SkyPanther

There is a booklet you should check out called "Concept and Reality" by a Buddhist Monk, It is available free here: http://www.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/12865490/concept_and_reality.pdf It pretty much expands on this topic, and points out that "concepts" are the prisons that one has to free themselves of. And this is what the Buddha taught. Nibbana is the "concept free" state, which you cannot describe because as soon as you do, you apply language to it, which is a concept. So the only way to "get it" is to experience it. Meditation (Any of the Jhanas, but especially 4 and up) get you to directly experience it. Because it slowly strips away part of the ego/perceptual/language mind. Until all you have is "awareness", but not "consciousness", that is concept free.

Heh... yes, this is exactly what I mean. Once people realize this part, the ego disappears. And that is really, really freeing. You respond to life, people, events, and so on, instead of reacting to stimuli, which, as you noted, is a queue (or line) you take from an outside "character". Some people think that losing the ego is scary, but it's not. The "hole" most feel, that they try to fill with sex, "things", drugs, etc, etc, gets filled, and you become content; You can sit staring at nothing and remain content, or equanimous.

I agree with what you have said here, but kind of wanted to "chime in"... for a lot of people, when they meet someone that is actualized, or on the path to being enlightened, or someone that already "gets it", etc, (also depending on the path, for instance in Buddhism there are 4 stages of "enlightenment", starting with Sotapanna, even though all 4 are technically also already "enlightened" when you are talking about the secular version of it as "self-actualization") they will think you are nutty, or "new agey". Now, note that these labels won't bug you, but it makes it a bit hard to "fit in". You essentially have to put on a hat/concept/label that most people would be comfortable with. There is a quote I really like "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players;" - William Shakespeare This is how most people live their lives... the ego creates a character, and the person thinks that is who they are. So they act accordingly. Re-acting instead of responding to life. Once the self is seen as an illusion, you see this, and Plato's Cave intimately. You start to see things as funny.... Because you see people acting these things out as if they are characters in a play, where you become the observer. (And the Observer gets more and more pronounced as you do (mindfulness) meditation, either sitting or in everyday life.)

Why do you have to worship something? I think the thing you are not "seeing" is that "god", that is the Abrahamic god, is pretty much an ego, based on the ego's of men. (and by men I mean males). The particular society you belong to has conditioned you to act a certain way. Just like people in the US are mostly conditioned to be Christian, and pursue material goals. When you lose your ego, "god" loses the ego as well. That is what Leo is talking about. Once you realize that you, and everyone/thing else is part of "god", there is no need to worship, essentially, yourself and ego. Empty rituals and laws will not get you to enlightenment. Enlightenment comes when you lose the conceptual ego, and see reality for what it is, instead of what you have been conditioned to see it as. Which means also saying "I don't know", if you do not have an answer to something. That does not keep you from having faith though. Just acknowledge that faith is not the same thing as knowledge.

You become "god" when you become enlightened. Because god in the sense that Leo, and the other contemplative religions see it is the unconditioned element (Nibbana). i.e nothing. Or from quantum physics, an uncollapsed quantum state. Nothing can be anything. And anything is nothing. Since you are "something" you came from "nothing", and in that case you are "god".

The Buddha had a purpose... to teach others to "wake up".. But then that turned into a religion... Yes, it is possible. Though, there will come a time, if you understand that since everything in the universe is impermanent, (due to entropy, death, disease, age, etc) attachment even to "life" becomes uninteresting. Or, a better way of putting it, you get disenchanted with the material world. You also feel supremely free at the same time, because you realize you do not need "things" to make you happy. Happiness/contentment has always come from you, not from the outside world.