Moksha

@Adodd Yes, and the direct realization is what leads to the laughter. All the unnecessary suffering and angst is seen for what it is. After your eyes open, life becomes less serious.

@gettoefl You are kind, thank you ?

Nice insights! For me, realizing that everything in relative reality is transient, and inevitably leads to suffering, was the catalytic insight that set me on the spiritual path of integration. Unfortunately, the insight is only the beginning. It points you in the right direction, but it doesn't magically decondition your mind. There are still attachments and aversions to overcome, many of which have haunted you since childhood. It is unrealistic and self-defeating to expect enlightenment and equanimity to happen, solely by virtue of seeing truly for the first time. I realized this after awakening. I saw a long, sinuous spiritual path ahead of me. Here's something I wrote back then: The Bonfire Consciousness strikes the spark of my undoing, Catching in the kindling of thought, Consuming it to soot, intensifying, Crumbling the timbers that it wrought, Purifying fire ever rising, Burning through the ropes of my desire, Devouring the karma of my making, Soul wind stirring these flames higher, Scattering the ashes of my suffering, No delusion left, only the fire. Meditation has been my mainstay since then. It has gradually loosened, and in some cases even dissolved, the bonds of my conditioning. Life is much lighter these days. I also find inspiration by contemplating spiritual sources like the Bhagavad Gita and the Dhammapada. Realizing your ultimate nature as Consciousness is profound. This life is a dream, but as long as you are bundled with a human form, there is wisdom in learning to dream lucidly, and enjoying each step of the journey.

@Consilience Well said! ?⚡

I heard that analogy as a kid in high school. Made me realize that eternity is so infinitely timeless. No wonder Consciousness creates.

The ego is all about judgment, and it doesn't care if it is judging others or judging you. For people like Trump, it is about denigrating others, to aggrandize the self. For people like you and me, it is about self-deprecation. Neither is more egoic than the other. The ego doesn't care, as long as it gets to judge. Realizing Love shrinks the survival of the ego, but not the survival of You. It is the dissolving of boundaries, and it is beautiful. There is no "this self" or "that self", just the seamlessness of Self.

If you contemplate and practice it, beyond simply reading it, your mind will be illuminated. For me, the value was less about Self-realization, and more about Self-integration.

@Adodd I have laughed

Maybe the meaning is in the story itself. Have you ever dreamed that you could fly, or that you were running from a monster that would inevitably catch you in its claws? Clearly the dream has value, beyond timeless, unchanging, relentlessly formless reality. Otherwise, why would Consciousness dream? The best of both worlds is to be awake, within the dream. Enjoy it for what it is, but don't take it too seriously

What if there are different dimensions of reality? In relative reality, there are separate subjects and objects. There are causes and effects. It is a tidy Newtonian universe, never mind that it starts to fray around the edges at extremes. When you push the universe to its limits, macrocosmically or microcosmically, you see relativity for what it is. Einstein realized this, as have quantum physicists and astrophysicists following in his wake. In ultimate reality, there is no separation. The subject is the object. Consciousness is the incomprehensible uncaused cause. People bash their heads against the conceptual wall until they are bloody, refusing to relent until they "understand". Eventually, if they are lucky, they directly realize the truth. And when they do, they inevitably laugh.

This. Knowledge is bound to the conditioned mind. Humans have such a hard time accepting mystery. Let go of knowing, and be. We have the macrocosmic mystery of the universe, and we have the microcosmic mystery at the subatomic level. Underlying that is the deepest mystery of all: the mystery of Consciousness. The one thing you cannot doubt about yourself is that you are Conscious. - Eckhart Tolle The more one studies attempted solutions to problems in politics and economics, in art, philosophy, and religion, the more one has the impression of extremely gifted people wearing out their ingenuity at the impossible and futile task of trying to get the water of life into neat and permanent packages. Religious ideas are like words--of little use, and often misleading, unless you know the concrete realities to which they refer. The word 'water' is a useful means of communication amongst those who know water. The same is true of the word and the idea called 'God'...The reality which corresponds to 'God' and 'eternal life' is honest, above-board, plain, and open for all to see. But the seeing requires a correction of mind, just as clear vision sometimes requires a correction of the eyes. Belief clings, but faith lets go...Our minds have been prepared for it by this very collapse of the beliefs in which we have sought security. From a point of view strictly, if strangely, in accord with certain religious traditions, this disappearance of the old rocks and absolutes is no calamity, but rather a blessing. It almost compels us to face reality with open minds, and you can only know God through an open mind just as you can only see the sky through a clear window. To discover the ultimate Reality of life--the Absolute, the eternal, God--you must cease to try to grasp it in the forms of idols. These idols are not just crude images, such as the mental picture of God as an old gentleman on a golden throne. They are our beliefs, our cherished preconceptions of the truth, which block the unreserved opening of the mind and heart to reality. The legitimate use of images is to express the truth, not to possess it. 'Unless a grain of corn fall into the ground and die, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit'...What religion calls the vision of God is found in giving up any belief in the idea of God. By the same law of reversed effort, we discover the 'infinite' and the 'absolute,' not by straining to escape from the finite and relative world, but by the most complete acceptance of its limitations. Paradox as it may seem, we likewise find life meaningful only when we have seen that it is without purpose, and know the 'mystery of the universe' only when we are convinced that we know nothing about it at all. - Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

