kurt

Hey, and im not saying there not very wise men. They are indeed, but they are not "enlightened". Enlightenment is something else, something more than just being in the now and stopping the mind and all those other "psychological" things they speak of.

Totally. "Short sighted" is believing their claims, when actually you know better. Understanding what enlightenment is, is a good place to start. Tolle has no idea, he just thinks he does. Read his books, they dont make sense.

These "paths" prepare the mind for enlightenment - they neutralize the likes and dislikes so that the vision of non duality is revealed in the mind naturally. The point is not to try to manufacture contrived kindness or compassion, but to understand that every time you make a judgement about something you are violating "dharma" because you are attacking the Self, your self, God. God is everything, it is nondual. The ego is the thing that likes to "play God" by deciding what is right and what is wrong. As you drop all notions of right and wrong your natural state will become peace, love, kindness, understanding, compassion naturally arises because your mind is not deluded by its likes and dislikes. I dont know whether you have noticed this, but maintaining a dislike (in the hope that you think it will make you more holy) does not make you any more compassionate. Its normal to dislike gross violations of dharma, like harm, yes harm is "wrong" but compassion should be your main focus if you want enlightenment, again not contrived compassion, but an understanding that people are victims of God's programming, nothing here is personal, although there IS freewill and that is the freewill for you to purify your mind and stop focusing on social or political issues (if thats what you are doing) because developing the ego is nothing to do with enlightenment. But all the other gratuitious likes and dislikes need to go in order to realize nondual vision in your subjective experience. Krishna (the personification of God) in the Bhagavad Gita says that "I am the mind that is not opposed to Dharma". This means the enlightened mind needs nothing yet desires to contribute. Its not really a case of saying there is no right and wrong, its just a case of getting rid of the arrogant ego that tries to impose "right and wrong" on Gods creation. Read between the lines when responding to me please, dont take what i say about "God" at face value Ultimately there is no creation or God, there is just awareness, but if you take yourself to be a spiritual seeker then you need to purify the mind by doing these neutralizing practices. Thats the "work" aspect of enlightenment. Also, just mulling over what you said about the selfless thing, its not really about trying to be a helper of people, its more about just doing ones "duty". In India nobody is thanked for doing what they do, because their society is built upon this notion of dharma, of contributing your part without making a song or dance about it. This is a desireless way to live, and is conducive to creating the kind of mind capable of understanding nonduality. In the West, if we dont say thanks we are discredited, because there seems (to me at least) this idea of entitlement. If we ask a favour of someone and they do it, were expected to roll out the red carper and thank them and owe them and such. Because this is a dog eat dog desire-fuelled society, its self serving rather than duty oriented. I would not confuse altruism with selflessness, the selflesness being spoken of in the traditions and enlightenment cultures is just a lack of the conceit, the lack of "entitlement" that we westerners seem to have bred into us from day one. Were taught that were "losers" if we dont get what we want, so it becomes a dog eat dog society. Being "altruistic" is the same vanity taken to the other extreme. I recommend heartily a visit to India, you can feel the sense of dharma there, but nobody is trying to go beyond that in an attempt to "help" others, its just a very casual I do my thing, you do yours but we both don't screw each other over to gain the upper hand. Yes, there are lost of little tax fiddles and all the usual selfish stuff going on too, its not a perfect place, (because were human, and the Self is the negative stuff too) but the point is that it isn't about being a saint either. Its just about not breaking the number one rule: "no harm".

Modern teachers are not enlightened, they are just awakened. Most of them are deluded

@renegade_bee The thing about suicide is people assume that ending their life is going to end their suffering. But nobody knows what happens to the energy once it has been "bumped off" so to speak. Science tells us that energy never dies, can only be transformed, so dont be so hasty thinking that death = the end of suffering. Nobody can prove an afterlife, but nobody can disprove it either, meaning you dont know that death is going to end suffering, so there is no point in bringing about the end of it in this way. Adjusting your mind to the circumstances is the way to end suffering, its easy to do when you just knuckle down and get on with replacing your negative attitude with one of gratitude for having been blessed with an experience at all. Yes, youre not getting what you want, that doesnt mean youre not getting what you need. If you are still breathing then take that as a gift. Believe me, the only way to end suffering is to change your mind, because that is the only thing you have control over. Pain very well may continue, but you can control suffering.

