The0Self

Not going to argue or negate. Cheers

The you that thinks of you as you is not you and won’t know it. You’ll still be where you’ve always been.

The no-doubt, distinctive and very recognizable, "dopamine rush" you describe might have absolutely nothing to do with the chemical dopamine. That is a rather wide open assumption.

Not saying anything that you're refuting is true; you may be right to be skeptical. But as an aside: Consider the possibility that you have no idea whether you can match a physical objective chemical to a consciously felt emotional or hedonic state. And also the possibility (which I'm not saying you don't already maybe agree with) that where you feel an emotion in your physical body has nothing to do with the type of feeling felt.

It'll still just be this. You just won't know it.

I get what you're saying, but I really mean something else. Flyboy's comment just resonated and that's the only reason I commented. I'll concede that the first two Jhanas (maybe 3, even 4) might at least have something to do with chemicals (which come to think of it is not really refuting anything Leight says actually), but as for the later ones? Really to me it's just not even a question at that point. But yeah, in a sense? Sure, makes sense to me. Just looked at the article more closely rather than just glancing. Guess it wasn't really mentioning the later ones. Still though there's something fishy about it that I can easily see but there's no way to relay that information, you'd have to practice the jhanas.

Very much same here. I could totally be wrong though, relatively speaking, just assuming for the purpose of structure (in order to communicate anything) that neurochemistry means anything at all. Also, I'm rather surprised that someone as proficient in Jhanas as Leigh Brasington would have this view. Jhana's very clearly go utterly way beyond mere chemicals in a brain.

"Why?" just wouldn't be in the cards, my friend. If it is "seen" (don't have a better word), it's like "oh THAT'S why it's impossible to describe liberation..." I wouldn't even say it's because it's too close, and it's certainly not complicated, it's not even possible to describe why it's indescribable -- "too simple" perhaps gets closest as to why (except it's not even that). There's basically no "it," and yet it's indescribably different from how it (seemingly) was before (edit: underlined because this really is a mind-blowing paradox...). This attempt at a description doesn't even touch it (and is, I must say, pointless)... but it's almost like everything is exactly the same but with no one home and no separation between anything (or things to be separate from) and no one making stuff happen -- just boundlessness. And miraculously, even choices happen on their own as they always do. It's already right here closer than close, too close to see, but an intuition might clearly see it, or it might not yet. If seen, you simply turn towards that, without even trying to (in fact if there's a lot of resistance and fear, you'll inevitably try not to). Any description is no more or less conceptual a description than any other, and therefore falls flat in describing the absolutely indescribable intimacy of this.

Considering only 19% of the country wants abortion completely illegal, and 20 states are about to completely ban it, I'd say this could be the democrats' saving grace... As horrible as it will temporarily be for women. And humanity.

Sure. I remember a phase like that. 24/7 I was just constantly automatically inquiring "What IS everything?"

If it's finite then it is by definition subsumed by the infinite.

Yes and I in fact do. Doesn't mean I accept their actions as perfectly okay in society -- that would likely be a sort of spiritual bypassing or denial.

Sure, but then some awakenings are abiding and some are not. So there's still that distinction. I don't mean the abidance of a transcendent state of consciousness. I mean an abiding shift in what you take yourself to be i.e. not the abidance of a state or experience.

Obviously.

It can be useful to distinguish between Spirit (or Presence, or Truth) and Mind. Everything is only one thing, but without other and thus is not a thing (not a thing in itself, separate from other things), and we could call this Spirit. Mind could be essentially synonymized with thought. Sounds like a pointless distinction... until you realize that Spirit is the one thing that can't be thought of. So what is Spirit? Whatever can't be thought of. Whatever can't be described. It's here now. It is that which is the case.

That certainly describes an awakening experience (enlightenment experience; what Culadasa would call an "insight experience," for reference). I think the most useful way to define an awakening is this... Awakening = an irreversible (permanent; abiding) shift in perception, on the level of identity (what you take yourself to be). By this construct, not all awakening experiences are awakenings, but all awakenings are associated with awakening experiences, even though an awakening is not an experience.

