Preetom

Note: By Enlightenment, I mean the irreversible real deal, not the states or levels that come and go. This might be a long post. Hope those dealing with confusion due to many contradictory statements and theories will find some clarity and get some ideas on what they can do to move forward. I am not gonna post a single thing based on speculation, things that are outside ones daily experience and things that cant survive logical scrutiny. Part 1: What Enlightenment is and how it happens. There is an ego/mind/I/subject perceiving everything else. This ego projects the entire field of experience and knows all the objects by paying attention. So attention is the power or mechanism through which ego projects and knows experiences both in waking and dream states. Now the nature of this ego is it can only sustain an experience as long as it is paying attention to it. Turn your back on the sun, there is no sun to see. Similarly, literally everything starting from thoughts to physical matter are objects for ego, projected by ego. They are there ONLY as long as ego is there to perceive them. Sounds like solipsism? Hell yeah it does. But notice whether one accepts or rejects solipsism, it is still done by the final gatekeeper which is the ego. Literally there is no object without this subject being present to perceive. Now Enlightenment tells that this entire mode of subject-object experience is an illusion and it only persists due to inadvertence or lack of scrutiny. And all of human suffering and problems are fundamentally a result of errors stemming from this illusion/ignorance. But there is a real substratum 'underneath' this illusion. Lets call it the Self. Now how to practically go about it? There is an unique feature of this subject or ego. It runs amok, solidifies itself and sustains this illusion ONLY as long as it is paying attention to things other than itself. But when this same attention is relaxed from objects and turned towards the subject, this subject starts to shrink and thus the illusion starts to break apart. The proof of it will be understood by those who ever did self inquiry in dreams. Whenever attention is directed toward the dream subject instead of on the dream objects, one either wakes up or sinks into deep sleep or in yoga nidra(conscious sleep). In other words, the dream state illusion cant survive for long. So focusing attention on the subject=Breaking free of the illusion. Self inquiry is just another name of this process. Lets have a look at that. Part 2: Self inquiry and the mechanism through which it works. (Note: very advanced pointers here. It might be in total contradiction to how that word is often thrown around) So basically for enlightenment, one simply needs to stop paying attention to all objects. Period. But what is there other than attention or conventional mode of experience? Interestingly, when one deliberately, progressively stops paying attention to objects, one lands on a very new mode called Being. The knowing consciousness gets replaced with being consciousness. This Being doesn't know any object of experience. It simply is awareness of being the subject itself. The usual confusion here is whether everything goes blank or one passes out. Neither of those. There are still sights, sounds etc but they are not known as phenomena. As no attention is paid to them, the entire idea of a world or objects collapses. There is no stream of attention going out and checking whether there is still a real world or not. All usual self inquiry methods and pointers like searching for the I, asking questions, trying to be the witness of thoughts, trying to disidentify etc are really the antithesis of what self inquiry at its core is. Those are all activities of the ego aka paying attention. They all must come to this tipping point where objective attention ceases and gets replaced with Being. Most of the time it happens by accident and thats why most people dont know what is really going on here. But if one conceptually understands that it is this Being cognition that is originally meant by self inquiry, now one knows what to 'do'(relaxing attention on ones own self) and what to avoid(paying attention to things). This is simply a skillful attention game one gets good at by repeated attempts. When one lands on Being, mind automatically gets silenced. There is no more effort to witness the thoughts, or trying to be in the present, or