@stevegan928 If you can get still long enough you stop creating tendencies that contribute to the continuity of "being a person". For example, I rarely talk these days, I work nights and avoid interaction. Im getting quite a bit of insight into how there is nobody doing anything - in any of us, the "ego" is just a very very small link in the cause and effect chain. Thats what you want to aim for, the understanding that the ego is a fiction, a notion inside you. Once the knowledge is firm you can return to "normal life"

I'll give you the benefit of my experience, but im in a hurry here, so please forgive my hurried tone. Work is involved, psychological work, dealing with ones likes and dislikes and not taking them as commands so that we stop creating tendencies for experience and instead create tendencies for understanding. The ego is nothing but ones likes and dislikes that are taken to be who we are. If you can practice undoing values that extrovert the mind toward sense objects and start creating values for getting the mind still enough so that understanding can take place naturally, then you cannot lose, self inquiry will happen naturally from awakening into the gross world and even continue into the dream state, day -in -day-out. Creating a like or dislike for experience is more "ego", create a vasana for inquiry instead and it will just happen naturally. What Ramana actually advised (in my opinion) was to seduce the mind into just being still so it can understand that it is pointless to keep seeking for itself in experience. He called this "resting in the heart". I dont chase samadhi, I am samadhi. The mind is so conditioned to seek experiences that it tries to get all these mystical samadhis, satoris, clarity etc that when all these experiences end, it gets annoyed and tries to get the experience back again, and this is a trap, because if you understand how the mind is set up, you can see that experience chasing just creates more experience chasing. From the get go were told who we are - consciousness - no need to look for it then, is there? No need for netti netti in order to find ourselves. Just contemplate "what does experiences actually do for me?" If you are sincere, you will always discover that experiences do nothing for you in terms of limitless happiness. Any action produces limited results, so inquire into action and you will discover that action only leads to suffering. Examine experience, because experience is set up only to frustrate us until we learn what those experiences mean. If you delude yourself with beliefs from external sources that experience can solve your problem (self help is the worst for this, and it works because they keep you purchasing their products instead of telling you the truth - they would be bad business people if they told you the truth, wouldnt they?) then you are not ready for inquiry. This is why self development and realization dont mix, because self development is experience and action based, and enlightenment is outside of experience. Heres a good teaser if you want some more info. It might open some more doors for you you follow this chain of thought:

Here we go. First of all I'm not interested in any kind of understatements or trying to define my "being". Thanks. Maybe read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm. But I actually don't wanna get too personal, since this actually is a forum for self development. You're basically following Platon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy_of_the_divided_line) which, in fact, is complete delusion. At least you should consider adopting to the "real" Platon - Socrates, by adopting his mantra: "I know one thing, that I know nothing". Maybe could help for actually calibrating. Just a quick question, I mean im living in the delusion and I hear about logic etc. . If you wanna scientifically prove where a billiard ball will stop around the 50th push you need every information in the universe for that. After the 7th, you need the gravity of the person standing near the table - not including anything like free will. Now if you wanna tell me you can do good financial decision/whatever based on pure logic - isn't that a delusion? Exactly because things are as they are. There is a reason people use language and that it has given us such big advantage surviving ancient times. Making things simple is a good thing. Actually the so called "flow state" does require making logic things simpler as they are in order to have amazing performance. Wish you the best for getting more positive energy from your spiritual path in the future mate! @Flare I could not respond to you on the other thread for some reason. I wanted to respond to you here. I myself am not actually interested either, in philosophical mumbo jumbo. If you need philosophy to help you to think properly thats upto you. Its not my cup of tea. I merely responded to your attack and told you what I know form personal experience, and that is the more you indulge in your likes and dislikes and take them as commands, then that defines ego. Ego is where you mistake your likes, dislikes, philosophies and other such stories for who you really are. Thats it. Not here to define your being, you have no being, your being belongs to the relative reality, and there you go, you just pointed out another aspect of how your own "ego" deludes you, ownership. So next time you call someone on their "ego" just be aware of who is doing the calling, because the ego calling the ego is nothing more than schizophrenic thinking. Its just education for you, take it or leave it.

