UnbornTao

I don't think so. Not at all.

Who cares? You can think that you are a butterfly. The point is: who are you? And becoming directly conscious of that.

First I'd start with discovering what self and ego are about. Without being conscious of it you can't become free from it. Also, transcending something isn't a matter of destroying it. I don't know what the ego yet, but I suspect there's some basic functioning for human life in that. Again I loosely distinguish between self and ego, the latter being a function of the former. But contemplation is needed.

Certainly, the struggle you're speaking of seems to be universal, as this principle is independent from self-survival and serves the truth; those might conflict. Honesty is about telling the truth -- that may or may not improve yourself. Being honest doesn't mean telling everything that comes to mind, as that serves your self-agenda, not what's true. Always start with yourself. Be honest about your experience. That's where the principle operates from. Take care that your thinking, communication, acting, etc. are an accurate representation of your experience. What's true in your experience is estimated by you. Then, ask yourself: What might be behind that? Is that all the truth? Can more be discovered? Something considered true might at some point be recognized as phony. So continuously reach for deeper levels of honesty. In a social context, care is advised. You may think that I'm incompetent and at the same time you don't want to hurt my feelings either. When asked about this matter, however, you'd need to express what you think, or refuse the answer.

Addiction seems to be about repeatedly craving pleasurable experiences. Pain and pleasure are the same. The search for pleasure is motivated by pain. Seems as though something in your experience is not entirely accepted and experience for what it is. We want to avoid pain, the mundane, boredom, loneliness, an emotional need. Maybe. Look into it.

Conscious education, how to overhaul the education system.

Others are whatever they are. In your experience, other people are certainly conscious, sentient entities. No point in denying that. An enlightenment into what other is is needed.

Boredom can be experienced when distracted. It shows up as the feeling of loneliness which is by itself a painful experience. It seems to be accompanied by an excruciating despair that could be plainly expressed as: "God, I hope this isn't all there is." What motivates the need for distraction? Why the drive for distraction in the first place? What do you get and avoid by being distracted? Avoiding pain could be the motivation for pursuing distraction.

Take any everyday physical object in your vicinity. Strip away all of the meaning, value, associations, concepts, knowledge, and memory that you have about it. Stop perceiving it as it relates to you. Get it as itself. What is actually there? What is that when all of your additions and activities related to it are set aside? Notice what happens when doing this practice.

Also, what are we referring to when we talk about both religion and spirituality? What actions are we talking about in each case? Based on that, we can clear up the possible reasons and consequences for engaging in either of them.

Kylian Mbappé. "Go to Real already for christ's sake." Oh oh, Ramana Maharshi too.

That spirituality and religion are needed and important for understanding reality. They're not direct. I recommend pure contemplation. "What is this?", basically, "this" being whatever we're looking into.

What if humans came from Buddhists? haha

I don't think that's what's being said

And what I'm saying is that both exist in your experience as beliefs. They are concepts.

I disagree lol

I'd say that whatever we call it, humans have this innate need to believe. So whether it is X or Y, the issue lies in the predisposition to turn any communication into belief. After all, believing is much easier than investigating for yourself. The problem is that belief doesn't change your ignorance on the matter, even though you think it does.

It degrades into meaningless ritual, dogma and idiocy. What are people actually doing with "religion"? Mostly believing and asking for favors. We're talking about a complex invention based on a guy that was presumably deeply conscious. If Jesus were alive today... I'm not sure what his thoughts on all this would be. Wasn't religion used as a justification for killing millions of people? And the guy those people followed said "love thy neighbor"? Such things are an impediment to pure contemplation. It can be useful in some ways, especially for a collective. But not needed.

Assuming we'd understand each other, Jesus, Gotama and Da Vinci are some of my favorites.

I would avoid making up cosmologies and stories. There's no relationship. Enlightenment is never insanity. A breakthrough isn't a breakdown.

Moe regrets:

How can you distinguish between authentic teachers and charlatans?

All of that is conceptual. In your experience, you are either absolutely conscious or not. I'm not implying that there isn't work involved or that people don't go through stuff while doing "spirituality" (meditating, praying, etc.) However, once again, process, stages, states, and goals are relative. I'm talking strictly about direct consciousness. Take Ramana's case. Although rare, it goes to show the nature of such consciousness. He was a teenage boy without the slightest interest in spirituality and awakening. In a relative's house, he became terrified at the possibility of death, so he contemplated what it would be like for him to die as he laid on the floor. He went through a process of emulating his own death. In a matter of minutes, a wide-open state preceded a sudden massive awakening. It's sudden because it's always now. It is YOU. What intermediary would there be at the moment of realization? Very well then. However, that applies only to the relative. As an analogy, there is what's done within a dream -- what precedes the act of waking up -- and the direct act of waking up itself. There's no correlation. Either you wake up or not. Given that such consciousness is absolute, what you're saying does not apply. How could it? If it can be mapped, it is relative. It is not a process! As a matter of fact, direct consciousness itself is profoundly simple and universal as it is direct and true. Not saying it is common or necessarily easy to "get."

It's easy to challenge your faith, and recommended. Notice it's a belief you're holding and that the truth of the matter is unknown to you. If it's empowering in some form, keep it, if not, drop it.

Can't transcend what you're not conscious of. This applies equally to things you've made conclusions about. You made a conclusion. A conclusion isn't consciousness. Conclusions, convictions, beliefs and so on undermine the possibility of becoming aware. By saying that, you're justifying to yourself your ignorance on the matter. That way, you're clinging to unconsciousness. Move towards consciousness. Reality is at the other side of your cosmology, and it's good! In short, begin contemplating stuff.