UnbornTao

Nice, good work. Now that I think about it, I've got to look into what context is and how to create it and change it.

@zurew Sounds good. What's enlightenment, though? It isn't about development. It's you deeply realizing the absolute nature of existence or you. Don't know whether what you said is true or not. You seem to be talking from or about an ideal of what it means to increase one's consciousness. You can become conscious at the beach or in the forest since contemplation isn't limited to any set of circumstances in particular. You could even have an enlightenment by falling in the bathtub. Have yet to hear something like that happening, though. A Zen monastery is likely the least BS, most straightforward environment you could be in. And yet that gets corrupted by dogma, too, even though direct consciousness is the spirit of Zen.

I doubt people would suddenly turn crazy or depressed without religion, or that they would experience not-knowing. They would likely have less stuff standing in the way. Wonder can emerge from that. You can see it as being freed from mostly unnecessary and at times harmful, presumptions. From that, a deeper questioning can take place. Again, if they provide value to you, they don't need to be discarded as long as they're recognized as what they are - belief, not an experience of what's true. We could start our own religion. Free bread and unconditional love for everyone!

I don't think that fundamentally there are steps to it as in a sequence. You do it. You become conscious. You make a breakthrough. Deeply wanting to know and wondering about stuff helps. Contemplate. Hold a question and intent to discover what's true. Exercises and practices may be invented to help the mind focus. Contemplation is what you do while becoming conscious. I'm a solitary type, I don't know about that. Fair enough.

The capacity to accomplish, create or actualize something.

Pay attention to the following dynamic: knowledge can create ignorance. Belief masquerades as understanding. Knowledge (belief) binds you to ignorance without you realizing it. Beliefs are often conflated with personal, direct experience. Our fundamental assumption is, of course, that our assumptions are true! Belief undermines the possibility of having genuine insights and of becoming aware. Like a closed circuit, assumptions undermine the possibility of truly knowing, and becoming aware of, what something is for itself. They restrict your perspective by keeping your mind stuck within them. In this way, the necessary openness that precedes any form of investigation and inquiry is severely diminished. This dilemma is solved by eliminating and transcending every disempowering belief that you hold. Start by acknowledging the fact that you don't know, and dwell on that. From that recognition, wonder emerges, and true discovery becomes a possibility.

Don't fill in the blanks with something I haven't said or turn it around to fit your argument. You're the one who is arguing for the need for religion. I don't care about that. You do whatever you want. Ultimately that's what each of us does. Make sure it is empowering for you and others. If consciousness is what you want, consciousness is what you need. That's what I'm saying. Beliefs seem to stand in the way of that. That said, beliefs that are valuable to you, others and your life don't necessarily need to be discarded. Just recognize them as what they are. Enlightenment work is a matter of personal responsibility. Standing behind circumstances won't cut it. As I was walking my dog one random night, I experienced "no-self", and prior to that I was anxious and overwhelmed, so what? External factors are what they are. Your consciousness isn't determined by those. Own your enlightenments, take care of yourself. The rest is not up to you and may be secondary. In the end, belief doesn't alter the fact that, in your experience, you still don't know pretty much anything. At best, you added intellectual understanding on top of your "knowledge" mountain. Ignorance (belief) can masquerade as actual understanding. How come contemplators are generally portrayed as solitary types? "What does religion contribute to my life? What have I come to understand by believing in hearsay? What have I become conscious of by following doctrines, performing rituals, interacting with other believers? What effect does belief have on experience?"

@Danioover9000 @Carl-Richard You're standing on a bunch of assumptions and intellect (abstractions). Where does the need for what you advocate exists in your experience? Grasp that the truth isn't in any teachings. Beliefs can be held either as mindlessly adopted ideas which you're unwilling to question or as tools that can empower you, others, and your relationship to life. But no belief is true. In the end, it doesn't matter what you believe but what you do and whether you know who you are.

I don't think they actually need to. What you mean is that they want to. Again, there might be benefits to religion, especially in the social domain. What do you get by believing? Even if you believed the earth was round, that still wouldn't be an experience of what's true! It's hearsay. Whether it comes from a trusted source or not is another distinction to make. When it comes to existential matters, the difference is more abysmal still. Believing is fine but at some point you've got to grow up: What are you? What is another? What is existence? What is life? What are emotions?

@Carl-Richard First grasp what belief is. Without direct experience, you may be stuck with belief and ideas. Notice the significance of this. Don't jump to conclusions, I'm not talking from a new age standpoint. That's irrelevant. To me, you sound like you want something to believe in, which is fine, by the way. Some beliefs can be beneficial. No culture is based on direct consciousness. They're all based on survival. Avoid fantasizing. Whatever's absolutely true must be true now, no matter the circumstances. A supportive environment is useful, but care should be taken not to play the victim, reacting against circumstances as if they were the determinant factor. You can contemplate in many states and environments -- while stressed, lonely, bored, blissful, hungry, etc.

Well, you do it. That's the gist of it. Pay attention to how you may be avoiding your experience. Without reacting or suppressing, allow yourself to feel and experience fully.

See what you're doing with your experience: accepting it as it is allows for deeper calm and relaxation. Practice this. Deeply accept your experience. This can help a lot. Breathe slowly and deeply, be in your body, and enjoy life!

Don't know about that. Religion can be beneficial for those things that you mentioned. Is your concern about consciousness or social survival? Circumstances are secondary or irrelevant to enlightenment work. Ramana sat endlessly in a cave while insects ate away his legs. Nissargadatta was illiterate and heavily addicted to smoking. Nothing fancy, yet they're deeply conscious. Becoming a contemplator, not a follower, is what I advocate. The act of following seems to imply belief and conformity. Ideas that come from skillful individuals could be held as possibilities rather than as hearsay that demands faith. That's the heart of the issue: religion is about the faith aspect, and stops there. It doesn't encourage deep questioning nor personal experience. That's not what it is up to, as opposed to openly seeking out what's true which doesn't require religious belief in the first place.

@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.