Moksha

They grow by absorption. Everything they touch gets assimilated, increasing their monstrosity: It's best to stay out of their way, warning others and cleaning up the slime trail in their (una)wake.

@Bazooka Jesus beat me to it. Nothing so direct as the language of silence. Sages say that the state in which the thought "I" does not rise even in the least, alone is Self which is silence. That silent Self alone is God; Self alone is the jiva. Self alone is this ancient world. All other knowledges are only petty and trivial knowledges; the experience of silence alone is the real and perfect knowledge. Know that the many objective differences are not real but are mere superimpositions on Self, which is the form of true knowledge.

By identifying as an I, which necessitates a comparison with apparent others.

Awakening is realization, and enlightenment is integration, which allows you to remain awake. You can awaken in an instant, and sink deeper into absolute realization the rest of your life. Purity isn't a prerequisite for awakening, but is the final form state within the dream.

Depersonalization is like a magician reaching into the hat and failing to find a rabbit, without realizing that he himself is part of the trick. It's confusing to the mind, and is the limit of its comprehension. Why did the illusion of individual existence suddenly stop working? The rabbit ego is nowhere to be found, but the dream still hasn't been dispelled. All the magician mind can do is dive head first into the hat, desperately trying to lose itself in the void of its unreality. Escape from the illusion requires direct realization. The curtain goes down for intermission, and the lights turn on. It is the grace of the absolute allowing itself to awaken, without losing awareness even as intermission ends and the act goes on.

Siddhartha wasn't a Buddhist, Vyasa wasn't a Hindu, and Jesus wasn't a Christian. The inward journey requires surrendering all beliefs, to become small enough to pass through the gate of the absolute. Only then will you directly realize god.

Growing from identification as a separate ego to identification as a cosmic ego is a monstrously impressive feat. Reminds me of playing D&D as a kid, and my eyes widening in horror as little slimes merged together into a giant GELATINOUS CUBE (queue dramatic music). Note that gelatinous cubes have a high damage resistance to most attacks, and are immune to effects that rely on sight. The secret to dissolving them is raw elemental damage from a distance, to avoid being engulfed.

@Razard86 This is a decent map of unconditional love, worth pondering to get your bearings on the inward path. WARNING: Following this path can lead to losing yourself entirely: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

In the spiritual journey, you realize that conditions are the building blocks of the dream. We go through life constructing this Jenga fortress around ourselves, each block a belief that is handed to us by society or self-contrived. Conditions define us and create an increasingly desperate sense of separation. Eventually, the walls of the fortress become so thick that they entirely block us from the light of our true nature. We isolate our awareness from its source, entrapped within a prison of our own making. Awakening is the pausing of this process, where the absolute deeply realizes the reason for its suffering. It begins unbuilding its tower, plucking out conditions block by block. It is the inward journey of deconstruction, where beliefs are surrendered and the absolute begins to directly see itself. Chinks appear in the walls and pure light floods through, helping to dissolve remaining blocks. The prodigal son, which thought itself to be separate in its pursuit of phenomenal pleasure, is reunited with the father in the unconditional embrace of the absolute.

@CARDOZZO Spot on. As someone that has lived in judgment for decades, my advice is to let it go. It doesn't mean abandoning discretion on the relative level, only seeing deeply, beyond the illusion of separation. Judgment is suffering. It doesn't matter if you are comparing yourself to others, or if you are comparing yourself internally, to a contrived standard. Contrast is the illusion of separation, which only strengthens the ego. It entraps awareness within apparent boundaries, which causes conflict with itself. This clash happens regardless of whether you are judged to be higher than or lower than something else. The appearance of separation is unsettling, distracting, and enslaving. It is the opposite of unconditional love, which is our true nature. Learn not to judge, and you will be in the perpetual flow state of the absolute, even while still within its dream.

Awareness is the absolute focused internally. Experience is the absolute focused externally. The apparent shifting of focus between the external and the internal is the OM, or the birth and death of the cosmos.

No worries, you are still good medicine. Egos hate laughter almost as much as they hate being ignored.

If you're really that anxious to be admonished, I second the vote hereto submitted in this thread to promote Razard to the esteemed position of Moderator.