trying to be spiritual etc. This is the highest and final practice one can 'do' until Enlightenment happens. The subject simply being itself without attending to other objects. Now what is going on here during this Being session that leads to Enlightenment? Basically the ego is having satsang with the Self. This is the true meaning of Satsang. The satsang we watch on YouTube is a caricature and a pale reflection of the real deal. The true Satsang is Sanga(communion) with Sat(That which IS/Reality/Self). The Self is the real guru aka Sadhguru(not the guy with white beard ?) There is a nonverbal, direct, nondual transmission that goes on from the Self to the ego. And this transmission is really the ONLY way one ever gets enlightened whether one may know it or not. Whatever yoga, meditation, psychedelic one is doing, their only real purpose is to bypass all the bullshit and thoughts of the mind and come to this silent transmission. If one's spiritual practice is providing exactly that, then its a direct method. If not, it is something indirect. By attending to this satsang or being over a long period of time, the patterns and tendencies of ego keeps getting weaker and weaker simply due to not paying attention to them, as the attention is relaxed in sweet being and receiving nondual transmission from the Self. This is the culminating phase. At one point, when the egoic patterns are mostly erased through indifference, the ego/subject along with its projections(universe) literally gets devoured into the Self once and for all. This is the meaning of mind sinking into the Heart, Everything being reduced and sunk into Consciousness. This great assimilation is also known as the final surrender. Done. After the collapse of the subject, its projection called objects are devoured simultaneouly. So the subject-object mechanism collapses once and for all and only nondual Being of the Self remains as the substratum. So no ego ever gets Enlightened with its own activity. It is only the grace or power of the Self which facilitates enlightenment. Important note: This nondual transmission is NOT an experience one can know. So please dont search for it as if it was another object. Its like a mechanism running in the background, like updating an OS. Part 3: Where psychedelics may fall short. So we can see that Enlightenment can ONLY happen by attending to the non dual transmission from the Self, the real Satsang. Simply said, Being. It can NEVER happen by any activity of the ego-mind, that means thinking, concentrating on objects, insights, models, experiences, efforts done by the mind etc. So it turns out that if one wants to get Enlightened, it is all about being, being, being; until one literally 'forgets' how to know something as an object in a dualistic view. Its NOT about insights, understanding, trying to embody, learn, do something, getting flashy experiences, trying to be spiritual. Basically, Enlightenment can happen without the ego ever knowing or figuring out anything at all! Enlightenment can happen without ever bothering about god, universe, other people, karma, cosmology etc. It only happens through that silent transmission. Now my hunch is these are the 2 main setbacks of psychedelics. 1) Psychedelics are not sustainable over a long time. Yes it bypasses the delusions of ego and goes to the nondual transmission very quickly(given its a potent one like 5 meo). But alas the satsang is too short and repeated dosage hour after hour would fry one's system. 2) An even greater danger. After the psychedelic peak experience, the ego is back again. Fresh and rejuvenated, ready to get back on its JOB which is attending to objects with its voracious appetite! It cant help but going back and mistranslating that silent transmission in the name of insights, understanding, improvement, levels, figuring out reality, breakthroughs, living on the memory of becoming god, embodiment and whatnot; thinking that it will get enlightened by its own accumulated activities. Distortion upon distortion. Stuck in a twisted web of knowledge. Condemned to remain as this votalie complex between the real and the unreal. Note: The purpose of this post is not to fight with other paths and people. Just giving a general practical map of this highly confusing topic. If it sounds logically fair, take whatever helps. If not, may god help you If there is any question from anyone, I'll try to answer it.

