AtmanIsBrahman

Highly recommend it! I think it is even better than tree of life, which is a great movie in its own right.

How do you know if you've had an awakening? Is it really such an undeniable realization that you know for sure is true, like Leo and other teachers have said? What about self-deception... and what does it really mean to be conscious of something... Let's say I'm conscious that reality is infinite in this moment. But what does that really mean? Do I know that since reality is one by definition, that there cannot be any other reality to impose a limit on reality, and therefore reality is limited? This is a sort of intellectual understanding, but it is understanding nonetheless. Does it mean that I have an unusually imaginative mind and I can imagine a fractal that appears as infinite in my minds eye? But what about all the other ways the fractal could manifest, what about all the other things besides the fractal, what about cat infinity, video game infinity, all infinities - the infinite set, the set of all sets? If I've taken a psychedelic and feel a cosmic connectedness combined with visuals of fractals or something similar, and get a feeling that I have seen infinity and I am infinity, the godhead, the absolute, have I really become conscious of infinity-- and if so, to what extent?

I'm not sure the analogy applies Yes, but isn't it possible that you could deceive yourself? And the awakening is probably just to one facet of infinity, not the whole thing. I honestly wonder whether it's possible at all to awaken to absolute infinity. There are always more levels.

How do you know "others" have not attained the same realization of solipsism as you but just frame it differently?

@Leo Gura isn't solipsism and oneness of reality really just the same thing. Isn't this arguing on the forum just about definitons, different ways of attempting to express absolute truth using language (which can't be done)?

This is my personal impression of the pros and cons of Sadhguru and his teachings. Pros: 1) Obviously, he has very high levels of consciousness. God realization?- I'm not sure, but he has definitely had some awakenings. 2) He seems to be great at the embodiment side of spirituality-- he has a conscious, loving aura and something about him just radiates consciousness. Also, the Isha Foundation, which he created, is one of the best organizations for increasing the consciousness of humanity that I know of. 3) Sadhguru is good at using parables or stories to point to spiritual truths. This makes it easier to understand what he is pointing to without him explicitly saying it. 4) He claims to live in constant bliss, so if that's what you're going for he might be good to learn from. Now the juicy bit... Cons: 1) Sadhguru is awful at conceptual things. He has no grasp of science whatsoever. Yes, he is a spiritual master and so you might think he "has no need" for science or something, but the truth is that it shows a smidge of closed-mindedness in him. 2) He clearly has a preference for Indian culture and Hinduism. It's obvious from his videos that he sees Indian culture as supreme and looks down on other cultures to a certain extent. 3) He may have killed his wife. 4) Sadhguru might take Hinduism literally. If you watch enough of his videos where he goes in depth on spiritual topics, he tends to bring up Hindu terminology a lot, such as Shakti, Krishna, Atman, Paratman, and some other words I'm forgetting. It's hard to tell whether he actually has construct awareness about Hinduism and isn't mistaking the map for the territory when it comes to these concepts. In his rare videos where he actually answers stuff like "what is the origin of reality," he tends to answer in terms of Hindu ideas of different deities, making it unclear whether he actually is conscious of the answer to some of these questions Interesting Questions to Contemplate 1) If Sadhguru is lacking in ability to explain things, should that cast doubt on his level of spiritual realization? Does enlightenment always come with the ability to explain it? (at least in some limited way) 2) Does high conciousness automatically make you not care about concepts (as is the case with Sadhguru) or is it an aspect of the person's personality? Anyways, hopefully you got something from this post. I'd like to hear your guys' thoughts on Sadhguru.

I haven't looked into his courses, so I didn't mention them. I've seen some of his videos on aliens, which seem interesting. What I mean about his Hindu bias is that he explains existential things with a Hindu framework, and I'm not sure he realizes that it is just a framework.

I'm not going to accuse you of being a fanboy. I generally agree that what sadhguru does is good, I was just trying to point out some limitations of his teachings. That being said, the last video you shared about the 84 universes is an example of where Sadhguru tries to go into scientific and conceptual topics and ends up spewing nonsense. Hopefully you can see that there being exactly 84 universes is a ridiculous notion.

I watched Knight of Cups after seeing this, and… wow. Never have I seen a movie that was so clearly about awakening, yet without ever mentioning it directly. The whole movie is like a display of consciousness and all the forms it can take, all within a dream. Knight of cups got bad reviews most likely because it is so experimental… and also because critics don’t get non duality. I’m even not sure whether Malick himself meant to make a movie about awakening, but it’s great. I would highly recommend this movie!

