Moksha

Enlightenment is so rare, and life so short, why would you jump off just as the wave crests? The dissolving of the wave will come soon enough. If you are fortunate enough to realize your ultimate nature, celebrate the peak state of surfing the cosmos as long as you can, before returning to the ocean of yourself.

?Realizing that you are not caught in a tidal storm of fears and desires, but can sink below the surface into the serenity of yourself, is ultimate freedom. You learn to let go, even of the remorse that you didn't see this earlier and could have avoided so much suffering for yourself and others. Regrets are replaced by profound humility and gratitude. You see that even this submission is an egoic act, which perpetuates the illusion of separation, but allow it anyway in order to continue celebrating the dream. You treasure this so deeply that you clearly see the shenanigans of the ego which fooled you for so long, including its attempt to take credit for this state, as if it had anything to do with it.

The surest sign a person isn't enlightened is any "should" behavior. When I started losing my identity, my biggest fear was that in the process I would lose morality. If everything in the cosmos is an illusion, wouldn't that include rules about how a person should behave? Then I realized that the light within which is your ultimate nature is inherently divine. It is unconditional love. By living in alignment with yourself, you are beyond the need for shoulds.

I scored 8, which according to the graph just means I'm old

It's called righteous indignation And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves.

@mac99 ?

The more enlightened you are, the less you judge the experiences of life. You realize that judgment creates dualities of good and evil, and is the source of suffering. Life itself is an incredible gift in a cosmos that is almost entirely devoid of it. The energy of even an insult is as spectacular as a supernova. What else in the universe can claim to have experienced it? You don’t have to be a slave to the judgmental mind. Why not let the energy of the experience pass through you and cherish the phenomenal rush? Soon enough, you will be dead and beyond the lessons life has offered you. Honor each experience without labeling it, and you will be free to love and live unconditionally.

@Leo Gura I agree. Spiritual seekers sometimes believe that if they can just realize the right insight (no-self, the sameness of all beings, etc.) their lives will magically be transformed and they will no longer suffer. It doesn't work like that. Awakening is not about pursuing insights. It is aligning your awareness with your ultimate nature. When that happens, it's like Indiana Jones placing the Staff of Ra in the direct path of the sun: The light floods through you, and it dissolves you into divinity. Enlightenment is about developing the capacity to remain aligned, so the light continuously flows, regardless of the apparent storm clouds looming on the horizon.

When someone asks a question like, "Am I creating the person (or the version of the person) answering to this post or did and does the person already exist independently from me?" it is important to clarify what is meant by "I". If you are referring to the person that wrote this post, of course you didn't create everyone else in the universe. Believing that is classic solipsism. If you are referring to your ultimate nature as God/Consciousness/Brahman, you created everyone in the cosmos including the person writing your post. Then again, the same is true for the ultimate nature of every other entity. My ultimate nature is identical to yours, but our avatars are entirely different. We appear as separate waves, but are the same ocean.

We agree that insights aren't enough for enlightenment. The work of deconstructing the personality, with its highly charged aversions and desires, still has to be done. I don't underestimate psychedelics. I feel they have a place in spiritual development, for people that aren't precluded from using them for health reasons (psychotic disorders, manic bipolar disorder, etc.). However, I don't feel they are necessary for enlightenment. When you have awoken, it is less about chasing insights than about developing the humility and integrity to stay awake. The ravenous desire for deeper insights can actually become an attachment that hinders spiritual growth.

I agree that suffering can be eradicated, but don't believe psychedelic insights are sufficient to accomplish that. You can have increasingly profound realizations, but when the drug wears off the realizations become just another contrived memory. The key to ending suffering is learning to flow in this moment, rather than depending on a transient catalyst like psychedelics to flow for you. It cannot teach you wisdom and discipline. Enlightenment is the perpetual state of being, without requiring an external stimulus to take you there.