Preach!

You look too old for binging on porn. Take it easy grandpa ffs if you dont want a heart attack ?

"All pointers point to that which is not"

Ask and ye shall receive ?

It is guru fat bastard who is asking these self inquiry questions. It is guru fat bastard who thinks it is aware of them. It is guru fat bastard who makes up these impossible paradoxes and chasms and then feel discomfort and dissonance over them ?

There is a qualitative and process difference between stoic negative visualization and woo woo new age superficial, pretentious gratitude. If you are at a down place in life, visualize extreme negatives and see how this present shit life is a lot better than how worse it could turn out. It breaks the de-sensitization patterns by continuously giving the mind contrasts and comparisons through which it can reevaluate happiness and well being. And if you are at high place, contemplating death would be the nail in the head...how transitory of a house of cards these goodies of life are. But this death contemplation wont work at a down point as one will already meh and kinda wanna die to avoid the shit life.

Good boy getting woke and calling spade a spade

EVERYONE NEEDS JESUS

just being a good boy passing the notes to another good boy xoxo

''The person who single-mindedly chases pleasure, finds nothing pleasurable after a while'' - Somerset Maugham The real issue is, you've been terribly de-sensitized to life and experience due to regular overstimulation of pleasurable content (food, sex, entertainment, leisure, comfort, conformity etc) for many years. This is the hideous cancer of our modern toxic culture. You can recover from this by practicing stoicism. I'll share 2 classic stoicism techniques that help rejuvenating the sublimity of life. 1) Negative Visualization: Visualize everyday how things could be super worse. Like how you could be a cripple, without a voice or speech impediment, hearing deficiency, no money living in streets, everyone and everything around you getting swept by some natural disaster, having a chronic terrible disease, very low iq etc. even the most insignificant things. Deeply and actively visualize these negatives and see how easily you could be victim of many these misfortunes. Then immediately a deep sense of gratitude will well up in your heart for things being already super good than those disasters. 2) Self denial: Actively deny yourself of physical and mental comforts and goodies...for a time. If you starve for long enough, even the tasteless food will taste like ambrosia. Live this puritanical life for few months and then you'll start to enjoy the most mundane elements of life once again.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs, spiral dynamics etc. Basically any self help model and principles that spirals upwards more and more towards progressively balanced, healthy values, decisions and worldviews. You reap what you sow. Keep on doing that, accumulate good karma and get your goodies. Do the opposite and you accumulate bad karma and you suffer more and more as your life spirals down in unconscious animalistic instincts. The advaitic sage Adi Shankara gave this analogy. 1) The ones with 'good' karma get a human life with a relatively healthy body-mind that can achieve it's goals and conquer circumstances 2) The ones with 'better' karma get born in great affluence, wealth and circumstance. In other words, being born with a golden spoon in mouth. They are set for life and almost all the worldly pleasures are available to them 3) The ones with the 'best' karma get born with a certain dispassion and inquisitive mind. They are like the 0.0001% who come across this message of nondual liberation and intellectually understands the significance of it. They are the most blessed ones who have the most chance to escape the wheel of samsara. But the downside is, the better karma, the quicker it burns out. So fasten your seatbelts folks! ''Blessed is he, the wearer of loincloth; having the earth as his bed and sky as his roof; he remains ever free, in absolute bliss without a single care of the world''

good boy getting woke See ya on the other side

You are seeing only a very little portion of time and trying to make sense of it. What makes you think we weren't here before? They are winning lottery or whatever due to their good karma. And that good karma is getting spent real fast. And all these self-help/spiritual instructions are meant to act as principles to create good karma for you so that you too can win the lottery down the at some point, either this lifetime or next.

No 'thing' ever exists. And yet here we are! Does a 'human' exist? No, not in reality but only as a concept or way of seeing. And yet we 'see' ourselves as humans.

No other way. This is the force of habit all throughout millions of years and lifetimes. You're against this astounding force of nature aka Maya. You cant...until you do

Indeed. If one is a natural mystical experience wanker, one should 1) stargaze at night 2) spend time in nature and vast valleys 3) looking around from a high building, mountain, elevated place 4) take baths in sea or a large water body 5) listen to birds chirp very early in the morning 6) watching sunrise and sunset from a vast space etc Modern society is all about compartmentalization and putting everything in a box. No wonder ego has developed some really twisted patterns. One can literally look at a TV screen and spend 90% of their lifetime.

what made you change your mind?

Oh the secret weapon every nondual warrior must have! ?

no clouds, no sky

??? pls bless me mooji

Good boy is gonna be woke af in no time

Thats another psychological and emotional chasm or insecurity one will have to inevitably work through along the path..

@The Don Yes praying works. But not in a way you might think. You might think you are getting goodies from god/universe/force. But really, you are bringing your own thought patterns, intent and integrity into alignment by praying

Suppose you are in a dream. "When did it begin? How did it come about?" Good lucking finding answers to those questions while dreaming ? Thats the nature of dream/illusion/maze/mind. Once you are in it, it is beginningless, causeless because time, cause etc themselves are simultaneouly the product and fundamental constituent of that dream.