Moksha

The absolute is beyond duality, despite the appearance and disappearance of the dream within it.

Or another way of putting it, the cosmos comes and goes, but the unmanifested is beyond the form and formless states. The mystics rarely go to this level, but for example: This multitude of beings is created and destroyed again and again in the succeeding days and nights of Brahma. But beyond this formless state there is another, unmanifested reality, which is eternal and is not dissolved when the cosmos is destroyed.

As I see it, absolute reality is within everythingness (the cosmos) and nothingness (the void, or infinite potential). However, the cosmos and the void themselves are extreme dualities of the dream. The absolute is beyond the dream. It is beyond existence/nonexistence, beyond form/formless, and beyond imagination/emptiness. It is incomprehensible, indescribable, and nameless and it is the absolute essence of it all. It has aspects (love, seamlessness, immutability, timelessness) but it is beyond attributes.

Absolute reality beyond the dream is stateless, changeless, seamless, and timeless.

Only on the surface. We have disagreed from time to time, and Leo has fired a few shots, but deep down he knows his own demons and respects sincerity.

Theories are useless for solving suffering. To be of any use, the knowledge has to be direct. Find a way to keep the window open (meditation, contemplation, self-inquiry, or whatever creates space from your mind), and the clouds will eventually clear enough for you to see the sun.

Objectively, there's unquestionably a difference but who is in a position to judge the suffering of one person vs. another? There are people living in mud huts in Kenya who are more happy, more fulfilled, and more engaged in life than some of the richest people in America who are miserable with ego-entitlement. I'm just not a fan of judgment in general. It tends to reinforce egoic boundaries, rather than dissolving them.

Mental illness and disability are hardly an easy path. Even with someone you know intimately, it's foolhardy to compare paths. Spirituality is always an individual journey, and the less judgment of others, the more awareness you can focus on clearly navigating your own path. Not that I'm judging your judgment

It's true you can't control destiny at the individual level, but you can learn to control whether or not you resist what happens. In the absence of judgment, it is all just energy flowing through you. In that way you can choose to be free.

I hated having roommates when I was younger, but there was no choice. Eventually I reached the point where I could afford to live on my own. You will too, but you may have to pay the price of losing privacy for a while. Look at it as a spiritual practice. If you leverage it, you can learn to let it flow through you without suffering, and expand the lesson to other areas of your life. Millions (billions?) of people on the planet are in the same situation, and they make it work. ChatGPT to the rescue: A 2020 report by the National Multifamily Housing Council found that 32% of renters lived with roommates. In other countries, such as in Europe, living with roommates is also a common practice among young adults, especially in urban areas where housing costs can be high. Overall, while we do not have an exact number for how many people on the planet have roommates, it is safe to say that living with roommates is a common practice in many parts of the world.

@Yimpa ⚡There's nothing like unsuffering love.

Well said. You are the universe, shaping yourself to realize yourself.

Relationships can create diamonds out of coal if you allow them to unshape you unconditionally.

Absolute reality is unconditional awareness, beyond states and statelessness. Maybe Ralston defines enlightenment differently, but I see it as the process of the absolute realizing itself within its dream. Because it is a process, with an apparent beginning and ending, it cannot be intransient.

Awareness turned outward is imagination. Awareness turned inward is enlightenment. Desire determines the direction.

Allurement is egoic. It dissolves boundaries by consumption, rather than by realization, and is the opposite of love.

I'm 100% confident not only that it exists within the dream, but that stillness, detachment, and uninvolvement are synonyms for love. I understand words aren't helping here, so will be still.

Time, space, and matter are only relatively real. They morph based on the perception of the observer. Absolute reality is immutable.

@Squeekytoy Defeating the hydra isn't about heroic effort, which only exhausts you, but about realizing that the hydra is only the shadow of the mind. The more you engage with it, the larger it looms. Instead of sparring with it, focus your awareness on the light, and the shadow falls behind.

To your essence ?

Not only is enlightenment a state, but there are infinite cities within it. Just because it borders the coast doesn't make it any more the ocean than Iowa is.

It's not surprising somebody would take what I shared and try to use it against me. Almost thou persuadeth me to be offended

People sometimes get confused about emptiness. It's not the absence of reality, but the absence of unreality. The enlightened being isn't sitting there in solipsistic solitude, it is seamlessly chilling with its friends.

Not to reinforce your Buddha accusations, but funny thing about names... The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

?? Which came first? Love and detaching from desire leads to enlightenment, which leads to love and detaching from desire. Light resonates with light.