Breakingthewall

Consciousness arises as a disturbance in the Absolute, and in consciousness the world arises. When you realize that you are not the person, but the pure observer, you take a step back. But the observer remains in consciousness. You must go even further, to the Absolute, where there is no consciousness of 'I am,' where you are the Pure Being prior to all being or non-being. The Absolute is your true state, unchanging and imperishable, unaware that it is. — Nisargadatta Maharaj, "I Am That"

When the mind is absolutely empty only one fact remains: unlimited being. That doesn't mean "consciousness", because "consciousness" is still an structure that implies the fact of being aware, then a duality. Even they will say that this is non duality. In absolute absence of barriers the unlimited being manifest. For example nisgardatta explains it quite good, Ramana not so good. Then, after that absolute and obvious openess, you can deduct using the logical mind and the observation how the reality is structured. If you live in the 4 century, maybe you could arrive to the conclusion that everything is consciousness and you are dreaming, but nowadays we know about physics and we can do better deductions. But enlightenment is always the same: unlimited being

Then shut up and empty your mind of ideas until no structure remains. Then what is absolutely obvious will manifest

Oh, what a solid argument! I am a blasphemer? I'm sorry, I won't participate in religious argument, believe what makes you feel safe, forget what I said. Anyway, saying that as you can't go out of your experience only your experience exist is also a logical deduction. Only that little, let's say.....well, I don't know the exact word. Imagine one.

Agree that consciousness is necessary condition for anything to be known. Well, not exactly, I would say that consciousness is the fact of "knowing", are synonyms. But then you do a jump: as what I am is consciousness, this fact of knowing that I am, means that I can never get out of this "experience", so the reality is this experience . This is not a logical implication. It's like saying, as I can't fly, fly doesn't exist. Well, maybe it doesn't exist for you, but the possibility exist, same than a reality unknown

Id say that the answer is extremely obvious and can be understood by the conceptual mind. Reality, as physics explains, is the unfolding of coherent relationships. This occurs because there is nothing to restrict it; therefore, a universe, which is essentially a coherent mathematical equation, unfolds. In that universe, what is possible happens, simply because it is possible, for no other reason. Within the realm of possibility, the emergence of a sufficiently complex process to create a model of the interaction between interior and exterior occurs. This model is a process in itself within the process that the organism is. This is consciousness; it's quite simple, isn't it? Why seek metaphysical explanations? Reality is already metaphysical.

Don't you find it simpler and more obvious to see that consciousness is the fact of being aware of reality, that is, reality being aware of itself, instead of the idea that reality is consciousness? Why would reality be consciousness? By the way, Nisgardatta didn't say that reality is consciousness.

I never said I'm god, I say that what you can know is that you are. Not that you are something, just you are. This is not a logical deduction or an identification, its the very fact of being now. But then you could do an easy deduction that is: I am, reality is, so I'm not different of reality, both are the fact of being, that is always the same. Not "all" the reality, but a manifestation of the reality, that essentially is the reality, and any other manifestation. Ralston says that you can't know nothing, but that's false, you can know everything: you are. That is everything. You don't need to know all the manifestations of being, they are manifestations of being, that's enough. Of course now you will say that this is an illusion and I believe I'm god, without having understood what im saying. Agree, that's what happens, but not because those ideas are false but because the mind gets conditioned by barriers that encloses it, like the need of being accepted. You can't say that the need of being accepted is an illusion, it's an emotion that's happening. Maybe for you being a homeless who nobody talks is the same than be loved by your girlfriend and having a family, but for many people it's different, then they fear don't being accepted and then they construct a character full of lies to being accepted because they never received unconditional love but conditional love. That's not an illusion, it's a fact. You can face that's character and become integral, but that doesn't implies that the fear of being rejected that is the basis of the ego was an illusion. Fear is fear, is something that happens.

