Moksha

Maybe it depends how you define awakening. I see awakening as realizing that you are not your conditioned mind, and the eventual dissolving of attachments and ego. Since attachments and ego are the source of most human suffering, awakening leads to the end of suffering. I think I understand your point. For example, a devout Christian that believes Jesus has saved them from sin and that they will live in heavenly bliss for eternity with their loved ones is in for some disappointment. But I don't see that as awakening; it's more pre-awakening where we begin divesting ourselves from false beliefs, but haven't yet realized who we actually are.

The Universe is cheering you on

Whether or not you want someone to awaken is irrelevant. People only awaken when they're ready. Like it says in "A Course in Miracles": Perhaps you have it backwards. Suffering doesn't result from awakening, but awakening results from suffering. I'm a Matrix fan and I get the allusion to the red vs. blue pill, but that's not what awakening really is. Awakening is the disidentification from your conditioned mind, and the realization of the Self.

Logically, it's impossible to prove a negative. You can never prove that something is not, only that it is. Phenomenally, you can know facts within the prescribed scope of those facts. For example, you can know that 2+2=4 given the rules of mathematics, but your knowledge is relative to those rules. Philosophically, consciousness is self-aware. It recognizes itself and knows itself because it is itself.

@Someone here Enlightenment is an ever-deepening state of awareness. Very few realize samadhi perpetually. It can come and go. Once it is experienced as a permanent state, sada, the master is in complete spiritual freedom. You've expressed that you don't accept spiritual wisdom outside of your own experience, but this says it better than I can: It's not that you start loving disgusting stuff. You still see all of the ugliness and unconsciousness of the world. But your mind's flame is no longer shaken by it. Love is absolute. The Self is absolute. But for most of us the relationship with Love and the Self is ephemeral. Once we have broken all attachments of the conditioned mind, relinquished all aversions and desires, and surrendered ourselves fully to the Self that is the present moment, we attain nirvana, or the state of abiding joy and peace. You only need a taste of this state to want more of it. It's like eating substantial food or drinking clear water for the first time. You realize that you've been subsisting on junk food up to that point.

@Someone here Emptiness is no-thing. Intelligence is no-thing. Love is no-thing. Creativity is no-thing. Awareness is no-thing.

You seem to accept this teaching as valid, while eschewing the other teachings of the masters. If all things are one, wouldn't their other teachings also be true? Emptiness is translated as spaciousness. And while it is no-thing, it enables all-things. Here's one of my favorite passages on the utility of spaciousness:

@Someone here Is God ego? Evil? Illusion? Do Jesus or Buddha possess any of these qualities? Isn't enlightenment the process of disidentifying from illusion? What do you think this means?

Lol, so there are just two stars multiplied by infinity

Tell that to the spiritual masters It is not a denial of suffering, but rather a transcendence. Do you know anyone that has been diagnosed with a terminal illness? Sometimes, rather than depressing people, a death sentence sets them free. They see the world with new eyes. Every breath becomes a gift. True joy, humility, and appreciation for the life they have left. They aren't fooling themselves by denying that death is at their doorstep; to the contrary, the imminence of their demise is the key that unlocks their prison.

Interesting study on the illusion of free will:

Yes, if you believe Jesus, Buddha, Laozi, Krishna, or anyone else that describes the realization of enlightenment. But ultimately you won't know the answer until you experience it for yourself. Suffering is the path to infinite peace and happiness. Have you suffered enough yet? The mind asks a lot of questions, but it has no real answers. When you still the mind, even for a moment, what happens then? I remember sleeping under the stars as a kid, and just looking up at the night sky without any thoughts going through my head. I felt awed, humbled, connected...but none of those words were in my head. It just was. That's what awakening feels like. It's not something you can logic your way into. It literally is the state of no-mind, being alive awareness. When Jesus talked about everlasting life, he wasn't referring to living in the clouds with a bearded white god for eternity. He said the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. Another way of saying it is, "the Dimension of Spaciousness is within us". It is "no-thing", but it is lively and infinitely abundant.

Beautiful, thank you.

Yes. All I can tell you is that enlightenment, as I experience it and as it has been described by others, is more than a conceptual recognition of emptiness. There is a sense to spaciousness that is infinitely deeper than the human mind can comprehend. It is the Source that ultimately connects all of us, and that connection is love. I don't find it coincidental that Buddha and Jesus use words like peace, abundance, and joy to describe enlightenment. Rather than dismissing them as illusions, perhaps their experience can be a pointer for your own.

Awesome. This is my experience as well. I see all of these posts about nihilism and solipsism and the ultimate emptiness of everything, and it makes me wonder if some have truly freed themselves from the conditioned mind. It feels like a thought trap more than an awakening. My own experience is what you describe: awareness, wisdom, peace, connectedness, and joy...nonconceptual and undeniable. If you're using the mind to understand infinity, you're running on a hamster wheel trapped inside a conceptual cage.

@Someone here I hear you, and I understand. What I'm asking is, how did you arrive at this conclusion in the first place? At some point in your life, you encountered the idea and you began exploring it. Where do you think the idea that Awareness is all there is came from? Do you believe that the Awareness that is behind my human form typing these words exists? If so, do you believe the Awareness that was behind Buddha's words exists? If so, how do you reconcile that my experience of Awareness and the Buddha's experience of Awareness don't match your own experience of Awareness?

Which is why Buddha described enlightenment as "no mind". You seem to accept this part of Buddha's teaching, while ignoring the part about enlightenment being inseparable from joy. Either Buddha was a real person or he wasn't. Either his teachings reflect ultimate reality or they don't. If everything is an illusion, the teachings you're using to draw that conclusion are themselves an illusion. So why accept them in the first place?

If you are the only one that exists who are you talking to? Am I a thought form you have created as well? People paint themselves into a conceptual corner with this stuff. It makes no sense to apply the teachings of Buddha to your life in order to draw conclusions about your existence, only to deny that Buddha and his teachings are anything but your own creation.

Do you believe others have reached enlightenment? If so, do you believe they were nihilistic and solipsistic?

Sounds very conceptual. Do you really believe Buddha and everyone else on the planet is a figment of your imagination? If so why are you even following the teachings of Buddha? You quote platitudes like "that which is empty but is ever-present" but where did those words come from and why do you believe them?

The only truth that matters is your own. That said, if your truth contradicts the collective wisdom of thousands of years from people that have achieved enlightenment like the Buddha and Jesus, it may be worth considering whether your truth is subject to growth.

Enlightenment isn't emotionless. Both Eastern and Western wisdom teach that enlightenment equates with peace and joy: “When you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you live in the wisdom of the Self.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:64) "Let us live most happily, possessing nothing; let us feed on joy, like radiant gods." (Dhammapada 15.4) "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23) When asked to sum up his life “in twenty-five words or less”, Ghandi replied, “I can do it in three!” and quoted the Isha Upanishad: “Renounce and enjoy.”

People can experience Source, because they are Source. But as long as we're living in the horizontal dimension of form, we're still bound to it. The human brain is an amazing instrument, but it's still just flesh. We can receive creativity and intelligence from the infinite Source within us, but not in the infinite way you describe. If such a thing is possible, it would have to be outside the constraints of form. ImHO

Sadly, conservative politics has devolved into nothing more than fantasy ego trips like this commercial exemplifies. Not a single mention of a policy to improve Texas in the entire ad. As a Texan, I'm hopeful that one day sanity will return to our state. The tide is shifting, but I don't think we're there yet.

Gotcha. I'm hard pressed to think of a case where arguing spirituality positively changed someone. Real change only comes from within.