UnbornTao

You win. Cheetos pizza.

I guess the next conversation could turn into: what is language?

I'd say that that would be something else, not consciousness.

It's easy to hide behind the genetics part and underestimate what you can accomplish with commitment.

What even is the purpose of that? You can go to a Taylor Swift concert and it would be as "spiritual" as this. You're right to be skeptical of rituals that are aimed at "social" purposes rather than anything real. Of course it comes off as cult behavior.

You just need to learn how to cook them. Vegetables stir fry (carrots, red pepper, onion), a bit of salt, some spices (parsley, cayenne pepper, thyme), tomato sauce, three boiled eggs, two tablespoons of this sauce (red peppers, garlic, cumin, salt, vinegar, and olive oil), and of course, a can of cooked lentils.

Ramana was free of life and death and Wilber wanted him to work at McDonalds. After being diagnosed with cancer, his students wanted him to go into treatment. Ramana's disposition, if I recall correctly, was something along the lines of: "Why? Just let me die already." This speaks not of repression or apathy but transcendence and freedom. On his deathbed, his students were beside him, crying and mourning the loss of his teacher. He said, I'm paraphrasing: "Why are you crying? Where do you think I'm going?" That is something that we find incomprehensible from here. It points to a radically different perspective than ours.

How one uses language reflects the distinctions that one employs and where one is coming from. Neither have we met Ramana, etc. About "this and that", it wouldn't be a problem if we weren't talking about the absolute. Take care not to cause diabetes with your "water."

Later this year.

The author of Nondual Perspectives on Quantum Physics is releasing a new book soon. https://tomajjavidtash.com/2018/10/29/nondual-perspectives-on-quantum-physics/

@Water by the River You seem to continue to speak of, and hold, enlightenment as something relative that is comprised of a plethora of distinctions, processes, states, duration, this and that, in addition to continuously using jargon and referencing a lot of external sources. Why? You seem to want to convince others as much as you want to convince yourself. Clear communication is getting across one's experience as it is, and it is able to stand on itself. Not so sure you're selling water at all.

Bread and toppings are but fleeting illusions, mere whispers in the vast emptiness of the pizza void. To grasp at bread is to chase the wind; to cling to toppings is to hold onto shadows. Pizza, as we perceive it, is a construct of our dualistic mind, an attachment we must transcend. In the realm of ultimate truth, there is no pizza, and yet, pizza is everywhere. Non-pizza neither affirms nor denies; it is the middle way, the path of balance and harmony. Thus, the enlightened diner sees beyond bread and toppings, savoring the taste of emptiness itself. --GPT

This relates to one aspect of your post: You're basically taking hearsay on faith. Whatever's true about anything is whatever's true for itself now. You seem to be fixating on a particular belief system such as non-duality, isms of all kinds, et al. This already undermines true investigation because it is not based on openness but on speculation and wishful thinking born out of ignorance, even by many of the creators/proponents of such cosmologies (ways of seeing the world). It is not a process and there's nothing you can do about it, except being open now and wanting to get it (contemplation) seem to help. Remember that Gautama, after having studied various schools of thought and practices, ultimately had to leave all that behind and stand on his own experience. This is already the case even before you've set out to study others.

Ken Wilber's wig pizza + Buddhist rats topping.

Better not to gossip and disparage others based on rumors about their lives.

First we'd somehow need to realize the nature of what we're talking about, which is consciousness.

Not familiar with this topic. Perhaps someone else can offer some help.

I'm not convinced he's conscious of his nature at all. Nobody with that wig can be enlightened.

Taking up an invention and being familiar with it is not the same as being able to reproduce it in your experience and comprehending how it comes to exist and work. Insights and discoveries are made by individuals. Ways of thinking get created based on these breakthroughs, and then adopted by the rest of us. Yet, the initial creative component of such inventions goes often unnoticed. We live as if familiarity implies understanding. Looking closely, however, we see that there are a lot of things that we fail to grasp and yet adopt as a given. For instance, we overlook the fact that it took a genius mind like Newton's to make a breakthrough into the principle of gravity. We now say that gravity is obvious since "everyone knows that objects fall down." We're missing something fundamental here. What Newton understood was that objects don't go sideways, float, or go up! Examples: Confusing the form an expression takes with the insight underlying it Picasso's art died with him; the ability to create that art was unique to him As a culture, we are somewhat familiar with Ancient Skepticism, yet very few of us are able to generate that kind of rigorous, deep, intelligent and multi-faceted thinking We take on the invention of language and presume to know what it is since it is a prevalent construct paramount to our survival, yet we remain unaware of its real nature Any "ism" eventually degrades into a form of shared conjecture, while the insight that precipitated such invention, if there was one to begin with, is overlooked and thus missed/unseen

Blueberries, oreo and weed.

— Ibn Arabi

Dodo and red cabbage pizza.

Pain is a process. What is it really about? Leave God alone.