UnbornTao

@MisterNobody @Leo Gura careful or you'll both be banned.

Gotama didn't invent Buddhism. He simply put forth and communicated his realizations from direct experience. His followers invented that religion by or through their actions -- believing in a guy's communication, putting it down on paper, holding the books as "sacred", performing rituals, making up a cosmology around it, adding and projecting stuff, etc. That, carried out for a long period of time, created what we call Buddhism. In any case, what awakened individuals like these had were insights, breakthroughs and enlightenments, not mere ideas. The absolute is not a matter of jumping to conclusions or of being convinced. Even if it is a superficial glimpse, it is absolute and self-validating. Care should be taken not to fool oneself with stories about it, though. What if the truth happens to be useless and to have no value? As a matter of fact, what's true must exist prior to value, since the latter is relative and is constructed by you. Saying that the absolute is the highest value doesn't sound right to me. What do you mean? What's value? Higher than what? Who's to say? Valuable to whom? It is offered as a possibility to be considered for oneself. Otherwise, what are you doing? If a religion says so, then you're supposed to accept it on blind faith. When the purpose is realizing what's real, you'd be invited to freely question anything.

In the context of enlightenment work, it gets in the way. Now, you may be tempted to believe what I said. But look into it for yourself.

This is exactly one of my points: Who told you that a certain value is the highest one? You're believing stuff of which you have no personal experience in the matter. If you had, you wouldn't feel an urgent need to adopt what you've been told as true. A religion is followed and is meant to create followers. That's what it does to people.

Like the raw authenticity. The audio could be improved, though.

Support them rather than their bullshit!

@Carl-Richard Sounds like your mind may be trapped in intellect in this topic. You interpreted what I said from the lens of your beliefs and swiftly categorized it as X although I'm not coming from a spiritual standpoint, much less a "new age" one. You seem to be conflating social survival and smartness with awareness. What is done with religion? Do you eat it? Can you wear it? What happens to your experience when a religion is followed? What do they provide you with? A few things that come to mind right away: statements about what the world and reality are, a set of ritualized practices, perhaps some wisdom sprinkled in there, a community of like-minded people (believers), et al. The point still stands: being ignorant is primarily the reason why beliefs are adopted. To be clear, I'm not saying that there aren't benefits to be found in studying religion or that there have not been enlightened individuals affiliated to particular subgroups. However, separate the wheat from the chaff - direct consciousness occurs despite or independent of affiliations. Again, contemplate: What are belief and religion? Maybe they happen to be like wetness and water.

Listen to that and consider experientially for yourself.

That's fantasy. Setting out to experience what's true is not about beliefs. Additionally, not everything is purely dogmatic. Certainly there're degrees of it. Religion is founded on belief systems, as opposed to say, science, which is based on objective observations. It's meant to be grounded on what's real and factual, relatively speaking. Certain practices emphasize personal investigation more than others, such as Zen, whose original intention is a direct personal consciousness of the absolute. After all is said and done: What are they doing? Notice how questioning is not encouraged at all and may even be actively suppressed by religion. It's not up to profound inquiry. Unfortunately for religion, the way towards insight and breakthrough is through questioning, not dogma.

@Carl-Richard What do you specifically mean by spirituality and new age? We don't know what's true, and contemplation is the direct way for becoming aware. Anything less than that in this context is fundamentally not needed, I'd say. Religion, by its nature, discourages open inquiry.

Moved to Health subforum.

Would individuals follow and concoct religions, worldviews and rituals if they experienced what's true? When does religion originate in one's experience? After our failure to experientially grasp whatever's true. We make up stuff to believe in due to our inability to stand not knowing. Rather than personal contemplation, social activities like religion inevitably turn into collective issues, which is the wrong focus in this context. Why is it so easy for the masses to adopt religion? Among other things, it's packaged for mass consumption. It's easy to believe in a doctrine whereas contemplating for yourself is tricky. With time, religion always degrades into dogma in the end. What is a belief?

In the context of enlightenment work, what you need is not-knowing and a genuine passion to know. Why would there be a need for religion in the first place? Because you lack understanding, consciousness, personal experience of what's true. Religion is antithetical to the pursuit of truth as it is faith-based and embraces beliefs. It essentially is about doctrine and ideas to be believed in and not questioned. What else?

Make a leap. Do it. Intend to grasp who you are now. Do that until you do.

Hearing that, you may assume a couple of things: considering self (what you identify as yourself) with you (your true nature) thinking that you already know what you, your nature, is. First, grasp who and what you authentically are. Always have been.

You're welcome. Hey, everyone's got their ups and downs. Thank you, too!

Kindle Paperwhite 8th or 9th edition (whichever's the latest). I bought it pretty much when it released. At that time I didn't own an eReader, and I used to have an older version of that same model, six or so years ago. Overall, I prefer paperbacks or audiobooks over digital. Having an eReader allows me to save up a lot of money that would otherwise go to shipping costs, which could sometimes be almost as costly as the book itself.

that's cool.

This is what true revolution looks like. All benefits!

hey gtp, cook an omelette for me

You are the only being in existence. Is this what's being discussed? I've heard from a couple of deeply conscious individuals that it's true, ha! Not that hearsay is valuable in this work...

yeeha

Ineffective. Confront the fear and do it. What's meant by impossible likely is that it hasn't been done yet. Try approaching without expecting anything in return, simply talk to many women. Might be a good first step.