hundreth

Last one didn't work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pS_wPeDxDQ

You are eloquent. Part of me feels like you can summarize all your posts with: NOW!

Samsara = Hell? Whoa. There are heavenly realms as part of Samsara. There will always be some degree of suffering in Maya, but there's a reason you chose "it." I'm working through this myself, but looking down on Maya and Samsara seems like a trap. You don't want to escape, you want to integrate Maya.

That's life. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. There's nothing wrong with grieving, sadness, and the entire range of human emotion. Detachment is a double edged sword. There's a beauty to being engaged with life.

There are many happy people on this planet who aren't "awakened."

https://robertmasters.com/2013/04/29/spiritual-bypassing/ Here's an article which speaks in more depth about spiritual bypassing. Consider psychotherapy and doing shadow work. I'm seeing many young kids here spiritually bypassing through life. You can lucid dream this experience, but if it's not a dream you're happy with you still want to change it. You can identify with the absolute instead of relative self, but you don't want to have to detach from your relative life because you're not pleased with it.

Spiritual bypassing doesn't work. If you want a relationship, great - you have a goal. That's deeper than nihilism. It seems you've tried spirituality and are going in circles. Come back to the real world and face your fears. Work on finding a relationship. You have limiting beliefs of what you're capable of. When you achieve your goal, that's when you can turn back to spirituality. It will make more sense then.

It was sarcasm. Just ball busting the forum for it's usual stance on all things JP here.

He's just a stage blue conservative who panders to incels. Nothing of value here.

I read the comments. It's true, Leo talks about it as the Dark side of meditation. Many anecdotes in those comments. I believe this is where a conceptual framework is so important. I'm sure it's a lot more confusing when you're not aware of what you're getting yourself into. It's also why shadow work is so important. The spiritual bypassing will set you up for some pain.

@tashawoodfall I'm going through something similar. Check out the Bhagavad Gita. The entire text is basically Arjuna having a dark night of the soul type experience and Krishna stepping in to re-motivate him to fight and immerse himself in his work without attachment. http://www.innervisionyoga.com/ask-the-yogi-follow-your-dharma/ What's your bow and arrow?

This isn't an anti-enlightenment thread. It's a sincere inquiry. Later on in the conversation we came to the cessation of suffering, and then a level deeper about whether there's an ultimate bliss state or not. Not sure how that's being anti-enlightenment.

This is just me contemplating out loud. It's something I've been wrestling with. We like to think about Enlightenment as waking up from the Matrix. It's a kind of lucid dreaming. You can just stop playing the game at any moment, sit down, and be aware of the Truth. Alright, sounds good - but is it?? If you were playing Super Mario Bros. and he just stopped to sit down and meditate - it would be a pretty sh!t game. Is lucid dreaming even better than being lost in the dream? It's really a double edged sword. If you're having a great dream, and you know it's "just a dream" it doesn't have the same emotional energy. On the other side, if you're having a bad dream the fear subsides. If you were to create the ultimate game experience, ideally the players would get lost in the game and forget it was a game. It seems our experience was designed for this. Now you can choose to play the game in such a way where the objective of the game is to constantly be aware it's just a game. It's certainly not a "wrong" way to play the game. It's not a "right" way to play the game either. It's just another sub-game. Playing the game this way simply centers you and shields you from the extreme highs and lows of the experience. You're not really going anywhere. If you play the game by being lost in it, at one point you will suddenly wake up and be like "whoa, what a fucking trip. alright, i want to go back in and do it again except different this time." If you play the game from this lucid enlightened perspective, you will suddenly wake up, embody the Truth you already knew, and throw yourself back in to experience the truth being hidden all over again. This is the hide and seek. So in the end, my question is: Why do you choose to work towards enlightenment? Where do you believe you are heading? Are we taking this pursuit too seriously?

Which "Me" are you talking about? It's the difference between "self" and "Self." It's purely a question of semantics.

This seems to be the best explanation I could come up with too. The cessation of suffering, as much as you can. The question for me is, does Enlightenment simply center you or does it swing you completely to the opposite side of suffering? It seems to be more of a calm, centered energy. Though we like to believe there is an extreme bliss state awaiting for us on the other side. I'm not saying this isn't the case, but I'm afraid it could be a trap. Could holding out for this bliss state be the attachment which keeps us suffering?

Sure, but every path has a worth. Equal worth in fact. So why did you choose this specific path and why do you pursue it so diligently?

This text is just so magical. Every time I'm going through some gut wrenching phase in my life where things don't quite make sense, I pick up this book and the answers are in there like a cheat code. That's not to say it's a substitute for practice or experience, but for intellectual mind loops, you can just stop going in circles and pick up the Gita. This time around, Krishna's 26 qualities of divine wealth called out to me. I felt like sharing.