@Bodhitree Go where you feel the resonance. Enjoy your realizations beneath the bodhi tree. Only you know the shade that will bring you rest. I am an outlier in this community. I'm not young, have no interest in psychedelics, and have seen little of Leo's content. Still, this was the sanctuary that I stumbled across after my eyes opened, and I will always honor it for that. Our community is a melange of mirrors, Consciousness gazing upon itself, diffracting its reflections in every direction, but somehow ultimately pointing to the sameness of us all.

Don't skim. Spiritually feast. Disregard the concepts, and realize the profound truths that dissolve the boundaries between superficial traditions. 1,000 holy books sped-read are of less worth than one book, Consciously realized. The Perennial Philosophy appears in every age and civilization: There is an infinite, changeless reality beneath the world of change This same reality lies at the core of every personality The purpose of life is to discover this reality experientially, that is, to realize God while here on earth - Aldous Huxley Various books have spoken to me, perhaps most profoundly the Bhagavad Gita, not because it is clearer than others, but because I encountered it when I was ready to receive it. It is not so much about the book, as about your readiness to hear, beyond the clamoring of the conditioned mind, in the stillness of the spaciousness that you are.

Loneliness is a normal human emotion. Most people are genetically and environmentally wired to seek companionship. Maslow's hierarchy places social needs at the middle of the pyramid. A good friend or spouse can make living more beautiful. Better, they can make living more challenging It is easy to be woke when you are sitting in a cave, but the real test comes when dealing with the egos of others. Ultimately, we are all the same Consciousness. Loneliness is an illusion. It is an attachment of the ego, but rather than blaming yourself for it, realize why humans evolved the emotion in the first place. It contributes to our survival. Through spiritual practice, it is possible to distance, and even dissolve, the need for others. Once you do, paradoxically, it is easier to love.

@lmfao Beauty of psychology; the placebo is better than the effect.

@BlackMaze Cool experiment But what if the subconscious is free, and it just takes the conscious brain longer than the machine to recognize the choice? Better, what if the subconscious isn't free, but the Consciousness that informs it is calling all the shots? ? @lmfao Wouldn't x-z, stabilizing y be more of a bobble than a spin? I tried both, and sometimes it changed, but sometimes it didn't. There goes my Nobel Prize.

@BlackMaze I might get a Nobel Prize if I could prove free will Unfortunately, even altering my perception on command still begs the question of where the command came from.

@BlackMaze I tried changing the direction on purpose, but couldn't do it. My mind just switched back and forth on its own. Guess that is proof we really don't have free will

So weird, she kept switching directions as I watched. I noted each time that she switched, scrolled back to before that time, and she still moved in the new direction despite seeing her move the opposite direction at the same point earlier.

Alan Watts has a nice book that I recommend adding to your reading list: The Wisdom of Insecurity. Life is unavoidably insecure. In a transient cosmos, how can anything be secure? Everything is born, and everything must die. Chasing after security is the definition of suffering. It is a fool's errand. The answer is not to clamor up a conceptual model like Spiral Dynamics. It is to let go of the insane egoic demand for certainty, and directly realize that your ultimate nature is already secure. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. - A Course in Miracles

Why is that? Love is seamless. Seeing the value of "others" is the same as seeing the value of "you". It is all the same Consciousness. The deeper your awakening, the more easily love is effortless. You see no difference between others and yourself, and realize the sameness in every being. What is love, other than the realization that we are all ultimately the same?

It is a common misunderstanding that awakening solves all suffering. It doesn't. There are many awakenings, each taking you a step closer to fully realizing your ultimate nature. In my experience, the deeper the awakening, the more severe the backlash. The ego doesn't go down without a long, bloody fight. Spirituality is not just epiphanies. It is integrating those epiphanies into your daily life, until you develop the spiritual muscle to remain present in every moment, no matter how turbulent life becomes. Meditation and conscious integration, when diligently applied, will do that.

Consciousness is just a name, like God, Brahman, or Mystery. It doesn't have anything to do with "consciousness" in the medical sense; it doesn't go away when you sleep, get knocked out, or drink too much. It doesn't even go away when "you" die. It is always here and now, and it is all. Your human mind cannot conceptualize it, although many people try all the same. As Consciousness, you can directly realize your ultimate nature, but that is beyond conceptualization.

The universe, and humans, and every other transient being is bound to die. That is the nature of relative reality. Celebrate the separateness, grieve the loss of loved ones, and even the loss of you, within the dream. When your eyes open, you will see the seamlessness, and you will laugh

Perhaps the secret to Self-realization is not trying to make sense. What happens when you let go of the demands of the conditioned mind? When you realize the silence? Have you seen the space and the serenity in simply being?