Moksha

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?

@Heaven ?

Healthy ego is an oxymoron. The ego is false identification with the conditioned mind, which ultimately leads to suffering. Letting go of thinking, and directly abiding in who You are, banishes the ego. Unfortunately, few of us are able to stay present always, so inevitably the ego returns. Thinking isn't inherently unhealthy, as long as we don't identify with it. A nice quote I came across yesterday, from Ram Dass: But it turns out giving up conceptual thinking is not so scary after all - in fact, it's a relief! I keep telling people, "You are not who you think you are." So-called objective reality is only relatively real compared to the deeper reality of the Self... The paradox is that to really practice mindfulness, you have to let go of thinking. The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.

@Codrina Right back at ya ?

I've only been under anesthesia once, but believe me, when it hits, you have no choice but to go under. The cord is severed. Meditate all you want, it's still 3...2...1...lights OUT. Human consciousness is precarious. You can be conscious one moment, and then go deeply, cleanly out, the next. When I woke up, it was the most rested I had felt in years. Don't confuse human consciousness with ultimate Consciousness. We, as Consciousness, never go out. We only change states of Self-awareness.

Why does it have to be a radical experience to be meaningful, or even life-changing? What if the realization was boringly simple? So simple that your mind refused to accept it? Radical experiences don't end suffering. They are usually only temporary. The end of suffering is deeply realizing that your conditioned mind will never bring you happiness, and You are already infinitely abundant. Are you willing to let go of your thoughts, and simply be? That internal alignment is the end of chasing enlightenment, and the realization that nothing ever needed to be chased in the first place, which is inherently liberating and beautiful.

@The Buddha Ultimately, I suppose it is

In the relative realm, there can be no objective standard for claiming one truth is "deeper" or "more radical" than any other truth. It is just different perspectives. In the ultimate realm, there is objective, changeless, timeless truth. It is entirely unified, and therefore, there are no separate truths to compare with one another. It is all simply truth.

I understand, and have felt the living, spiritual energy emanating from some gurus. You don't even have to be physically in their presence. I have had experiences listening to Eckhart Tolle, or Mooji, and feeling the Consciousness of their presence, resonating with the same Consciousness within myself. Sometimes it is a teaching, but often it is pure silence, and feeling the energy within that space. For some reason, I keep referring to Ramana Maharshi recently, but his primary teaching was silence. Different gurus are best suited to different aspirants. We have different levels of awareness, and learn in different ways. Ultimately, it is all Consciousness, but there are many paths to the same Self-realization.