Moksha

@allislove Enlightenment is a fiery love bomb?

Consider that memory is a concept of a concept. It is a form experience of a form experience. A dream within a dream.

James 2: There is wisdom in the bible, as there is wisdom in other scriptures. God wakes you up, and then God works through you. God is you. That is the true message, not only of Christianity, but of Eastern religions too.

Yes, maybe. If he is in heaven now, the names don't matter.

God is you, experiencing itself in the light, the plants, and everything else. When you wake up, you directly realize yourself and everything else as God. You don't have to block the mind, because you no longer identify with it, any more than you identify with your body. Your personality and physicality lose opacity. They become mostly, but not completely, transparent. Ego is only what is unreal. God is in us, in the Gita, and in everything else. Ego is in us, in the Gita, and in everything else. You just need to realize God, and discard the rest. God cannot be apprehended with the senses, but it still resonates spiritually, because it is the only real part of you.

@Breakingthewall The more you catch your ego in its shenanigans, the better you get at it. You develop a strong sense for its stench. You also realize that the ego is tricky as fuck, and will wait patiently for what seems like forever, until slipping out of the shadows to stab you in the back. I try never to take it for granted, and it still catches me sometimes. To answer your question, yes. It is a spiritual awakening that you cannot deny. I feel connected to it, almost all of the time. But not always, damnit.

@jim123 When Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is within, and could not be found here or there, he was pointing at the present moment. You don't have to die in order to experience heaven.

I still feel physical pain. As long as we are in the form, pain is unavoidable. Psychological suffering is different from that, and is avoidable. And yes, most of us still have some ego. Just because you wake up doesn't mean you permanently dissolve the egoic self. It takes time. My barometer is my current level of suffering. Most things no longer bother me. Death still scares me, but not as much as it used to.

Thanks man. I didn't foresee it. Maybe you are already awake, but if not, I hope the same for you.

Divergence is the dream. There is only Consciousness. In the dream, we think the past and future exist, but they don't. Please point to something in the past, or in the future. You can't, because they are only concepts. The only reality is timeless, and it always is.

That is a good way of looking at it. Acceptance of isness is the pathway to Self-realization. We get ourselves into trouble when we allow our minds to dwell on the past, or worry about the future. Awareness in the present moment creates the space for you to realize who you are. When you directly realize yourself as Consciousness, and resonate with the same Consciousness in every other person and thing, you are love.

@Gesundheit It's been interesting. I was spiritual at a young age, and into adulthood. Then, as a trained scientist, I refused any idea that wasn't empirically grounded. I took the red pill, and preferred stark materialism to illusory bliss. Now, I find myself a spiritual scientist. It makes me laugh. I insist on integrity, but that same integrity requires me to open my mind, even to the point of moving beyond it. I accept the reality of my direct experience, which I can only call spiritual. I still care deeply about truth, but I realize that spiritual truth is the only truth that is unassailable. Ultimately, truth and wisdom converge into the same singularity. If you have experienced truth directly, you know what I am talking about. The mind has no choice but to challenge it, because it is biologically and environmentally conditioned to do so. It is a stunning realization when you directly understand that you are not your mind. Suddenly, you see that the holy grail of freedom, peace, and love was inside of you the whole time. Consciousness becomes more than an abstract concept. It is this volcano of living lava that used to be dormant, but is erupting inside of you. It takes courage and focused intent to burn away the karma, but it is infinitely better than being trapped in the hell of your conditioned mind.

When you dream of standing with another person under a tree, does your dream self think the dream tree and the other person is real? We are the same Consciousness, dreaming about forms that share experiences with other forms.

Relative reality is another term for illusion. Ultimate reality is Consciousness. Everything else is just the dream world of form.

@snowyowl Good questions. Resistance is the result of not understanding reality. You believe that you can change what is, when you can't. What is, already is. What is the point of denying what is? It only creates unnecessary suffering. The reason people are unhappy is that they look for happiness in the impermanent. It is always around the next bend. The conditioned mind continues to chase, and chase, and chase without realizing there is no prize out there. It is only in here. That is the wisdom of the bodhisattvas. Clinging and rejecting are two ends of the same stick. People do it because they misidentify with their mind, which is pulled by dualities. When they wake up and realize themselves as Consciousness, they see these things for what they are. They are centered in themselves. Their happiness arises from Consciousness itself, which is the only reality, and which never changes. That doesn't mean we can't change our life situation. It just means we act Consciously, rather than unconsciously. If a woman is in an abusive relationship, she has to first recognize the relationship for what it is, before she can get out of it. The more Conscious she is, the more empowered she will be.

That is to say, we can describe the dream. Try explaining reality. Consciousness defies explanation, and can only be directly realized.

Consciousness can only be lost in the sense that it is hiding from itself. It is never really lost

@mandyjw The thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and -- oh my God! -- it's full of stars!

Maybe his manifestation was to be in the camp, until he no longer needed to be in the camp. Consciousness is absurd that way. Why the hell did we even choose hell in the first place?

Because the brain is the radio Consciousness is using to play in the dream.

@mandyjw Spiritual Thanksgiving! Count me in. ?

So true. This is why people that wake up, whether through psychedelics or through some other means, still have to do the spiritual work of integrating. It is more than just a realization of yourself as Consciousness. It becomes a practice of staying Conscious, and allowing the light to dissolve the attractions of duality. Wisdom is the primal force that keeps you centered in Consciousness, free from the pull of the conditioned mind.

One of my earliest and favorite books, along with Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Thing is, Frankl still had to survive the concentration camp. His suffering dissolved his ego, and he fully accepted the present moment, without giving up hope. He was Conscious, even in the camp, but he wasn't able to manifest himself out of the camp. Maybe the manifestation happened after his rescue, when he wrote the book. I guess the point is that we can, as Consciousness, suggest manifestations to ourselves, but ultimately, things happen as they must.

@Breakingthewall The ego eats itself to death, without realizing it. It thrives on suffering, but eventually, the suffering becomes so large that the ego suffocates. It's a normal curve. The challenge is that most people only experience the first part of the suffering curve, before they physically die. I approach the mirror, My image looming, I enter the mirror, My image merging, I leave the mirror, My image diminishing, I abandon the mirror, My image dissolving.

Time is an illusion, like every other form in the dream world. The only reality is Consciousness. But we do love to dream