It's placing a limit on God to say that it "can't" explore without bias/separation. Of course language has limits, so I guess I understand what you're saying, but really God is unlimited. God chooses to explore through separation, just because its one possible state of consciousness so why not.

You thought the most beautiful equation in mathematics was e=mc^2? Or e^pi*i=-1? You thought wrong This is the equation of the universe: 1 = 0 = ∞

This is going to be long and touching on a lot of topics. I've been wondering about a certain inconsistency in Leo's teachings. He says that there is really no separation between good and evil, and that really everything is good. So Hitler is good, rape is good, etc. and you just imagine it is evil because of your selfishness as an ego-- it goes against your survival needs as a being with a limited sense of self. And this is because reality is infinite and includes everything, not just the stuff that you like. But at the same time, if we're being honest, Leo does admit a certain duality between good and evil by calling it consciousness and unconsciousness. So although Hitler is good in some absolute sense, he is low-consciousness: his perspective is too narrow, focused only on Germany, and he is not aware of truth, enlightenment, and spirituality, or even more basic concepts such as liberalism and democracy. Same with rapists, murders, and the like. Now, having heard this, people ask, "Why shouldn't I do evil stuff? What is stopping me, since it is absolutely good?" Leo's answer across multiple videos has been that there is no reason why you shouldn't do "evil". But then he follows this up by saying that there will be consequences to your actions. Is this some law of karma, or what? If it is, then doesn't this mean the universe actually favors good and punishes evil? And if not, then there aren't really any consequences for doing evil. Now, this leads to the question of what high consciousness is. The way Leo talks about high consciousness, it is like a higher stage of development. But does this mean more intelligence or more emotional capacity? Let's imagine a serial killer who is highly intelligent, calm, and collected. He meditates regularly and, though not enlightened, has a high level of consciousness. We can hypothesize that he kills for some kind of spiritual high. Next, let's imagine an unusually good, noble person. He doesn't mediate, has poor control over himself, and is unintelligent, but he helps people and avoids doing evil things such as murdering people. These people don't add up according to Leo's model of high vs. low consciousness. The serial killer should be low-consciousness and the "good guy" should be high-consciousness, but we see from their descriptions that it seems more like the opposite. So basically, my question is, can a high-consciousness person do things that are thought of as evil with full awareness of what they are doing but be so spiritually developed that they don't care? Can a zen master be a serial killer? Does this contradict them being a legitimate zen master, or is it possible? Then, as a side note, does high consciousness have to do with intelligence, self-discipline, and these sort of things or is it something entirely different? Anyway, this was kind of convoluted, but I'd appreciate any comments or answers people have.

@Osaid I guess I am talking about Leo’s model of reality. When I used the term enlightenment, it was a loose use of the phrase. Still, any model of enlightenment has to involve higher and lower consciousness (unless enlightenment is an instantaneous 0-100 type of thing, which I don’t buy into).

This is just an insight I had. I was thinking about how everything anyone does is selfish. Obviously there is what we normally think of as selfish, but also altruism. If we do something for the good of someone else, that’s only because it makes us feel good. In other words, because we include them in our idea of self. Then I realized that our degree of selfishness or selflessness depends on how large our idea of self is. If it includes the whole universe then that is infinite selfishness— which is synonymous with selflessness. And this is basically what oneness is.

To take the analogy literally, your hand can grasp a part of itself, just not the whole thing. Based on that, we can grasp a part of reality but not the whole thing.

I struggle to understand why Leo, along with many other spiritual and philosophical schools of thought, think that reality is essentially mental, or non-physical. The materialist view is that the universe is made of physical stuff and that our consciousness results from a specific arrangement of matter. This runs into the issue, how do subjective experiences come about from matter that doesn't have subjective experience? This doesn't make sense intuitively. So it might seem like considering consciousness the most fundamental thing solves that issue. But since most things in the universe are not conscious, at least as far as we can tell, this seems like projection because we are giving the entire universe our human attribute of consciousness. Why is consciousness really fundamental and not just a projection? P.S. I ask this genuinely wanting to learn, not just to criticize

I know that it's an assumption, but I don't see why it's wrong. Isn't it also an assumption that a rock can only exist inside consciousness? Or is this just a better assumption? I'm willing to accept that all we can know for sure is our own consciousness, but why does this mean that everything "out there" only exists when perceived by consciousness? I feel like this is making the mistake of saying, "because I can't know things about physical objects outside of my consciousness, they must not really exist and I must just be imagining them". There's a difference between the epistemological status of things and their actual metaphysical being.