Deep

@Joseph Maynor I'm vegetarian. Indian food has lots of vegetarian recipes. I would only eat meat if I was about to die and a chicken was the only thing in sight. Good discussion!

@Leo Gura I understand what you mean. I was furthering my point that material and spiritual are the same. Some people have a misconception that spirituality is woo woo, but it can be very practical.

Yoga is meditation. Yoga means to join with God. If you're doing consciousness work, you're already doing yoga. I answered the question here: https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/14473-recources-for-learning-yoga/#comment-148268 Most of things he says are correct. I wouldn't rely on Youtube channels for Yoga (except for physical yoga) because you have to live your own life.

I don't agree with that definition of enlightenment. Enlightenment can't be thrown around that easily. There are 1000s of clowns who would claim to be enlightened but I wouldn't believe them.

@Ether I was going to leave this forum for good, but you asked a compelling question, so I don't want to leave you in the dark. I'm going to be honest with you so don't take it personally. The short answer is: with great difficulty. The long answer is: you can't hold the mind still through meditation alone, if your daily life is not disciplined. In Hinduism we have a spiritual experiment called Raj Yoga. Yoga means to join. It is designed to dissolve the ego and help the mind hold still. It says before you sit down to meditate you have to master certain disciplines. There are 10 disciplines just like the Christian 10 commandments. These disciplines are a lot tougher than the Christian ones. Most people fail including most Hindus. Out of millions maybe 1 would succeed. You can read about it at www.sacred-texts.com > Hinduism> Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. It's only like 3-4 pages long. Here are some video resources: Before embarking on this journey you have to ask yourself a few questions. Are you ready to impose this kind of discipline onto yourself? If you're on this forum you're probably not ready for it, just like the rest of us. Are you ready to give up everything as you know it? It's not a hunky dory process it changes everything about your reality. It's the most difficult thing anyone can take on. If you're not ready, just forget about it and enjoy your life.

@egoless Let's pretend God is an actor playing an infinite amount of roles. These roles have to oppose one another for the movie to be interesting. That doesn't mean one side is evil and the other is good. People who are evil are just God being deluded. God loves being deluded. God is unconditional so it doesn't say no to anything. If we want to have a war, God would be like, "Yes let's do it." Our will is God's will.

@egoless You can certainly think evil exists if you want to. You can retain your morality even after enlightenment. In fact enlightened people have a stronger morality than egoic people. Enlightenment doesn't mean you have to accept bad behavior from others.

I was doing research in a hospital in 2015. During that time my kundalini was activated because my mind became very focused. When I do research my mind becomes very focused. Society is ignorant about enlightenment so I assumed they might think something is wrong with me. If my kundalini rose while I was there, I thought it might create problems. So I decided to take a break from that. I don't want to run away from society. I can relate to people and have fun with them. Eventually I want to get married and have a family, but that's not my highest priority right now. I'm not against having fun but having fun prevents me from seeing reality for what it is. I think it's necessary to live a disciplined life. I also think it's necessary to have a little bit of ego to function in society. I haven't had any negative symptoms of kundalini. I know how to make it rise by practicing Raj Yoga. I'm not doing it because I want to keep my ego intact. I'll have to work to earn a living, but working forces me to control my mind. My dilemma is being in the dream state vs liberation. Both of them seem like good paths. Material and spiritual are the same thing. When the kundalini initially rises, it's hard to control. After it's fully risen it's easy to control. The problem would only occur while I'm doing research. At home it doesn't fucking matter. My other option is to start a business from home. Do you think I should allow my kundalini to rise? I know there's no guarantee it will. Do you think it can create problems in American society? I'm not going to tell people except for a few family and friends. Do you think I should keep my ego? LOL

@Leo Gura Enlightenment is a state of being after having a transcendental experience. Enlightenment is not a paradigm shift because all paradigms happen within the ego. The transcendental experience doesn't happen randomly. It happens because the person succeeds in Yoga or some spiritual practice, knowingly or unknowingly. It wouldn't happen to a rapist because a rapist commits violence, but it can happen to an asshole because an asshole is honest. Enlightenment doesn't change a person's inherent personality but the transcendental experience can soften them up. I hope this answers your question @Monkey-man .

Many spiritual people think spirituality is all about being passive and loving unconditionally. This causes them to be more delusional because they ignore duality and their ego becomes weak. A weak ego is harder to remove. I'm not talking about anyone on this forum. I was reading youtube comments the other day. Many people from other religions were badmouthing Hinduism. They had done no research on it. They had no experiences. They were saying, "How can objects, animals, and humans be God? Hindus are deluded for believing that." This can only be proven if they have a spiritual experience in which they perceive everything to be God. That's not going to happen for them any time soon. Many scientific people fall into the same trap. They want evidence for God through their mind. Many Hindu Gods have animal faces because we believe we reincarnated from the animals. Most intelligent Hindus know the Gods don't exist. People need finite symbols to wrap their mind around the Infinite. There is no one sitting in the sky. This means that enlightenment is not very significant. If it was, most people would be striving for it. They dismiss it before even trying. The world is going to become more and more deluded as technology increases. The media, education system, and society at large will continue to spread delusion and bullshit. I don't care about what others believe. I'm only against violent people. I don't have any tolerance for that kind of behavior. The Indian religions advocate non-violence to reach enlightenment. Non-violence has to be taken into context. If a war was brought to my home, I would have no choice but to fight. This goes back to my earlier point that duality can't be ignored. I have a hard time believing these people are actually God. How can there be world peace if most people will never experience God?

