Moksha

Nah, great username, but maybe uncapitalize the "S" Then your username becomes identical to mine. Moksha means to "blow out" the flame of the self. Emptiness of self is the realization of Self.

Amen, brother...I mean Self.

Any distinction is arbitrary, and is bound to relative reality. Ultimately, we are all the same. Distinction is the dream.

Love is beyond emotion, it is simply the realization of the Oneness of all. ? You're right, it is purely wholesome.

Unconditional love is not an emotion. It is a realization.

The difference is conditioned hormonic response toward a particular someone, vs. awakening to the sameness in all of us. If you see them as the same, you ain't woke yet

Violence in video games is not the issue. Addiction to video games, even Farm Town on Facebook (which my mom played daily), is the issue, since any form of addiction is ultimately egoic.

Are you talking about love, the human emotion, or Love, the realization that we are all the same?

I appreciate my education in psychology. It has helped me understand the conditioning and deconditioning of the mind. The Vedas speak to the dangers of attachment, and the peace of realizing equanimity. It all converges for me. Ultimately, that is what awakening is all about. It is the realization that you are not your conditioned mind, and that it is possible to dissolve the attachments that create the compulsions which are the source of your suffering. Conceptual understanding of conditioning is helpful, but only when you are ready to dive deeper into the essence of who you are, beyond what most psychological disciplines acknowledge. There is a branch, called spiritual psychology, which is promising. Check out Steve Taylor. He has studied, from a scientific perspective, the awakening process. Interesting stuff, but as with every other theory/teaching/discovery, still just a pointer. The secret is to let go of concepts entirely, and open your eyes to being.

Define awakened. One way of seeing, is the clarity of an artist with a profound connection with being, often beyond understanding the nature of the connection, only channeling it. All true creativity arises from Consciousness. I love Vincent Van Gogh and Michelangelo, whose works have resonated deeply. More than syrup for the masses, their creations are Conscious art.

The Power of Now was a turning point for me, but nonduality is nowhere more clearly defined than in the Bhagavad Gita. Go figure, nonduality equates with equanimity: They live in freedom who have gone beyond the dualities of life. Competing with no one, they are alike in success and failure and content with whatever comes to them. Those who have attained perfect renunciation are free from any sense of duality; they are unaffected by likes and dislikes, Arjuna, and are free from the bondage of self-will. The immature think that knowledge and action are different, but the wise see them as the same. The person who is established in one path will attain the rewards of both. People claim to have directly realized nonduality, but how many of us are equally content with success and failure, and consistently coherent with our knowledge and our actions? Nonduality is not just a realization, it is the purest state of being.

@math159w What you experience on a psychedelic gives you a glimpse of ultimate reality, which is that the entire cosmos is just a dream. Everything still exists, within the dream, but you understand that it is just a dream. I call it lucid dreaming. Even as a character, bound within the dream, you directly realize your ultimate nature as Consciousness itself. Awakening doesn't cause anything to stop existing, it is the profound realization that ultimately, nothing existed in the first place. Even if you are awake, your character remains limited by the dream itself. In one of his videos, Leo pointed out that while on a psychedelic, he couldn't transform the bookcase in his room into some other object. We are still limited by the laws of the cosmos, because we are characters within the cosmos. The good news is, we can directly realize our ultimate nature, and greatly improve the quality of our dream.

Welcome to the forum, @math159w. For starters, don't try to wrap your mind around it. Consciousness is the ultimate Mystery, and cannot be comprehended by its creations, any more than an individual wave can understand the ocean. It doesn't stop people from trying to make sense of it, though Ultimately, the truth can only be directly realized, beyond concepts. As I see it, there is ultimate reality and relative reality. Ultimately, everything is Consciousness, and in that sense, people don't exist. We are created by Consciousness, as an expression of Consciousness, but we are all the same Consciousness. Relatively, people do exist. Time and space are the parameters of relative reality, and within those parameters, everything in the cosmos exists. The Bhagavad Gita says that God is the abode of the cosmos. The cosmos is created by Consciousness, and abides within Consciousness, but ultimately it is all just Consciousness, in different states of Self-awareness. Hope that helps, rather than confusing you further.

After implies before, life implies death, oblivion implies existence. Not to dismiss relative reality, because it is also reality, just seeing it from the ultimate perspective. What happens if time and space collapse when the dreamer wakes? Questions about before and after, life and death, oblivion and existence, are seen clearly, and the answer is...

When you settle into stillness, simply being, you realize there is no growth, and no liberation. You are already infinitely abundant. When it hits you, it is hilarious All this time, pursuing spiritual growth, when you are already free.

Turquoise for the kill! ?

Thanks for sharing. I recently finished Being Ram Dass, and was inspired by the integrity following his stroke, eventuating, after years of disability, in his death. They made a custom wheelchair for the guy, which could take him to the edge of the ocean. Love and courage to the last. We are all mortal. As kids, we don't see it. As adults, we tunnel vision on survival. Eventually, we realize that despite our best intentions, all of "this" will end. We will be a corpse in the ground, or ashes on the Ganges. Maybe we are reborn, maybe not. It doesn't matter. The secret is in the present moment. As Ram Dass put it beautifully, Be Here Now.

You got it Consciousness is everything, just in different states. The screen exists in relative reality, but it is still Consciousness.

Just the opposite, we are all the same Consciousness, in different states of Self-awareness. The dreamer is ultimate, the dream is relative. Ultimately, there is no differentiation.

I could say there is no "you" to win, but who am "I" to say this? I'm not a fan of Neo Advaita platitudes. Of course there is a doer; that is what relative reality is all about Dream the dream, and enjoy the clarity of being within the dream.

What if?

@Shin Wake up or don't wake up. There is no try.

What if you are both the dreamer and the dream?

Never underestimate our capacity to create stories so compelling that we lose ourselves completely in them, only to hear the alarm clock, opening our eyes, and laughing at the fool we made of ourselves, once again

So true, and worthy of calling out. Not to discredit awakenings to emptiness, which some on this forum have had, but there is so much more to the essence of ourselves beyond emptiness. Consciousness is infinitely abundant. Creativity has no limits. Beyond the void, the possibilities of relative reality are endless, and the dream is no less than the dreamer. Consciousness is not just nothing; it underlies everything and every nothing. Deeper than the human mind, which is only one expression, can comprehend. Ultimately, it is the singular ultracosmic jewel, rotating in myriad facets of awareness.