UnbornTao

Like Homer Simpson, Trump would've killed for the peace prize.

Why do you seem to be continuously rage-baiting? Is this your first account here?

This can be both true and, at the same time, exceptionally vague. For instance, how does originality come about?

It's just becoming personally conscious of what is ultimately true about yourself or existence. That statement is intentionally left blank because whatever we think about it is, in the end, a moot point. I'm not sure that is what Ramana would say, but in any case, it is not our experience. Speculation aside, the above is the goal.

How does that look in practice? After all, what others see are appearances - the way you, or things, show up in life. We might say that someone like Da Vinci was original. But what are we actually talking about? Perhaps I'm conflating things like uniqueness, inventiveness, or creativity - things that should be distinguished from this.

That's just doing the same thing differently. It's what he's stuck with. Doing judo with only one arm is not what originality is about, in my view.

Maybe originality overlaps with creativity?

Good questions. Was going to post something along those lines. Interesting topic.

By that logic, neither Jesus nor Buddha would have existed. Or, alternatively, we would have far more enlightened people today, proportional to humanity's accumulated knowledge. One could argue that contemplation was actually easier in ancient times, with far fewer distractions. Consider the contrast between the average Western lifestyle today and that of a monk in a monastery. Unless you're talking about intellectually constructing new worldviews, the requirement for direct consciousness has remained constant throughout history. The accumulated "content" or knowledge does not change that fundamental requirement. Perhaps there's a reason we don't see many figures like Plotinus or Heraclitus today. If they were born now, they'd likely spend their days scrolling TikTok rather than reading Kant - and even reading Kant wouldn't guarantee understanding. The Dark Ages emerged after the Greeks, demonstrating (perhaps) that this dynamic is not linear. Also, the ancient skeptics would demolish the average person's reasoning today - and that was thousands of years ago. The common ground is this: a lack of authentic experience applies equally to the average person today as it did in past eras. Knowledge alone cannot alter this fact. And you can be a profoundly awakened "barbarian." Experiencing what's true does not depend on cultural context or environment. Development and "what is" are not the same thing. --- "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" - T.S. Eliot What a tryhard.

Of course that increasing consciousness includes enlightenment. And becoming aware isn't the same pursuit. You may become aware of previously unrecognized aspects of your experience - like parts of your body or a feeling - while becoming conscious goes beyond mere noticing to insight - revealing the truth of something. It's a bit of a sloppy distinction but hopefully it gets the point across.

Downgma.

Nice quote.

I know, I found his look funny. But in any case, it shows that your point about time is rather secondary. Truth does not change with time. He was an oblivious teenager when he had the breakthrough. Cultural developments probably don't hurt, though.

What are you talking about?

Agreeing.

Turn this into a belief system! https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi

Add to that the cosmology it is coming from.

Too real. I'm beginning to suspect that most people don't really make that distinction, including me - to a large degree, at least.

I'm simply acknowledging that he was one of the few who knew what they were talking about. But I never met the guy, and he's been dead for a while. So certainly what I have of him is mostly imagination, stories, and his words, if the books are to be trusted.

I'm saying that listening for an experience is different from analyzing something - which probably ends up being a convoluted way of not grasping the experience being conveyed. Isn't that what we're doing here? It's a nice chat but it inevitably remains largely within the domain of the mind and intellect. Listening, in this case, occurs outside or beyond these realms. Without openness, it won't occur.

What I said included us (humanity), hence the use of the plural form. Relative to Da Vinci, virtually no one has been able to accomplish what he was able to. It's similar with Ramana, in a sense - not that he was special or anything, or that others can't realize that truth. The thing to acknowledge is that we, in fact, do not currently grasp what he did, nor to the degree that he did - allegedly, presumably. There's something being missed here when we assume we fully understand what Ramana was conveying. This is simply about being honest with oneself, and it relates to my point about the imaginative intellectual worlds we all inhabit. Look at the solipsism and psychedelic "bubbles" on this forum, for example. It might be a similar mechanic as when someone does not see that their religion is not true; it just seems that way for them. I think we're talking past each other at this point, so I'm going to step back from dissecting what another person says. It's irrelevant in the end. What makes a real difference is what one becomes conscious of. And the truth he was conveying won't be found by concentrating efforts on analyzing his words or conflating them with a cosmology his mind may have constructed.

I'm going to revisit the Teal Swan thread.

Forgot to answer @Sincerity.