In our society, we are educated from birth to be consumers; we are receivers of objects, content, and experiences that we like and find entertaining, and we perceive our value within the human group by whether we are liked and validated. From adolescence onward, being liked and validated becomes key. We crave an ideal of beauty, wealth, and social skills that places us at the top of the pyramid, allowing us to enter the "fit" zone, and we see others as allies or adversaries depending on their level of fitness. Sex is presented to us from childhood as consumption. By age 12, we watch an amount of porn that would leave the Marquis de Sade perplexed, and if you are more or less "fit," random sporadic sex is within anyone's reach. It is absolutely natural to perceive sex and life in general as an act of consumption, not of expansion. I am not talking about selfishness, expansion is also selfish, i am talking about the vector. The vector created within us by our society points inward. The consumer is a pit that must be filled. This poses a serious problem: it closes us off. We have become isolated, self-reflective bubbles that need validation from their peers and seek pleasurable, satisfying experiences. These bubbles are always in a state of lack. They cannot be filled; they can only reach a level where the anxiety of insufficiency isn't overly noticeable. The problem with this is that it makes us idiots. We only see the reflection of our character, like a wall right in front of our face, flat and made of anxiety. This persona must be improved so that we can receive more of the good things we want. We all know where this leads: to a medicated society. Children born to fill a void, who will be raised by neurotics riddled with anxiety. This is an interesting labyrinth. At a given moment, you are a teenager caught up in this mess that is impossible to understand, surrounded by alienation, and you create a character .Real values like loyalty, honor, courage, surrender, and integrity sound great in movies, thousands of which we consume, providing us with engineered emotions that substitute for the honor, courage, surrender, and integrity that are scarce or nonexistent in our consumer reality. This makes us absolutely idiotic; we are so idiotic it is brutal. We are trapped in a bubble of idiocy. Escaping it is a challenge of enormous difficulty. It requires changing our vector of existence, the direction in which we point. Changing from a pit to a source, from a consumer to an expanding being. The point we are at is the consequence of humanity's massive conquest of reality. Seriously imagine for a moment, right now, being teleported to London in 1750. Seriously. We don't want that. But the enormous change that has occurred has made us neurotic, alienated, and closed off. This is endured more or less well thanks to the massive consumer possibilities we have, and the projection toward a future where we will be complete. But beware. Be very careful. Any day now you could realize that your life is an absolute misery, that you are absolutely alone in the wheel, running like a medicated rat. Making the movement toward openness is essential; it is the only sensible option. In doing so, you flip the bubble inside out, and suddenly, reality opens up. Your heart opens, your mind opens, and the vector has changed. No longer do you have the image of a progressing, remembering persona in front of you, but the immensity of reality. In front of your face is unlimited all the time; here and now you are, within the unfathomable unlimited that lives. In fact, you are that. It is not a divine, mystical realization; it is reality right now. The mental bubble ceases, as it is absolutely obvious that it is a kind of learned loop that makes no sense. Meaning is in your heart; the fact of being is everything, and you lack nothing. What you want is not to consume, but to expand, to flow, to connect. Everything is clear, clean, and alive. You have flipped the bubble inside out. Congratulations, you have solved the labyrinth of idiocy. Now, another phase of the game begins.

There is an identity and sense of self uncoded in the brain by genetics created by evolution. If you feel happy calling it illusion, good for you. But "Ilusion" is an idea that the self made.

Sounds very real. For me was the same, I was living in a state of anxiety and mental oppression that would destroy me. Like it was a war in my mind without a second of peace

Yes but enlightenment imo means being open to what never dies, to the unlimited being, and being one with it. You describe the effect, but the point is being open to the cause. I'm not saying that you aren't, just explaining my point

Many have that goal in mind, millions, but they don't get it, they stay in a state of emptiness , pure consciousness as they call it. but they never open the source of life, the absolute being, their living nature.

Why do you call light of awareness? Maybe it would be awareness of the light . How do you see it?

Yes, he was Smart and ambitious, and he never lied to himself, he was in mission of conquest. That's the only way (as I see it) to arrive to the openess to what is

Sometimes meditating, In a matter of seconds, the mind is completely emptied of content; reality is what is. There isn't even a subject consciously perceiving; there is only what lives. Subject and object are one. The entire structure dissolves into boundless life, and that is perfect. Structure isn't needed; it is fullness. This doesn't mean that structure doesn't unfold like a living mosaic, and that I don't desire expansion, life, openness, simply for the sake of being. After that openess, in the structure, its essence shines through, its flavor, what it is. It is precisely me. Not solipsism, others are too. The pin is not knowing anything, is being open to it.

What about Buddha? He did a very hard path full of fight and frustration for many years with a concrete goal

But self inquiry is mental, conceptual. How could you open yourself to what is beyond the conceptual mind using the conceptual mind?