Cool. Done now?

Thats fine, thats your reality and it the results of your actions will fructify so you continue to see "sad little pathetic egos" and in the process destroy your own self worth. Because did you notice, youre attacking your own ego when you attack mine? Then ironically you look for "spiritual" or philosophical solutions to get rid of your own self inflicted pain. That is delusion. Im not offended because everything is the same. Thats nonduality. Are you learning something?

I see you as consciousness. You are me, I dont have an issue with you. I know the 21 year old archetype with these moves is looking for power. Its normal. But all youre doing is damaging yourself with this stuff, its not going to me, its going to you because you are splitting off parts of yourself so you can feel better about yourself. This is the same thing since the dawn of time. The smallness in people seeks power to feel big, I see you as consciousness acting out its delusion. Its not a bad thing, I dont know what else you want me to say? You are going to keep looking for power because you feel small. We have all been there, its fine. Yes, its all projection, but the thing is what are we projecting? Youre projecting something, whatever that is, and it feels like a power game,. And Im projecting what I see, that you are fine the way you are. So the self esteem goes to me, and the hate goes to you, because you fructify your actions either now or sometime in the future. Im responding to you according to my values, and youre responding to me according to yours. There may not be any getting through to you, thats fine. What matters is im doing my spiritual work by interpreting reality in satvic terms, thats what matters. Everyone projects buddy. Its just a matter of what you want to project. There is no getting away from projections in this life, because it is a function built into consciousness operating in the relative domain.

More delusion. Experience and observation is not "analyzing" in the same way like when someone attacks themselves for spotting a "big pathetic ego" in another - which is psychosis. The thing is, the more you disown my tendencies, the more you delude yourself and make your own tendencies "wrong". Youre just fucking yourself to feel like you are going to win. Be kinder to yourself, otherwise you will end up disowning all your functions, because the more you let those dislikes control you, the more you hide a piece of yourself away and learn to hate it. Its your choice, its your karmic account, not mine. I have no issues with consciousness and its manifestations. You can chose to either learn here, or you can continue to fuck yourself over spiritually for a psychological "payoff". Your choice.

Because consciousness operating in the relative field is deluded in the same way in "everyone". It is like being able to ride a bike, everyone has the potential to learn how to ride a bike, once you have assimilated that knowledge on how to ride a bike, you can see ignorance in others who haven't yet learned how to ride a bike themselves yet. So when I read your language patterns, I know more or less how you think, because I am you, and you are me.

:-) Keep inquiring into that. There are no "movie theatres" there is only you. Mind you, dont mistake that for solipsism, there ARE others, just not in the way you think.

Thats all you can do. Is watch your own movie. Enjoy :-)

Not sure what you mean? How are you interpreting the frogfucious thing? I thought it as fine. I just responded to this guys attack on my character, calling me an ego and what not just for asking martin to drop the paradigm stuff. Its very outdated, there are no paradigms, it seems that way, but there is only one reality, the absolute, and youre either at one with it, or not. But theres no paradigms.

"Ego" is the dualistic notion that there is such a thing as positive and negative. The law of attraction will work for you when you begin to neutralize the petty likes and dislikes you have, you 'attract circumstances' that are in touch with how you see the world, if you see the world in terms of duality then thats what you get, a mildly shizophrenic experience where your right and wrong differentiations appear to come at you from the "outside". You dont actually "get" anything, its just your own mind delivering back the fruits of your intent. You can succeed when you balance the dualistic mind and drop your expectations, because if you harbour expectations you will just become angry because the world is not living upto those expectations. Basically you reap what you sow.

