Moksha

?It's easy to underestimate the cost of surrendering to the glory of the absolute. People naturally want an easy awakening, but eventually realize that this is naïve. The absolute is such pure love that only the unconditional descent into the darkness leads into its light. It wrings every drop of ego from the sponge, but replenishes it to overflowing with the water of life. Dissolving identification with the mind doesn't require releasing the person entirely. Instead, it is transfigured into a steed, which takes you to the tallest peaks and the deepest depths within the dream.

Great insights above, I will just note that you get what you pay for. Psychedelics are dynamite to the conceptual mind, and can reveal the wizard behind the curtain. The challenge is integrating those realizations into your daily life. You aren't likely to become enlightened through psychedelics alone. The price of admission to the absolute still has to be paid. The mind is constantly grasping for meaning, without understanding that the answer is already within. There are various ways to tame it (suffering, contemplation, meditation) but until then you will lose God as quickly as you find it. You don't have to wrangle the mind to the ground like a wild bull, just quietly approach without identifying with it. The light of the absolute is all the meaning it needs.

?

The absolute isn't usable by anything. Any so-called absolute that is addictive is not the absolute. The essence of the relative is the absolute, in disguise. When the absolute realizes itself within the relative, the form becomes "enlightened" and lives lucidly, but the form is still tenuously bound within the dream until it entirely dissolves. In reality, the absolute never actually changes. It is resistance (or clinging) to events which creates energy blockages. Energy has to flow through the form for it to be free. When the absolute awakens, its light begins to dissolve these blockages, until the energy is finally released. Nothing needs to be understood or intentionally unblocked, it happens spontaneously and naturally like the sun dispelling clouds from the sky.

Forget what teachers say, regardless of their conceptual framework (Nondual, Christian, whatever), and look inside yourself for the answer. Sorry if it sounds cryptic, but the absolute within already realizes the answer to your question, if only the mind will stop grappling with it.

Give it some time, most of my life wasn't even lucid After awakening, I began meditating and have found it to be enormously helpful in stabilizing lucidity. I have meditated every day since then (over 2 years now), except for the nadir of DNOS, where I disengaged from everything except the escape of the relative. On the other side of darkness, the absolute has finally begun to realize stability. The mind is a coin sent spinning on the table of life, something like this: Before beginning, it is still in the hand of the absolute The absolute puts it in motion The mind is entirely self-engaged as it travels across the table Eventually, it begins to settle in one place High wobbling as it comes to term with not traveling Gradually less wobbling, and faster oscillations Harmony as it merges with the surface of being Snatched back by the hand that gave it life

True knowledge is direct and timeless. A priori and a posteriori knowledge only relate to the relative.

The form of the person is an energetic construction, but the essence is absolute. The form and all of its memories are not absolutely real. The more attention you invest into memories (past or future), the less lucid you are, and the more entrapped the absolute appears to be. It is not about forgetting memories, but about disidentifying from them. The more poignant a memory is (whether conscious or subconscious), the greater its gravitational pull on your attention. This attraction naturally attenuates the more deeply the absolute realizes itself. The light of your absolute nature effortlessly dissolves it all, except the minimum gravity necessary to continue navigating the dream.

Siddhis are often more a temptation to identify as a spiritual self, than they are a gift. I spread before your eyes, Nachiketa, The fulfillment of all worldly desires: Power to dominate the earth, delights Celestial gained through religious rites, Miraculous powers beyond time and space. These with will and wisdom have you renounced.

I absolutely agree

I agree. Even the spiritual journey can become an addiction if you let it. It usually takes time within the dream for the absolute to harmonize with the relative. As I found early on, rushing the process only leads to disorientation. As you approach equanimity, there is no need for an external guru. You are the sadguru.

Both + Beyond Both

You're welcome ? Anything can be a meditation object, even a pleasant sensation, but to me it seems not the most suitable. There is the risk of identifying with the sensation, and also every sensation is transient. Breathing and the inner body are always there, providing a more stable anchor for the mind. It creates the space for attending to the absolute, which is far deeper and more fulfilling than any sensation can be.

@Squeekytoy I'm not familiar with the semantic difference between inclusive and integrated views. To me they are the same, but probably it's a matter of definition. When every boundary dissolves, including the ultimate boundary between the cosmos and the void, there is only the absolute. It is all the absolute, regardless of apparent distinctions. The absolute is within every form of the cosmos, and it is within every potentiality of the void, but it is beyond both of these dualities. You have to wake up first, but lucidly navigating the dream requires perpetual awakening, or enlightenment. Instead of depending on external supports, whether psychedelics, teachings, or meditation, you are in the perpetual flow state of absolute expression. The deep realization of the absolute is entirely unconditional and sustaining.

