Moksha

My original motivation was to find an oasis, after waking up, and trying to assimilate. I did wake up, and found the holy grail, with 7 months of not suffering. Then my ego came back, with a fucking vengeance, and stabbed me hard. My conditioned mind is still there, but I am working, day by day, on deconditioning it. I am happy to say that there is progress. Wish I could tell you that awakening is the solution to everything, but it is not. It is only the beginning to becoming who you already are. What kind of story would it be, without stridence?

Beliefs are conceptual. Direct realization is non-conceptual. There is no evidence, beyond Self-realization.

Just be. Your inherent nature, not as a human, but as Consciousness, is joyful. The human mind is the source, and the perpetuation, of suffering.

The Creator has no beginning, and has no end. Welcome to the Mystery

Let go of the words, and feel the space between the words. Stop your thoughts, for a single moment, and just realize. Insights that deny the ego are cringy to the ego. Contemplate wisdom, like the Bhagavad Gita. It will help you understand how clinging to anything only eventuates in suffering. Love isn't an emotion, it is the actuality of who we are. Conditioning is suffering. Deconditioning is freedom. It isn't some conceptual realization. It is being, beyond conditioning. I get it. It is weird, which is why it is a journey. I have been there, and am still traveling.

In a sense, you are right. Tolle made Indian spirituality mainstream. Great timing. But charisma? To me, he has very little charisma, which Leo has in spades. He does have presence, which resonates with me more than anything else. I care more about the space around his words, than about the words themselves.

You are playing the game because You chose to play the game. What are You going to make of it? You created you for what reason? Hint: Maybe, after enough years of suffering, you will see that it is all about realizing and expressing unconditional Love, which is who You actually are.

Simplicity is the solvent of the ego. Pure water

You created you for a reason. You are the great loving presence and intelligence that created you. Maybe ask why You created you in the first place?

Nahm is the ?.

Wisdom only speaks to the ready ear. When I first came across The Power of Now, I read a few pages and tossed it aside as new age drivel. After a few years of suffering, I picked it up again, and it resonated. Another few years of suffering, and it rocked my world. The book never changed during this time; I did. I have been tortured and taunted by my mind most of my life. Finally, I realized there is a way out. Sometimes the deepest truths are the most simple. The mind doesn't like simplicity. It gets bored easily. Even in the "spiritual" path, it seeks cataclysmic, but always conceptual experiences. Surely Self-realization must be mind-blowing? As it turns out, awakening is exactly that. It is the end of being ruled by the mind, and it is entirely non-conceptual. Tolle's message is the same message that was realized by the ancients. The mind is hell. Awakening from the mind is the beginning of the end of suffering. It is only by realizing that you are not thoughts, but are the Awareness in the space between the thoughts, that you will be free. I have read all of Tolle's books, and watched many of his videos. His message is simple, but so was the message of the Buddha. If you find them boring, maybe ask yourself what you are truly seeking.

Gandhi. Nelson Mandela. The Buddha. All were enlightened rulers. Would I go for it? Nope. I have no desire for power over others, even for the sake of good. I have my own journey, let's see where Consciousness takes me.

All languages are lies. Consciousness creates languages as a game, but in ultimate reality, there is only pure, wordless, conceptless, awareness.

Congrats on recognizing the ego trap of identification with enlightenment. Enlightenment is a journey, not a destination. It is about abiding in presence, with each step along the path. Unfortunately, the ego doesn't want to be a nobody. Gear up, it's the ultimate battle. Each moment of presence is a small victory.

Immortality. Damn. ?

All it takes is a lucid glimpse. In that seeing, there are no stages.

Maybe anesthesia is the new 5-MeO-DMT

Interesting thing about morality is that it is ultimately informed by intent. Dishonesty, for selfish gain, accumulates negative karma. I came across this earlier today, from the Buddha: One who says what is not true, one who denies what he has done, both choose the downward course. After death these two become partners in falsehood. - Dhammapada 22:306 This exemplifies what I see as the flaw in the philosophy of Neo Advaita. Believing that the relative world is only a dream, and therefore morality is unimportant, defies the wisdom that informed Advaita in the first place. God is Love. Acting contrary to your inner nature will lead to suffering, while living with integrity will set you free.

It's not about glimpsing over and over. It's about integrating your realizations into your life, and actually deconditioning your mind. Until you stop trusting your mind, and clinging to attachments, you will not be truly free. All relatively speaking, of course.

Yes, ultimate reality and relative reality are all God. God created the cosmos, and is the abode of the cosmos, but is beyond the cosmos. Sub ek, it's all One. You are right to be concerned about the pitfall of identifying as an "enlightened person". The ego is so nefarious that it will corrupt even enlightenment, by claiming it as a badge of honor. There is only Consciousness, expressing itself through creation, experiencing life through the forms that it creates, dancing through the dream, and sometimes lucidly meeting itself within the dance. It is all about Love. Whether within the dream, or beyond the dream, the essence and purpose of it all is unconditional Love. You can be aware, even within the dream, of the sameness of us all, and still celebrate the uniqueness of you, and of others, knowing there is ultimately, only You.

@Vignan I can't help you with psychedelics, bro, Have never taken them, and probably never will. I have no judgment, either way. There are people I respect that have taken them, and have seen good results. All I can tell you is that it comes down to this: Do I trust my conditioned mind? Has my ego ever actually delivered on what it promised? If not, maybe there is a better way. Realize who You are. Whether it takes psychedelics or not to realize, doesn't matter. Just realize.

Every story is fiction. The only truth is directly realized. Even these words are narrative in the story, but maybe they can help point you to setting down the book, and being.

Ego is annoying that way. It is always looming at your back, ready to stab, the second you stop being aware of it. Worse, the more spiritual progress you make, the harder the ego fights to stay alive. You have to grit your teeth, working through each night of the soul, until you emerge on the other side, a little clearer and stronger than before. My experience has been the same as what Ram Dass describes. I feel it will be a lifelong journey of fighting to stay vigilant, rather than listening to the taunts of my conditioned mind. Deconditioning is hard work, but each little victory is worthwhile.

Psychedelics won't make you good. Maybe they will provide insights, that will help you along the path of unconditional love, but they won't do the work for you. I just came across this today, from Ram Dass: Even after I understood the need to disentangle from my attachments to get there, it has not been an easy or rapid process. Instead of the instant enlightenment I envisioned from psychedelics, it has required years of incremental practice to even begin to get free of the conditioned feelings, habits, and unconscious urges that keep rising to the surface. And it's not that they have gone or will go away, but how I identify with them as I shift more toward the soul that Maharaj-ji reflected back to me.

Are you able to see past the conditioned personality of people, and resonate with the Consciousness that is who they actually are?