You answered your own question There are billions of people on just this planet, and not one of them has a mind like anyone else. Life delivers a plethora of experiences that uniquely shape the desires and aversions of each personality. One person may value privacy deeply, to the point of closing all the shutters in their house, while another person opens every window and complains when a shade is stuck. The hilarious reality is that regardless of each person's preference, the universe goes on doing its thing. No matter how much you complain about rain ruining the picnic where you planned to propose, you can't control the weather. Even when you have been meditating every day, and realizing profound insights. The true realization is that trying to force the universe to comply with your desires is the source of all suffering. It doesn't mean becoming a robot. To the contrary, it liberates you to live life fully. You celebrate whatever is happening in this moment, and realize what an amazing gift it is to experience shapes, colors, and sensations despite 99.999% of the universe being entirely empty. Why is it that most people have to come to the razor's edge of death before realizing how precious every moment of life actually is? Take whatever the universe offers you, and be deeply humble and grateful for it. It aligns you with your ultimate nature, and light flows through you beyond what you imagined was possible. An inspiring example of someone who understands this. Roland Griffiths is a psychopharmacologist and professor at Johns Hopkins. He has practiced meditation for decades, and his career has focused on psychedelics and meditation as catalysts for pragmatic spirituality. A year ago, he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Rather than sending his spiritual practice into shambles, the news deepened him. Shock and terror were transmuted into gratitude.

Animals don't cling to pains from the past or worry about being hurt in the future. They are not bound by the self-built prison of samskaras. Suffering is the result of trying to force the universe to comply with your desires, and complaining when it doesn't. Animals experience pain and pleasure, but because they aren't attached to experiences, they don't suffer. As humans we have the disability to suffer, and the superability to rise above suffering by realizing our true nature. It is the curse and gift of evolution. We are the most miserable of creatures before awakening, and the most joyous after. I agree with you that thinking is not inherently harmful. To the contrary, the brain is absolutely brilliant and can increase the quality and longevity of our lives. This power is harnessed when you are at the helm of your thoughts, rather than at their mercy. Research supports the ability of psychedelics to increase the plasticity of the mind. It has enormous potential for treating mental disorders like severe anxiety, depression, and PTSD. It also provides a framework for enhancing the quality of life in general. I am not anti-psychedelics. I believe that psychedelics alone cannot develop the wisdom and discipline necessary for enlightenment and the end of suffering. As Ram Dass said, it is the difference between seeing God in a psychedelic vision and being God by developing unconditional love.

Learn not to mind what happens. Instead of insisting that the universe molds itself to your intentions, mold yourself to the intentions of the universe and it will show you who you are.

A newborn child has no conceptual fears, only what it is biologically programmed to fear. It is entirely present, rather than clinging to conditioned memories of desires and aversions. Over the course of our lives we construct countless samskaras, or mental impressions, in an attempt to preserve experiences which seem to have kept us safe in the past, and to avoid experiences which seem to have threatened us. It is all meaningless clutter which has no bearing on what is actually happening in this moment, and sabotages our ability to see. Until we deal with the detritus we have collected over the years, by realizing that it is neither helpful nor defining, we will continue being a slave in the prison of our own making. The mind is a beautiful but stubborn beast. Often it requires tremendous suffering before it finally relents to being tamed. Meditation has tremendous power to help you realize your true nature, and the transience of thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Psychedelics can drastically amplify your insights, and provide a forum for applying the discipline developed in meditation. Still, when the effects wear off you are left with the conceptual hoard that was there before you took them. Suffering returns, and will continue to torment you until you develop the capacity to remain awake regardless of, and more profoundly because of, the tidal waves life sends at you.

What is the difference between being childish and child-like? A lifetime of suffering seen clearly. The child is like an animal, able to experience life directly but still naïve. Wisdom only arises after losing yourself in the torment of the mind, and emerging on the other side. You still see clearly like a child, but the lessons of your suffering take you deeply into realizing God within. Psychedelics are not necessary for enlightenment. They can provide poignant insights into your true nature, but when they wear off you still have to do the spiritual work of disintegrating the psyche. Psychedelics alone will not dissolve attachment to aversions and desires. As Ram Dass put it: I had thought of psychedelics as a spiritual path, and now he was pulling that conceptual rug out from under me. From the place of oneness where Maharaj-ji sits, psychedelics are just a fragmentary shard of a vastly deeper reality. He showed me they are a limited window, all the while reflecting back to me the deeper place of love within myself… These medicines were known in the Kulu Valley long ago," he said, "but yogis have forgotten about them." He said psychedelics could be useful if you took them in a quiet, cold place and your soul was turned toward God. "They allow you to come into the presence of Christ, to have darshan, but you can only stay for two hours." It was good to visit Christ, Maraj-ji said, but it was better to be Christ. "This medicine won't do that," he continued. "It's not the true samadhi, absorption in God. Love is a much stronger medicine."

