UnbornTao

Consider that you're very likely doing what the Christian is doing in various forms - the religiosity just happens to be a superficial manifestation of a deeper need for a consistent worldview.

I guess I have a bias. @Someone here I hid your answer again, as it probably would've started another fire. Pay attention to your own role in this, too.

It came and it went, so to speak.

A self-identity (whatever is identified as self) could itself be based on fear as it has no fundamental substance in reality. Just a thought.

@ivankiss @Someone here I hid the conversation, avoid making it personal. Grow up a bit. .... so what were we talking about? Survival, fear?

As long as you guys behave, it's fine.

You already find it beneficial, so be happy with that. As long as you recognize that it is a belief system - and so separate from the truth, provided this is your goal - then there's no problem.

I don't see anything particularly wrong or disrespectful with his first replies. @ivankiss @Someone here Fix your relationship, or get divorced.

Guys, keep it on topic, at least reasonably.

We should take care not to use rhetoric to fool ourselves into thinking our own level of understanding is higher than it actually is. But hey, that's the human predicament. I wrote a fancy paragraph as a response, but I figured the sentence above gets the sentiment across. I finally caught up, Jesus.

There's nothing to remove, so what mechanism? The point is, you're looking for vegetables in a candy shop - and everything is a candy shop. (Again with the analogies.)

Is consciousness a property that sentient beings have? That'd be better called awareness, perhaps - something that is indicative of an entity's capacity for re-cognition of itself and its environment. If we take your use of the word here, the dog is even "conscious" of things humans are not. The entire physical universe could collapse, and it would make no difference in this regard. Both the dog (god spelled backwards) and the human would be startled, though. I just hope the dog doesn't think that ingesting a chemical will awaken him, in any case. As far as consciousness goes, what's a dog and what's a human? What is the assertion that consciousness is had by you, as a human self, based on? And if we expand your argument, why wouldn't taking magnesium or vitamin D bring one closer to (or further from) awakening? Can we see the premise here? Do you think God-realization depends on achieving the right chemical soup in the brain? The point is that brain activity and consciousness are not related, because, with the former, there's nothing to be related to.

Do you think that opening up the brain and tweaking certain parts could eventually produce enlightenment? I wasn't talking about figuring out a logical explanation for a process. And what is it that happens?

@Socrates You actually know a thing or two, liar.

Yeeeep.

Call it whatever you want but no absolute can accurately be conveyed, this was already the case. When you mention higher and lower, supernatural, and all such distinctions, make sure it isn't a state that's being talked about and conflated with what underlies it. As for your last sentence, it depends on what you mean by the real work. It is if you mean changing the activity of the brain, yet what that produces is still a relative result. You're suggesting, essentially, that there's such a thing as a pill for enlightenment, which is misleading.

The Buddhists broke the blog

In a sense it was never strictly necessary in the contemporary world for most people, but we'll likely continue doing it - for quite some time, at least. Overall, it sounds like a pipe dream.

When you say that it's mediated by something else, you're referring to something relative - awareness, perhaps. The universe could collapse and it still wouldn't touch the absolute - so why would an activity or chemicals in your brain do it? Again, work for what? To what end? The claim is that no practice is going to do it for you, as it isn't a result or a new experience. The best it can do, perhaps, is leave you where your consciousness presently is - ignorant of what's true - and then you somehow make the leap, as if by magic. There's no method or pill to produce direct consciousness. But we imagine such consciousness will change something. How - or that - a breakthrough occurs remains a complete mystery… and I suspect that's unavoidable as a "feature." Even after having had enlightenments, each breakthrough is completely up in the air and must be faced anew, from scratch.

A process has a beginning and an end, and it suggests some kind of activity unfolding. Writing a book and perceiving are processes. Look at how everything is a process in the relative, as are practices and states. Consider it is not a process as it transcends time and space. But personally contemplate what it is without presumption.

Maybe awareness or cognition, and consciousness.

A process is a doing. You're referring to something relative that can be cognized - perception, perhaps. Even when we say now, notice how it's often still not quite Now - it's still a point in time. Even if it occurs in a millisecond, it'd still be a process.

Sure you are. Why do you care? You can always ask what another is, or what life or sentience are, but usually, one would start with oneself.

I addressed some of your points in my other reply, even if only indirectly. It's like assuming that wearing a different shirt will build muscle. Direct consciousness isn't a function of brain chemistry or physiology, which is what you claim. Why would any activity have anything to do with or touch the Absolute? That was your suggestion, not mine. You still ascribe "requirements" and possibilities where they don't apply. What I said is that a state is a state, and an experience is an experience - all of it ultimately irrelevant when it comes to this direct business - including this very hallucination and its contents, of which the drugs are a part. They can open your mind, but only you do it, whatever the circumstances. Likewise, practices like fasting or chanting won't make you enlightened either. There's no how or method to get you there, and no way for us to know why an awakening happens for you. We assume that since we might have had an enlightenment, we'd now be able to reproduce more breakthroughs or access them - yet the "reason" why it occurs still remains a mystery for us. We just do it - we become absolutely conscious. The work always starts from scratch. It may seem discouraging, even hopeless, that no practice or path can lead to enlightenment. But that's just how it is. The good news is that you're already here - hence, direct. Something in the relative world isn't going to produce an Absolute result.