@eTorro but if it was so hard, you didn't want it and you haven't any goal with it, why did you do it?

The point is that a human has a genetic structure that will create identity. It's like an embryo that, as soon as it receives the necessary stimulus, begins to develop. Without a real structure created by generations and the brutal imposition of reality, identity is organized around fluid values, and the fluid individual suffers from a default imbalance. They are constantly compensating for this, and that translates into anxiety as the basis of existence. This is a very complicated labyrinth, an enigma that the evolutionary force that is human life tries to solve. Life is always in movement, changing, finding new possibilities, and that's what we are.

It is not that identifying with the ego has become easier today. What has changed is the entire vector of human existence. For most of human history, individuals saw themselves as parts sustained by a higher structure: God, the nation, the family, an ideal, whatever it might be. The individual was a component within a greater whole, and the mind was largely shaped and constrained by shared dogmas. After industrial revolution little by little a profound shift took place. Individualism became the dominant cultural framework. Each person came to see themselves as the center of their own reality, and the purpose of life became the pursuit of the greatest possible well-being. The supreme value became living the best life possible. I am not arguing whether this change is good or bad. I am pointing out that it happened. And once it happened, the vector of existence changed. The individual now experiences themselves primarily as a receiver. They receive experiences, pleasure and pain, approval and rejection. What is positive is being valued by others, attaining status, being admired, having pleasurable experiences. What is negative is the opposite. Because the desired standards are rarely fully attained, the psyche tends to experience itself as fundamentally insufficient. It sees itself as a character that falls short of an ideal. Life gradually becomes an attempt to compensate for what feels shamefully inadequate and to move closer to that ideal. This is the soil in which neuroticism flourishes. This is the development of an individual who no longer feels supported by anything greater than themselves. In the absence of such support, they seek it in the gaze of others, who are themselves caught in exactly the same game. The result is a deep background anxiety, managed through a continuous cycle of consuming content, maintaining a social life, chasing relationships that often become frustrating, alcohol, and projecting fulfillment into the future. It seems that this way of living is just a transitional one. It is an intermediate phase leading toward another mode of existence. That is what we are exploring here (in spirituality in general). the individual that finds the support in itself, the absolute integrity that arises when the individual open itself to it's nature, that is inseparable of the reality itself. It's not solipsism but interconnection, absence of limits and constantly access to what is, to the unlimited being that everything is.

@eTorro I don't understand how you could have done all that work without a clear motivation, a goal in mind. From what you've said, you've done a serious purification work, which in my opinion is essential for having a life that isn't pure anxiety.

I've never thought of it as an identity behind the eyes, and I'd say most people don't either. Usually people think we don't want to be slaves or losers in the group, and how do we get money and women and don't get a cancer, things like that. You don't go through life thinking you're behind the eyes and then, upon reflection, realize you're nothing. All of that is just your own personal ideas. Enlightenment has nothing to do with that; it's about dissolving all barriers. Believing you're nothing is a barrier, or that there is no self. All of that is just spiritual ideas. Enlightenment is actual; it's the totality of being without any boundaries or limits. As the Hindus say, Sat Chit Ananda: the total, unlimited being that is aware of itself and it's total, absolute, then manifest as Ananda, perfect joy because nothing limits it

Ideas are not false; they are ideas, mental structures. They can define reality quite accurately, up to a point. Spiritual awakening is not about thinking that ideas are false (which would be another idea ), but about opening yourself to the reality of absolute being. To achieve this, you must dissolve all your limits, both energetic and conceptual, and at that level, you know absolutely nothing, what remains is the direct fact that reality is, but that is absolutely everything. It's unfathomable and implies everything, absolutely full. That's enlightenment, nothing else.

You don't need to deny that you're biological or that duality exists. Just don't focus on it. You don't walk down the street thinking, "I'm a biological being," do you? If your purpose is to break down barriers, you won't achieve it by telling yourself they're false, but by focusing on what is now, without definitions. You have to step out of the level of conceptual structure and get into the level of being without definition. Not easy because the structured level gives security to us, we are very addicted to it. If what you do is change "I am material" to "I am pure consciousness," you're still in the structured realm, only now you're thinking spiritual things. In the non structured level there aren't (as it's obvious) structures. Then any structure like, I'm god or consciousness or anything, is just an structure. I think it's quite simple