Exactly, that's why it's okay for me to dislike them and them to dislike me. I actually admire them for having pride in their delusions.

@Blissout Behavior has a lot to do with enlightenment because certain behaviors are more likely to produce ego death. After the ego is gone one can behave however they want. @Highest Yes dvaita and advaita are both valid. Sometimes I think of God outside myself because it helps me to remain humble. Of course they're entitled to their opinion. I said I would defend myself if they physically attacked me. That's not a resistance inside me that's accepting everything as it is. Their delusions cause more harm to the planet because they don't believe other paths are valid. An enlightened person would also have to fight if their home was attacked. If that isn't accepting reality then what is?

@How to be wise Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Patanjali invented it. Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Kapiel, Buddha, and 100s of people who were sages used it. Most of the ancient sages were ascetics. Keep in mind it's not possible to stop thoughts 24/7 because you still have to interact with the world and do stuff. It's possible to stop thoughts during meditation.

The only method I know of is Raja Yoga. It's very difficult to practice. The goal of Raja yoga is samadhi which is cessation of mental activities. There are 8 limbs in Raja yoga: 1. yama (observances) 2. niyama (rules) 3. asana (posture) 4. prathyahara (don't know meaning) 5. pranayama (becoming one with breath) 6. dhyana (concentration) 7. dhara (don't know meaning) 8. samadhi (cessation of mental activities). I'm not going to write all the information here but you can find it at www.sacred-texts.com under Hinduism. Meditating everyday doesn't help if your life isn't very disciplined. That's why it's important to practice the yama and niyama for many years before meditating. When you succeed in the yama and niyama, the kundalini becomes activated in your spine. That's how you know you're on the right track. I've lived the low consciousness lifestyle before and I can say this is millions of times better. If you decide to practice it don't tell anyone. They won't understand you. Are you ready to impose this kind of discipline onto yourself?

Westerners come from the Abrahamic paradigm where God is separate from creation.They feel like bhakti yoga is more difficult because it might lead you to thinking God is outside of yourself. You can be successful in bhakti yoga and karma yoga if your paradigm shifts. Jnana yoga seems easier because westerners come from a rational/intellectual paradigm.

Once the mind holds still, you experience yourself as God. I understand that's not everyone's goal. From now on I'll just keep it to myself.

I want to share a little bit of my background. I was majoring in biology in college. I was doing a research project at a hospital. During the research, my kundalini energy was activated. I could feel it in my lower spine. I stopped doing the research and dropped out of college because I felt inspired to start a business. Now I'm thinking about going back and finishing it. Maybe I was fearful at that time. I think one has to experience samadhi before they're considered to be enlightened because everything before that is intellectual. During samadhi, the kundalini goes up to the cerebrum and one's awareness is expanded to infinity. Unfortunately, the journey to samadhi is not a walk in the park. It requires lots of discipline. The type of discipline that takes the fun out of life. The sages in the past gave us techniques to reach samadhi because they believed everyone is capable of reaching it. Otherwise they would've been like, "Fuck everyone else, we're going to keep this to ourselves. If they don't become enlightened, too bad." They probably did believe we have choice and we can choose to follow a spiritual path. In Jainism, they follow five tenets: truthfulness, non-violence, celibacy, non-stealing, and detachment. By doing this, they strive towards enlightenment (not everyone). The reason most people fail to experience samadhi is because they fail to do one of those things. For example, a terrorist commits violence, so his chances of enlightenment are destroyed. The funny thing is most people in the dream state think they're happy. They're only deluding themselves. I'm also deluding myself by choosing to remain in the dream. I think it's silly to pretend everything is okay. It's silly to pretend we love everyone. It's okay to be unhappy with the world. Most people are oblivious to their own suffering and to others' suffering. After experiencing samadhi, one's happiness becomes unconditional. Here is a video I found which gives a good description of how samadhi feels: It is literally mind blowing.

@Joseph Maynor You're trying to think from the Absolute perspective, but that doesn't help in attaining enlightenment. I'm saying it's necessary to experience the Absolute. Many sages never taught anyone but that doesn't mean they didn't love people. Be careful about believing everything Leo says. He is running a business, he's gotta say things to attract customers. He doesn't know what enlightenment is himself. Did you overcome your neuroses? What is this Being you talk about? I don't like vague definitions of enlightenment. Is your experience of the universe more intense or do you feel separation? I'm sorry if you didn't like what I said.