@gettoefl Nice, you could also say: PM (past memories) - AM (anticipated memories) = FM (freedom from memories) People spend 99% of their lives clinging to memories, rather than flowing in the reality of now. Lose the memories and realize the timeless.

It is insane that people spend the vast majority of their lives suffocating inside of their heads. Lucid living is rare, but it is absolutely possible. The love and beauty only deepen over time, until time itself dissolves. Ego-death is different from person-death. Ego is not the person, but identification as the person. When you realize the absolute, the ego dissipates but the person remains. It is less substantial, needy, and complaining but it is still there, all the more precious for its obvious transience, and transparent enough for the absolute light within to shine through.

I try to stay with absolute insights rather than conjecture, but this is a pet topic (free will was the first post I created here), so here is a nutshell hybrid based on how I currently see it. Freedom correlates positively with absolute realization. As the absolute appears to move from misidentification to realization to unconditional changelessness, freedom increases. Absolute freedom is only expressed from absolute reality. Within the cosmos, at moderate levels of relative reality, there is no freedom. Everything is cause and effect, per Newton's model. None of us here is absolutely free, although awakening and enlightenment are relatively more free states. The thinner the self becomes, the more free the absolute is to express itself within the dream. Moving to the extremes of astrophysics and quantum physics, freedom is increasingly realized. The movement of a particle is no longer predictable, but the pattern of its collective expression is. Absolute freedom requires being entirely beyond the cosmos.

@Squeekytoy Nice insights. For me, perfect blindness includes seeing beyond all mental projections, whether from the misidentifications of your form or of others. The boundaries themselves dissolve into the deep beyond. Mental projections create apparent ripples in the fabric of relative reality. The third eye sees the illusory nature of the projections and the ripples, beyond the surface expression to the depthless silence that is the absolute. Another beautiful pointer from the Gita: Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise draw in their senses at will…Even of those who tread the path, the stormy senses can sweep off the mind. They live in wisdom who subdue their senses and keep their minds ever absorbed in me.

If you're seriously contemplating suicide, as @r0ckyreed said seek professional help. You aren't seeing clearly. Yes there are rare exceptions, for example euthanasia for people in extraordinary and inescapable pain. But the vast majority of suicides are people seeking escape from the demons of their mind, in the mistaken belief that their demons can't be dissolved. You created this form and its existence for a reason. Instead of tossing it aside, dive into it and realize the absolute love within that created this form in the first place.

Basically, yes. Realizing the absolute within goes beyond feeling and emptiness, but those are just pointers anyway. In meditation, you first realize what you are not (your thoughts, feelings, body, perceptions, etc.). It is a negative process of discarding the transient layers of the self. When the absolute within you is ready, it realizes itself. This is the positive process of being the infinite light of the absolute. Often it happens in meditation, but it happens through other practices too (contemplation, psychedelics, and my personal favorite - suffering). Regardless of the venue, the realization continually deepens within your existence until it is perpetual.

Just the opposite, it is seeing reality within the imagined. It resonates with the Tao Te Ching quote that @Squeekytoy shared yesterday, specifically "The wise alone are perfectly blind, seeing clearly into the distance." Perfectly blind refers to withdrawing from the senses, which is what is done in meditation. Seeing clearly is directly realizing the light within, which is your absolute nature, and observing the cosmos from the absolute perspective (which is unlimited). When the third eye opens, any observed form becomes surreally beautiful, with intricate details beyond what you could realize otherwise, but more deeply you see the essence of the form which resonates with the seamless essence within and beyond all forms. Boundaries dissolve.

The meditation object is mostly irrelevant. It is merely a focal point of attention, which allows you to be without phenomenal distractions (thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and sensations). You see them come and go in the periphery, but don't identify with them. For me, the meditation object is the inner body and I always meditate in silence. Guided meditation is only a distraction for my mind. When you do this, spaciousness expands within, making room for the light of the absolute to shine through. Sometimes entrapped energy (what I analogize as demons) will spontaneously arise from the subconscious into that space, and being the absolute you are present with it. No need to engage with it, just be unconditional love. The boundaries of the demon begin to dissolve, releasing its trapped energy back to the source. It is harmonizing and healing. For a meticulous guide to meditation, I recommend The Mind Illuminated by John Yates. It was quite helpful to me when I first started meditating.

Like an endless corridor of mirrors, all of which are only reflections of the absolute.

When I refer to the third eye, I'm not talking about siddhis. To me, phenomenal experiences like seeing moving images of light etc. are only a distraction. The third eye sees the seamless absolute within phenomena, and beyond phenomena. It is spiritual sight.

Great insight. Next: Realize even the insight never actually happened. (damn, so many emojis in me today)