@EmptyInside Glad you liked 'em!

Yeah I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. That is until he outright said he thinks homosexuality and rape are both bad lol. But he was just being honest. We have to start somewhere. Could just be a blind spot he has, or typical SD stage blue-orange progression.

Nice. Well, that's what this work is all about. Bad, and bad for society, are different though. Ultimately, nothing is bad. But pedophilia is clearly bad for society, while it's much harder to make that case for homosexuality. But homosexuality being bad on some level is baked into pretty much any straight guy, until it isn't. I lucked out by never being outwardly homophobic, but like any straight guy I unknowingly had inward homophobia. I just imagined myself having gay sex until it no longer induced disgust -- a nice open mindedness exercise... it won't make you gay unless you were already gay. If anything it made me more straight lol.

It's hard to really compare what it's like now to what it was like, because I can barely even remember. 1. Ongoing perceptual filters create the sense that you're separate from everything. 2. It is possible to live without that. All preconceived notions of awakening were incorrect. I thought I'd be propelled through life by some divine force without any effort and choices would no longer be possible because free will would collapse. Choices still happen, but no one does them. And it's not like I lost the ability to make choices -- every time I thought I consciously made a choice, that was actually just a thought, so I as a finite identity never had the ability to choose, only since there is no real finite identity in the first place. What I used to call "my choice" is now seen as obviously not different from the entire universe. So shame and guilt no longer happen, at least not in the same way -- the usual sense of "could've done otherwise" is completely gone. It's not a loss of function, but a freeing-up.

@DrugsBunny I stand corrected... That's fine. But why do you consider homosexuality bad?

Maybe. But you could just be reading something negative out of that. For instance, if one is straight, even if not (outwardly) homophobic, they still might have the same level of disgust over themselves partaking in homosexual acts (inward homophobia), as the disgust over themselves partaking in murder -- because both are simply unnatural for their character. If one has this disgust, they have to start somewhere -- imagining oneself having gay sex until it no longer disgusts them is probably a good way to relax inward homophobia, and the only ones who would be afraid to do this are probably homophobic (perhaps even closeted) in some way. Obviously they aren't in the same moral category, but "moral" is obviously not the only category there is. The rapist is simply playing the role of the rapist. If there was no trouble to solve, everyone would be bored out of their minds. Obviously if you understand God, you probably aren't gonna be the rapist, but it's simply a role -- plays a part in the play of God.

@Preety_India My ex gf wasn't diagnosed (at least she didn't tell me, and I didn't ask) but I'm reasonably certain she has BPD -- and she often mentioned something along the lines of "most people don't understand how problematic personality disorders are," as if she had some kind of information she was hinting at, whether intentionally or otherwise. She was a great person. Had to break it off though, primarily because of escalating unfounded jealousy on her part. I'm fine with jealousy, but when your girlfriend gives you a dirty look and you immediately know it's because we must have just walked past another attractive woman and gf is (angrily) accusing you of being attracted to that woman... for the tenth time... That's just too much. I loved her authenticity, but whenever she was angry she'd pretend she wasn't angry (and then she'd apologize later) -- so she lost control from time to time. It was a good relationship though and it ended pretty well. We were on good terms for a long while after (and still technically are) but we ended up just not talking (it's been years), since the physical chemistry between us was way too strong and we'd often just end up sleeping together, again and again, despite resolving not to... She was a Scorpio, if that means anything to you . She was really into astrology. BPD is sometimes constructed as "pathological vulnerable narcissism." Vulnerable narcissism is completely different (practically opposite) from what "narcissism" usually refers to though (grandiose narcissism). "Pathological grandiose narcissism" is NPD, which is practically the opposite of BPD. So I'm not calling you a narcissist, as it's commonly constructed -- actually the opposite.

It would still be an assumption that a particular finite God is trustworthy. But if we're talking about an infinite God then obviously we can't say anything about it because it's by definition all there is. The wager is just one of the ego's games. It totally glides over the exactly equally possible scenario of the opposite being true. But if the ego can believe it to feel more comfortable, it will do so.