Preetom

You're welcome

Wow. Just wow. Personally haven't come across any book that integrates science, philosophy, spirituality, religion, epistemology this beautifully; that too in a very poetic and eloquent manner. I can easily see that this one book has the potential to be the pivotal point for the centuries come (If we make it that far by not destroying one another by then ) I doubt if one can really seeing oneself and the world in the same way after reading and contemplating on the contents of this book

you won't be able to do self-inquiry effectively if your mind is not already relatively quiet and alert to a degree. Self-inquiry will make you take that final leap but first you have to get close to the chasm. Self-inquiry will deepen that mental quietness and alertness exponentially and finally lead to liberation. If you can do self-inquiry steadily all waking hours(as it is prescribed originally), then go for it. But if it feels very boring, dull, conflicting, doubtful etc. most of the time then that means you gotta work through psychological, emotional, limiting belief deconstruction work to prepare yourself more. When self-inquiry feels joyful, relatively effortless then this signals that you can take it to the next level.

I feel ya man. It generally all starts with ''we have to fix the kid'' either in school or in family. this actualization business is probably the most complex puzzle there is, plus the social conditioning and default surrounding makes it several times harder. Journal and open the floodgates. let those hurt parts in you write whatever they wanna express without 'your' interference

According to the generalized instruction, anything that leads you towards a more quiet(as opposed to noisy, doubtful) and alert(as opposed to dull, blank) mind. From then on, self-inquiry all the way.

One of the points Eckhart Tolle successfully and very explicitly hammers is the inherent disfunction of a human mind at it's default state. An ego mind can never be satisfied no matter where it goes in the whole Universe. It will inevitably feel miserable, make a hell out of that place and subsequently suffer from it's own mechanisms. Unless the mechanism and fundamental nature of this mind is recognized, any external change is just window dressing. Ego always comes back to it's default disfunctional mode, no matter where it is. It's just a matter of time..

If this utopian vision doesn't come with a massive psychological and spiritual growth collectively as well, then suicide rate will go more than 80%...maybe even more

That is so true.. Actually our relationship and appreciation of language itself changes/evolves over time if we care to look. Our relationship with language varies from our childhood, in 20s, 30s, so on...if we are sensitive enough to look into this matter. Leo has already framed 'learning' or growth as 1) Observation and 2) Behavioral change. I guess a 3rd way to frame it would be, learning=unlearning

I think that's a great question. As Truth itself is incommunicable, we have different levels of understanding in the realm of communication. Just like you can explain the theory of sex one way to a child and another way to a virgin adult. The adult version would definitely be more 'evolved' and seemingly 'closer' to the actual thing. But the irony is, both the child and the virgin adult haven't experienced it, so it still is just a concept. That's why intellectual questions are answered based on the level of question. No Truth is ever communicated anyway. The purpose becomes helping the questioner at his own level and satisfying his urge to know stuff. You can still play around with all the concepts, as long as it is not turned into a dogma. As Leo mentioned in the last video that he loves nitpicking models and concepts. He wouldn't know what else to do other than this. It certainly provides a sense of intellectual security, a kind of refined Eudaimonic pleasure; undoubtedly far greater than some other gross hedonic pleasures and search for a false security.

The mind hears this and formulates an idea how it will go dumb and mute zombie after enlightenment for the rest of it's life. Who needs april fool when you got a companion like this right?

This answer reminds me one of Ramana's himself. Q: What is wisdom-insight? A: Remaining quiet is what is called wisdom-insight

Just finished this video. Also watched another video where DH himself breaking it down (tube experiment). It leads to the exact same recognition as self-inquiry! A non-located presence of being that is simultaneously no-thing and pervades everything without identification with anything particular This is where I come back to(and fall out of) several times a day through doing self-inquiry. It's getting easier. Thanks again for sharing it. I'll check out Richard Lang's Headless experiment series on Youtube later

Thanks for the link! I'll definitely check it out. I've seen DH mentioned a few times in this forum but didn't really looked into his method. For me, I'm really grateful towards Rupert Spira for bringing all this home at an intellectual level very satisfactorily. So I kind of exhausted my superficial search for more content and now just get back to the most potent resources(books, videos etc) that feel right for me over and over again. It's basically self-inquiry, do or die for me now haha.. And about mystical experiences, 'something' does stick. It's not just the fireworks that pass away. I feel the wisdom-discrimination(neti neti) growing as time passes. All the best with your journey. Just keep your 'head' up. Remember, it usually hits when you least expect it And I'll reply back once I finish that video

you actually give some very good points. I've yet to see an open-minded person who got heavily indoctrinated into religion. These people either stay in their religions all their lives blindly, or they rebel and become close-minded materialist atheists (or some combo of both) And most of the so called 'holy' books were written a lot later after the original prophets by clergies(who were also politicians and king's men) in order to establish their political propaganda. Those 'holy' books were developed as the means to control the masses.

oh boy...that sure was one rude awakening huh..

However you wanna interpret it, is up to you. But Papaji himself taught advaita vedanta, the direct path of jnana yoga for self-realization. A number of his students are now recognized spiritual teachers themselves in the west (mooji, gangaji etc)

The 'place' which you aren't willing to name, hindus named it as Brahman. That's it.

More like difference between Emanyalpsid and Preetom Hasn't this been the case down the ages?

Some people may have allergic reaction to that word *coughs*

Religions are good for building morality, discipline, selflessness and other divine human virtues. They can be a great method for preparing the ground. But one must not fall into the trap of dogma and ideologies and be open to leave the 'religion' in it's traditional sense when it's utility is exhausted. From that prepared ground, independent open-minded inquiry can lead to Truth/God realization very quickly (example: Papaji. He was a serious devotee of lord Krishna. He would chant the lord's divine name from 2:30 am to 9:30 am everyday before going to work for decades. He eventually grew out of it, went to Ramana Maharshi, followed the direct path of inquiry and got Enlightened very soon as he had a prepared, pure, sattvic body-mind)

Then dependent arising itself becomes it's own ground What is there prior to making a distinction and thus having dependent arising? If there is 'nothing' prior to distinctions, then what are you making distinctions of? But the truth doesn't show up as it was conceived beforehand, aye? Again you are conflating theoretical background developed for teaching purposes and how the methodologies actually work. You don't search for 'something' and reach to Truth. Like I said, enlightenment itself is realized as non-existent and that is Enlightenment(paradoxical). Not 'something', not 'nothing'. What remains?

Thanks!

Let's call it vegetable curry and start the fight all over again!

exactly! When Hindus talk about Brahmanic Consciousness, they don't refer to this human consciousness that fluctuates day to day. So clearly, let's not talk about something we have no experience of. So this 'mind' is the unchanging ground for this absolute relativity? If that is the case, then I'm pretty sure hindus call this 'mind'/'reality' as Brahman. Ta da! 1) Now if you say that this 'mind' itself is subject to dependent arising or causality, then your argument becomes incoherent. How can you distinguish a 'mind' in which causality is happening, when that 'mind' itself is subject to dependent arising? Then there cannot be a 'mind' as opposed to dependent arising; only dependent arising rests on it's own ground. 2) Or you might claim that dependent arising is only mentioned because we are trying to think and conceptualize stuff here. Well, hindus say the same thing! Without referring to a thought or concept, there is no universe/space/time/causality. But there is 'something' that must alone exist. That 'something' is Brahman/Buddha mind/Absolute. It all comes back to the soup. There was always only the Soup from the get go~