It would look exactly like this...

Could you speak in more detail about this? I've seen you promote this idea of diving deep into the nihilism in several posts and I'm never quite sure why. Perhaps do a video about nihilism. Aside from some of these Neo-Advaita teachers who encourage spiritual bypassing, you don't really see nihilism propped up in traditional spiritual practice. For example, the Buddhist middle way is precisely finding a balance between eternalism and nihilism. So what gives?

Is this the fallout from you inviting a succubus to find you while you sleep?

Lmao the Spiral dynamics thumpers have now went full on racist here.

Interesting response. I'm not really sure what's so "Western" about order / chaos. That seems like your projection. It's not like order and chaos are inherently Judeo-Christian concepts. Every spiritual system has it's own ways of representing duality. The Hindus have Purusha and Prakriti. The Buddhists have form and emptiness. Kabbalists have dark / light. The Tao has yin / yang. Are you sure? The Taoists describe yin and yang as positive / negative, and feminine vs. masculine. JP also relates order to masculine energy and chaos to feminine energy. This is the same relationship between Kali and Shiva in the Vedic myths where she's dancing on top of him laying down. Feminine yin energy is also associated with "mother nature" - chaos. Practically speaking, what's the difference? When Jordan Peterson says the optimal way to live is in balance between order and chaos, what is practically different from the Buddha teaching the Middle way? The whole point of the symbol is more than it's "all one." That is true, though a huge part of the symbol is that opposing energies which are not the same are necessary for duality to exist, and more than that, it's necessary for them to intersect. The larger theme is that I'm not sure what's wrong with him taking Eastern ideas and attempting to reconcile them with Western mythologies. That's a GOOD thing! When Eastern mystics talk about Christ, they often relate him to Eastern ideas such as Krishna consciousness. That's because their audience is Eastern. You might not agree 100% with his interpretations of Eastern teachings. You might not agree with his conclusions at all, but there's no way you can watch those videos above of him speaking about the Buddha and conclude that is stage Blue thinking. That's why I was replying to @Leo Gura. I have no problems with not appreciating JP, but if you're going to criticize him at least know what he's teaching. It's not traditional Christian, strict rules, and repression. He's also far from stage Blue, even though his beliefs will intersect at times. I'm sincerely interested in hearing your thoughts.

He does. Maps of Meaning was all about connecting and integrating myths from around the world to find common themes and narratives. He's not saying Christian based solutions are the only ones that work. He's not even a traditionalist Christian, he doesn't go to church. He just resonates most deeply with the story of Christ. Sounds like a personal preference more than anything else. https://archive.org/details/youtube-7XtEZvLo-Sc Yeah I'm not arguing his approach is the ideal one, it just seems like you haven't really looked deeply into him and are basing your opinions on him via soundbites from popular interviews. He considers himself a leftist, but "radical" is always going to be relative and a moving target. What were fringe leftist ideals 20 years ago are mainstream today. He believes we've gone too far in that direction. I'm personally not a Christian. I grew up in a traditional Jewish household but resonate most with spiritual teachings from the East. That said, I think JP is a bridge for the West. We've gone deep into the atheist / materialist paradigm and he's bringing a different view into the mainstream via psychology, mythology and debate. Is this how an Eastern mystic would go about it? No. Does that make it worthless? No. Is JP a traditional Christian who ignores all other paths? No. Personally I'm with you, I would hope he can go back to speaking about philosophy, mythology, and spirituality as opposed to politics.

One thing to keep in mind is that JP *IS* a relativist. He actually acknowledges post modernism and that ultimately it's all relative. Where his ideas differ is that he believes there are infinite interpretations, but there's only a small finite set of interpretations that lead to a positive and meaningful life. Every spiritual system is based on rules or guidelines. While the truth is always non dual, there are guidelines on how one should conduct themselves. The Vedic traditions have guidelines, Buddhism has guidelines, Kabbalah has guidelines, etc. These guidelines tend to be conservative because that's simply all it takes to be on a straight and narrow path towards truth. They generally work. The key is, are your guidelines there to orient oneself spiritually or are they there to control societies and suppress expression like many organized religions tend to do. I don't think JP cares to control and suppress. He understands the individual process, the value of order and chaos, the necessity of different perspectives and types of people, freedom of speech, etc. Where I agree with you and @Leo Gura is that he has a tendency to demonize and become angry when speaking about the radical left. This is unhealthy moralizing. Definitely part of his shadow. Does that mean you throw the baby out with the bath water? I wouldn't. I think he's refreshing voice for the West.