@YaNanNallari Sure, I can help you. There are 2 types of yoga, physical and spiritual. Physical yoga is Hatha yoga, which is all the crazy postures people do. Spiritual yoga has 4 categories: 1. Bhakti (devotional) yoga: This yoga is about having intense love for God. The love becomes so intense that you can no longer see yourself separate from God. 2. Karma (action) yoga: This is about doing selfless work for the greater good. It increases your love for everyone because you see yourself in them. They are God and so are you. 3. Jnana (wisdom) yoga: Through extreme wisdom you can discern what reality is. For example, you can become aligned with whatever is permanent (your True Self) and discard whatever is fickle. I think Ramana Maharshi was a practitioner of this. 4. Raja (royal) yoga: This involves succeeding in meditation after practicing severe disciplines. This is the only one that has specific techniques. You can read about this at www.sacred-texts.com. The first 3 don't have any specific techniques. It's also possible to mix and match all of them. It depends on what kind of person you are and how you relate to spirituality. All of them lead to the same destination.

It depends on how you define enlightenment. In my OP, I said Ramakrishna touched Narendra and he was able to perceive the world as God. Most children don't perceive the world in that manner, even without an ego. Maybe babies do but they aren't able to remember it. Martin Ball, Leo, and many others also say it is God. Is there mind projecting a label onto reality? No, I think there is a significant difference between waking up and the dream. I don't think enlightenment is about removing all the associations from the mind. I mean you don't have to waste energy on that. It's simply about holding the mind still during meditation and experiencing Absolute Infinity. The ego automatically goes away at that time because it's just a part of the mind. If a person does that for 10 mins. their life would be changed forever. Even if the ego comes back they would know what reality is. The only problem is most people don't want it bad enough. We have an infinite amount of chances so there's no rush. lol

Liberation is the permanent dissolution of the ego. Atman doesn't mean soul, even though it's translated as that. It means you are different from what you think you are. When referring to an individual we use the term atman. When referring to everything and everyone we use the term Brahman. A liberated person is God awakened. An egoic person is God dreaming. Both are God, but one hasn't realized their true nature yet. In Hinduism, it is believed that certain individuals are born liberated and remain that way throughout their life. They are Lord Rama, Krishna, and Kalki (future). They are Param Atman, which means fully liberated. They don't have to do anything special to become liberated. All other incarnations have Jiva atman. Which means they have more ego and need to succeed in meditation to become liberated. This is written by an enlightened sage named Parashara. It's a possibility that this is true. It could also be a concept. I'm open to both possibilities. My opinion is that everyone with a body and mind has to succeed in meditation or spiritual yoga. I don't think anyone is randomly liberated. For example, Rama and Krishna probably became liberated at a young age just like Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna. Then they decided to live their life however they wanted because once the ego was gone they're no longer affected by worldly activities. They could go to war, they could have sex, and do other things while experiencing the Infinite. If an egoic person has sex they remain trapped in the dream state. Some behaviors such as truthfulness, non-violence, celibacy, and others, produce ego death faster. These are outlined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, but it's not the only method to liberation. I don't recommend anyone should suppress their desires. Otherwise they would go crazy. Sri Ramakrishna became liberated through many ways including Christianity and Islam. Here is a quote from The Gospel of Ramakrishna (highly recommended): The love of Rādhā is the precursor of the resplendent vision of Sri Krishna, and Sri Ramakrishna soon experienced that vision. The enchanting form of Krishna appeared to him and merged in his person. He became Krishna; he totally forgot his own individuality and the world; he saw Krishna in himself and in the universe. Thus he attained to the fulfilment of the worship of the Personal God. Swami Nikhilananda. Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Kindle Locations 1092-1095). Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Inc.. Kindle Edition. In the above quote, he practiced Bhakti Yoga. He wasn't attached to a concept of God, but he had intense love for God itself. Most people love other things besides God. Here is another quote: “How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd.” Sri Ramakrishna came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too that the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. Swami Nikhilananda. Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Kindle Locations 1884-1887). Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Inc.. Kindle Edition. A spiritual master can give you these experiences, if you're a genuine seeker. Swami Vivekananda was an atheist before meeting Ramakrishna. Do you think ancient cultures had higher consciousness than we do? Do you think science and history lied about them?

@Pure Imagination The only reason consciousness is low right now, is because our society values money more than anything. For example, they put unnecessary preservatives in food instead of keeping it organic. Humans have survived for thousands of years on organic food. @cetus56 I think it's even better as an adult because we retain our maturity. We experience the world much more intensely while retaining our adult faculties.

Thanks! Yes, you can become enlightened even if you have sex and participate in worldly activities. The only thing required for enlightenment is genuine love for God.