Renunciation is a path to awakening, but there are other paths equally as effective. The most direct is self-inquiry. What matters is finding the path that is right for you, and learning to enjoy the journey.

There are monks who spend their lives looking for, but never realizing, the absolute in caves. There are monks who realize the absolute, and leave their caves to help others realize the absolute. There are monks who realize the absolute, and still spend their lives in caves. Solution: Don't be a monk What the absolute chooses to do with its so-called time is entirely up to the absolute. When it has surfeited its journey in a particular form, after decades (lifetimes?) of action and service, why not enjoy the final moments of this form in the transient solitude of a cave?

I'm the guy at the back, preaching to an audience that has long since moved on.

When directly realized, the absolute is absolutely obvious. It's only when people remove themselves from the summit and try to make sense of their realization that they get confused.

If anything, I'm beyond-minded. As I said a while back, disagreeing with an ego only feeds it. I hope that the collective feedback you've received in this thread at some point in the future gives you pause for deeper contemplation. If not, that's ok too. We're still and always will be the same. For the sake of the absolute seeking itself in other apparent forms, I'll continue calling out ideas that don't resonate with direct realization.

Not all monks meditate in caves. The source in some is content to live in silence, but in others it engages in the awakening of itself. There is no deeper meditation than teaching, which cascades consciousness.

Didn't we just agree that the absolute is beyond logic? Who is the reincarnated know-it-all that you call you? @CARDOZZO

The mystery of god is the paradox beyond everything and nothing. Logic melts in the furnace of the absolute. It's good to see you aren't stabbing people with a stick that you call logic any more, but realize that laying down the logic stick means no longer using it as a weapon to enforce your idea of what is real. Let's agree that the absolute is beyond logic. You're correct that the unveiled absolute is attributeless. It has no qualia. This is why mystics use the "beyond" pointer. Absolute reality is veiled within the qualia of its imagination, but its unveiled essence is beyond qualia. You're incorrect that the unveiled absolute "becomes" aware. It doesn't become anything, its essence is awareness.

Awareness is aware. It doesn't require the illusion of the ego for verification.

For someone that touts logic as the be-all-end-all, your statement is devoid of logic. By definition, the absence of appearance can't be the same as appearance. "If it wasn't, time and space, and destination would be REAL!!!" Again, illogical. If time, space, and destination are not real then there must be an underlying reality that is beyond the appearance of time, space, and destination. You are conflating reality with unreality. "The ego cannot be separated from the dream itself. To not embrace the ego is to deny WHAT IS!!!!" Dude, in all sincerity you continually confuse yourself. Take a step back and look at what you are writing. To not embrace the ego is to realize WHAT IS, beyond the illusion of the cosmos. Ego is the LIE that the absolute is only its creation. It is complete IDENTIFICATION with maya, and is DELUSION. You speak about direct realization, but it's clear you don't understand what is meant by mystics. You have to let go of the ego entirely, and realize god. "A complete embrace of ALL that is, with NO RESISTANCE is the only true measure of Self-Love." See my signature. The only way to navigate the cosmos without resistance is to realize your absolute nature, beyond the cosmos. Identification with the cosmos is entrapping, suffering, and quintessentially egoic. "The only true truth, is that TRUE LOVE, TRUE INTELLIGENCE HAS NO BIAS!!! NONE whatsoever!!! Period!!!" Having no bias only becomes possible when you realize your absolute nature, beyond any particular perspective. It is being lucid within the dream, without losing your absolute awareness in the experience.

Equality is a dualistic idea, suggesting that one thing is the same as another. When the appearance of separation between things dissolves, there is no equality, just seamless source.

You have it backwards. Beyond is absolute reality in the absence of appearance. It is the changeless beneath the cosmos of change. It is timeless unattachment from appearance. When mystics use the pointer "beyond", we are looking at absolute reality beyond the seemingness of creation, separation, and change. It is simply a map to the unveiled absolute reality, which is within its apparent dream, but in truth is beyond its dream. Existence is only the apparent string of jewels hanging from the neck of the absolute. It is beyond its necklace. You say the right words about direct experience, but then proceed to contradict yourself. Enlightenment is not embracing the ego. Is this why the word beyond seems so triggering for you? If the absolute is beyond the ego, and its entire cosmos, what does that imply about your identity?