All words run away in fear, including "Infinite", "Loving" or "Absolute". It is indescribable. All that is ever here is THIS, but it can directly reveal itself to itself, and it does so to different degrees within the dream. How is anyone's guess, and only a fool would try to comprehend it. What you have realized is still within the dream, and may or may not be all that you will realize. As much as God has realized itself within me, it goes deeper still. If you believe you have realized everything...⚡

You believe that I believe We agree on the emptiness of beliefs. Some read "The entire universe is suspended from me as my necklace of jewels" and create a belief based on these words. Others directly realize the meaning beyond the words. Within the dream there are deeper levels of realization. Then again, it is just a dream. The more lucid you are, the flimsier the dream (including you) becomes.

The suchness-nowness-presence-awareness (I'll call it God) that you realize in meditation is God, but not all God is in your realization. Not all God is even within the cosmos. The cosmos comes and goes as an expression of God, but God still is. More words, but maybe the meaning will resonate with you: There is nothing that exists separate from me, Arjuna. The entire universe is suspended from me as my necklace of jewels. - Bhagavad Gita 7:8-11

All beliefs are delusions. There is only direct realization. I can tell you that I see the sameness in everything, but at best it is a pointer and at worst it will mislead you from yourself. Teachings are scribbles on the map, and should be taken with an ocean's worth of salt. They are not the territory.

Enlightenment isn't the end of desire. It is the end of identification with desire. When you are lucid within the dream, you no longer seek external fulfillment. Your true nature is Self-sufficient. Nothing can threaten you. You still enjoy sensations, but no longer take the tiny planet you're living on so seriously. As Krishnamurti said when asked about enlightenment: I don’t mind what happens. That is the essence of inner freedom. It is a timeless spiritual truth: release attachment to outcomes. Equanimity is rare, but so is enlightenment. God prefers a gradual spiritual path for the vast majority of its avatars. People call themselves enlightened without understanding what it means. It is not a belief or an insight. It is God seeing clearly, within its dream. On solipsism, I was referring to the traditional definition. If you define solipsism as the mind of God, of course it's true. Most people don't mean that though. They only realize God within their avatar, without realizing the entirety of God throughout and beyond the cosmos. Seamless seeing is not a conceptualization. It is a direct realization. They see the same Self in a spiritual aspirant and an outcaste, in an elephant, a cow, and a dog. - Bhagavad Gita 5:18

Awakening is easy, as long as you have no preferences. If you want to test whether you are awake, honestly assess whether there are any desires or fears in your life. If you cling to any pleasure, however small, or resist any pain, however great, you aren't fully awake. People claim they want to realize God, but they are fooling themselves. God isn't getting what you want, and avoiding what you hate. Equanimity is the litmus test of enlightenment. Whatever is occurring in this moment is precisely what you are giving yourself, as God. It doesn't mean being a doormat for life, but denying reality is the definition of insanity, and the opposite of enlightenment. When you don't mind anything, and allow the experiences of life to flow through you freely, you see with clear eyes. The forms of snake, sunset, Trump, Jesus, enemy, and friend dissolve and you realize the same God within and beyond them all. Solipsism is a narcissistic half-truth, which is blind to the ubiquity of God.

Self-affirmations can help in the doing dimension of life, but they are still conceptual in nature. Reprogramming the mind is more about letting go of thoughts and feelings entirely. Instead of resisting or clinging to them, which only crystallizes them within your psyche, allow their underlying energy to freely flow through you. This cleanses your conditioned mind, disssolving its attachments and aversions. It is healing and restores your mind to its original spacious state. There are no more barriers to the Consciousness within, and it is free to shine its light and love through you.

Most people are unconscious, and you might say demons are anti-conscious. Such stubborn Self-denial ?

The more Self-aware you become, the less society frustrates you. You realize that they are you, and you are them. Love is liberating.