Shaun

If this form that calls itself Shaun were to die in a car accident tomorrow, would everyone else's subjective experience also cease until I come back as some other form?

Now I just have to see my awesomeness. Somehow. I sit and be present with fear every single day and it doesn't get any easier. It is intense in the morning especially.

I read a lot of Rupert Spira and enlightenment to him is the simple recognition of awareness itself or being aware of being aware. I am totally at that stage but there is still ego and suffering so I would imagine that there is much work to be done yet.

To be honest, I don't see it yet, it is only conceptual at this stage. One consciousness many minds makes sense the way Rupert Spira puts it.

All I want is for everyone else to be experiencing reality too. Sure, my mum is just the same as she was but can she see me? Can she feel it when I hug her?

It has to be said that I like the name serotoninluv, it's just perfect somehow. Anyway, I work 40 hours a week and that makes me worry that enlightenment will be unattainable as I can't do it full time.

Doing that does give me some comfort. I wish I could win the lottery or something so I can spend the rest of my days just sitting.

I hope that you are right and I had better get enlightened quick or this dark night of the soul will be the death of me.

It is a perfectly sensible thing to say. Imagine loving your own mother like she was a real person and you found out she was actually a mannequin like you'd see in a shop window. Your entire emotional system would have to be disabled to be able to cope with that.

That was the whole point of life, living it together with other people, not fake cardboard cutouts. You probably have never really loved someone so you wouldn't understand.

We've got ourselves into a right shitstorm, haven't we, Paul? Our quests to understand life and suffering have only led to more suffering.

@Paul92 Some advice for you @winterknight I am in the UK, hopefully I can get the help I need on the NHS or my work private medical insurance. That's the biggest problem for me, solipsism. All my loved ones appear alive but are not and don't experience reality along with me. That's what Leo is getting at anyway. I also worry about coming back to a life of suffering when I die.

Well that's my mind fried, I don't know what to do now. Nobody here can agree on what enlightenment is so I guess the only way is just to meditate and find what works for you.

@winterknight Thank you for your previous points. I'd second that as I am in the dark night and have been for the last 4 months. Paul actually attempted suicide but I didn't as I knew it would be no escape.

That's kind of re assuring because if I don't make it in this life, then the work I've done is hopefully not wasted. It would certainly be a waste if I came back as someone who dies a slow and painful death or a worm, but at least the worm doesn't have a mind full of shit.

How is it you can find joy in knowing your loved ones are not actually alive/experiencing?

I'm staying away from it until I find someone who is on the path. If I was to get in a relationship with someone who wasn't, it would end pretty quickly.

It seems to me that it's a pathless path as Krishnamurti said. There is talk of a boy who became enlightened at 4, one of my friends says she spontaneously became enlightened after doing no spiritual practice and Leo has been absolutely busting his balls for years and hasn't claimed to be enlightened yet.

@winterknight , is it true what Leo says, I created you to understand myself?

I really don't know how many times it will take. I feel like I am up against something totally infinite and I am so helpless.

Better than suffering, hugely better. Until enlightenment happens @Serotoninluv I totally understand, trying to understand it sometimes makes it come right up and the shit hits the fan big time. I don't think it is about making it stop, but more about surrender.

Leo would disagree with you there.

The whole thing is like a really bad trip with no beginning or end. Rupert Spira describes it differently in that all things appear within consciousness and I remember him saying in his book that we can say that the other people in this dream are having their own experience but are not separate from consciousness. That's pretty radical and unsettling but nowhere near as bad as being absolutely alone.

She is an illusion according to Leo and many others on here. You are also an illusion. I have no direct experience to back this up but it seems to be the general consensus. You are god and you are totally alone. Now you may need a shit ton of anti depressants to cope with your new understanding.

It means that you are god and created this entire reality to pretend that you are not. Everyone you see are just fake cardboard cutouts not having any experience at all. You could go out and kill someone or kiss that girl you like and it wouldn't matter because they wouldn't actually experience it.