You can pretend to psychoanalyze people all you want. The reality is, "bad" and "pathetic" are delusions caused by taking your likes and dislikes as commands and they create youre reality. Thats what you should be looking at, not other peoples "egos". There are no others, there is only you,and your experience, and your experience is goverened by your ignorance or knowledge. And you are ignorant if you think you can find authenticity by looking outside for "examples". The thing is, there is no "outside" there is only your interpretations. You believe you live in a transactional reality, you actually dont exist in a transactional reality, thats your delusion. Take my advice, because you're only spitting in your own face everytime you attack . Or dont, continue to insult yourself, the effects will fructify in time :-) But your attacks do not go to me, they only go to you, and they reinforce your delusion of duality. Which is funny, because the reason youre here is to get out of duality!

@Tancrede Pouyat Look, its fine. You read a chapter in a book, internalize it, that informs your perspective and then you call out the first person you see who might look like they fit the bill of spiritual ego. Whatever a spiritual ego is? ? Who knows? Martin Ball, its seems. And what sort of person interprets their experience according to what they just read in some random persons autobiography and "personal" enlightenment teaching? Think about that for a moment, if you CAN think for yourself? But before you do, answer me this, Before you learned what a "spiritual ego" is, i wonder in what other ways you used to interpret your unconscious likes and dislikes and blame them on others instead of actually dealing with them yourself? I bet you used to call everyone you didnt like "the pain body"? Yes, I know Eckhart is very "last year". Its not fashionable to talk pain body anymore, is it? Its "the spiritual ego" these days. I wonder if you actually know me at all? Do you? You must be a genius to be able to spot that i have a spiritual ego from your armchair diagnosis after reading a book about it? I admit, youre probably right, but the thing is, its doesnt matter if I have an ego or not, what matters is I take your comment as it is, and I forget about it, which ironically gets RID of my ego. How do you like that for a teaching? Maybe you could use it and do some practical stuff with your own ego instead of just reading books about the ego and then projecting your new found knowledge onto the next person who pops into your visual field? I would subscribe if you did!

Actually, "ignorance" and the "ego" is just the personal will (uneutralized likes and dislikes). If you want to pick and choose what sounds good according to your likes and dislikes then by all means be my guest. Youre not actually getting anywhere by doing so, just merely enforcing your own likes and dislikes and then using "ego" as a weapon against others to keep you deluded. It doesnt matter how "ignorant" people are, the point is to submit your personal will to the things you dont like, even if you have developed absurd values where others are not allowed to define what is meaningful or not. The point is, the world is always going to do what its always done, whether you like it or not, and no matter how "delveloped" and "concious" you imagine yourself to be. So just accept it, because unless you do, you will always be ruled by your delusions. Little piece of advice for you there

You guys need to understand that when someone is "attacking" you, they are not actually attacking you, they attack the thought of you in their own mind. This is a psychotic condition that you dont have to accept. Just say: "Is that so"? and walk away and keep your mind peaceful,or say your piece without aknowledging their issues. As soon as you step into their energy and start fighting you have accepted their projection. This is an indication of a very sick person. Stop being wussbags and grow up,

I think you also have a lot of low self esteem issues. You respond to people like you value their opinion. This is a very silly dance beween the three of you and you all need to grow up and just let bygones be bygones. Getting upset at things people say about you is ridiculous and just conditions you to throw mud like Martin feels he needs to do. You dont realize tho that these insults only go back to you, as there is nobody else out there who owns them. These are your battles with your own reflection. Really sad

Martin, from what I've seen of your behavior so far, I think its absurd you call people on their low self esteem. This is typical therapist nonsense, most of them are neurotic and only want to help people so they can feel better about themselves. Its very sick

Im just saying, paradgims are therapy talk. And therapy is pluralism, its delusion. Reality is absolute, non dual. Let stick to reality and not to little psyochanalytic defense mechanisms you're taught to protect your inner child from acting out. We need real talk, not regurgitated textbook Heidegger nonsesne. Its outdated, it served its purpose for a time in the 70's, but these days its getting in the way of any meaningful discussion.

@John Youre just a victim of Buddhist philosophy - chiiti vritti nerodaha. Buddhism is based on ashtanga yoga where they believe in the material universe, and enlightenment is a condition where the person gets rid of all their "chitti vrittis". Keep at it until you understand for yourself that it does not make sense. You will go through years of this, or if youre smart you will question the validity of the system. Buddhism is nothing more than a human philosophy.