no-where because "where" is part of everything. Sometimes I feel this nowhere so deeply that it becomes a little bit spooky? and then funny again. If "here" means "not-there" and "there" means "not-here", then "here" means not "here" and "there" means not "there"?

Matthew 7 1 Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. 6 Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. @electroBeam You give out what you consider to be holy, but you give it out to those who cannot appreciate it. And then you resent them for being fools. But actually, you're the fool, because it's you who casts pearls before swine. Simply stop doing it. If you have a desire to share your new found wisdom and insight, at least share it with those who can listen and appreciate. This however, will only get rid of the symptoms. Now let's take a look at the psychology of your problem; You talk a lot about resentment for people who can't appreciate your knowledge/wisdom. Wikipedia says on resentment: "Inherent in resentment is a perception of unfairness and is a generalized defense against unfair situations." Ok, so that gives us a general understanding of what resentment is about. Resentment is a very complex phenomenon and one of its forms is in french called "Ressentiment". I'm quoting Wikipedia: "Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed toward an object that one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration. The sense of weakness or inferiority complex and perhaps even jealousy in the face of the "cause" generates a rejecting/justifying value system, or morality, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one's frustration. This value system is then used as a means of justifying one's own weaknesses by identifying the source of envy as objectively inferior, serving as a defense mechanism that prevents the resentful individual from addressing and overcoming their insecurities and flaws. The ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability". It's not the others. It's you. But you already know that. So the problem is not that people are foolish or that you're not wise enough or don't know enough, the problem is "why do you think you need to become wiser/ more knowledgeable? And what's wrong with being a fool anyway?" I won't give you an answer on that one, because quite frankly, I don't know it. Only you can find out. Good luck❤

@m0hsen Essentially, yes. But don't confuse "knowing" with actual knowing. Knowing = Being Consciousness knows itself by being itself. Consciousness is omniscient because it is everything.