Moksha

Don't worry, the punch will come soon enough and you'll be down and out.

Your therapist is right. Fighting fire with fire only feeds it. Dealing with thoughts requires being aware enough to observe their birth and death, without trying to save them. The more you practice this, the easier it becomes until you are keen enough to catch your mind in the moment it tries to slip away, and return your focus to the absolute. My surrender wasn't peaceful. It was desperate, pleading, and destitute. It has to go that deep in order to take you through the gate to yourself.

The irony of clutter is that it distracts rather than draws attention. A focal point becomes increasingly clear the more it is surrounded by space. It's true for art in an empty room, and equally true for single-pointed intent in a spacious mind.

Any sense of specialness, either as a teacher or as a follower, is a sure sign that you aren't awake. Realizing the awareness that underlies every appearance dissolves the idea of being a person, let alone the idea of being the most awake person on the planet. Specialness is the illusion of separation. People are special, but reality is not.

Once you reach this level, you realize the punch line to calling yourself the most awakened person on earth.

No doubt this is true for many self-proclaimed gurus. The irony is that the enlightened realize there's nothing to brag about. There is no superiority, only the absolute discovering itself in infinite ways. Unfortunately, admitting that doesn't drive sales. People only pay for something they don't believe they currently have.

@Yimpa Remaining aware is simple, but extremely difficult because of the deeply programmed needs we have for seeking external approval. This only further entraps us in misidentification, if we are unwilling to wean ourselves from it. It has value, but only to a point. The absolute walks a fine line in awakening to itself. In most forms, it is too mesmerized by its illusions to break free, without helping itself through other forms. It's a process of gradually developing deeper internal trust, until external inspiration is no longer necessary. At that point, the mirage separating the internal from the external dissolves.

Right, that's why I recommended he disregard the voices, except to the extent that they point him inward to his true nature. The focus is on unity of mind, informed by realization. People with serious mental conditions generally need professional support, ideally from someone that has awakened and integrated their insights, rather than cowboying it on their own. Biological and deeply seated psychological factors may be challenging, but it's remarkable how healing direct realization can be.

@OldManCorcoran Have you considered that awakening to absolute reality may have positive ramifications for relative reality? Psychedelics have shown promise for a variety of mental disorders, from PTSD to OCD and anxiety/depression. Certain psychological conditions aren't well-suited for the aggressive neuroplastic effects of psychedelics, but perhaps these conditions are amenable to a more natural, graduated spiritual approach. Spirituality, psychology, and physiology all derive from the same absolute reality. If someone hears disparate voices in his head, would it not be helpful to learn not to identify with these voices, but to directly realize their source?

It's funny...the times it happened were always involuntary and now that I no longer fear them, they're nowhere to be found. Cowards!

I would say mature love is allowing someone to be who they are, rather than manipulating them to fit your needs. On the absolute level, there is no maturity scale, only seamless sameness.

Spiritual entities, some visible and some not. It's all the same consciousness, just in different apparent forms and energetic frequencies. My suggestion to @Enlightement is that rather than focusing on the apparent differences, which aren't actually real, focus on the essential sameness.

@Sidra khan I wouldn't call it channeling, but have encountered spiritual forms. When you realize the deep sameness in everything, it's less scary.

The essence of this soul and of your soul is the same. Whatever it says is a distraction, unless it points inward to your sameness. Focus on realizing the absolute, which dissolves any apparent boundary between you and it.

Is it absolutist to realize the absolute?

The messenger is never relevant.

If wise words prove a person is enlightened, do unwise words prove the opposite? I suppose that's why silence is the purest pointer to the impersonal.

I discussed the necessity and risks of using words as pointers earlier. My point is that deepening your spirituality is about dissolving your mind habits. Clinging to your desires and fears only causes suffering. The more distracted you are by thoughts and feelings, the easier it is to become mesmerized by your imagination. If you want to remain unconditionally open to the reality of awareness, you have to develop the spiritual maturity to disregard thoughts and feelings as being unreal.

You can have a sense of "I" through the portal of the form, without identifying with it. You still see the shoes and put them on, but you remain aware that the shoes and the person wearing them aren't absolutely real.

Overall I agree. For me it happened without psychedelics, and I'm still not convinced psychedelics will allow you to be perpetually open. Maybe they are a starting point, but you still have to develop the astutetness while sober to immediately recognize and dismiss thoughts and emotions as distractions, while remaining anchored in awareness. It's so easy to fall back into misidentification by pursuing the "extremely interesting". That only tosses you back into the swamp of thoughts. Anything that can be understood by the mind is not actually real. You can study the sciences of extreme relative reality, like astrophysics and quantum physics, to get the tiniest glimpse, but it is nothing compared to direct realization.

For me, the how began with realizing who I am, and that there are blockages preventing the awareness which is my nature from lucidly experiencing its creation. I knew instinctively and deeply that these blockages had to be dissolved. Shortly after joining the forum, I wrote several poems about precisely this. It didn't happen yet, but I knew it must. The dark night of the soul honed my awareness to single-pointed sincerity. It was the pathway of hell that led to heaven. It was necessary for me to truly surrender. I learned to identify thoughts and feelings immediately, without being drawn into them or misidentifying as them. As Ramana Maharshi put it, by ignoring them I scorched them. The obstacles gradually cleared, until the portal was direct. This is the pathway of enlightenment. It is not about solving the unsolvable paradoxes of the cosmos, but about falling so deeply in love with the reality of yourself that nothing has the power to entice you from it.

You know better than to dismiss what we have shared as regurgitated dogma. I share what I have directly realized, regardless of whether or not it was already realized by mystics crumbled to dust.

Only because your hilarious quips and insightful antics have made everyone laugh so hard that we are exhausted into slumber.

I'm referring to dissolving desires and aversions which are so distracting that they close the portal to awareness. You have to dive deep into the ocean of yourself, and face the darkest, murkiest fears. There's nothing complex about it, but it requires absolute sincerity. When you do, these mind creatures release their grip, and you are free to live directly. Not all attachments are distracting. I enjoy New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. I can do so without losing awareness; in fact, awareness makes every bite tastier.

If you're spiritually mature enough to see beyond words to the meaning they represent, I highly recommend "I Am That" by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. It's available as a free PDF download.