jjer94

For self-realization (Getting flashes of insights): Brutal Beginnings - The Ruthless Arena (This book is almost guaranteed to make you see through the initial veil of selfhood. Don't believe what they're saying; look for yourself. It's simpler than you think.) Refuting the External World - Goran Backlund (This book will forever make life as you know it shimmer like a mirage, as well as help you realize your Atmanic, i.e. "everything", nature.) I Am That - Nisargadatta Maharaj (The clearest pointers to enlightenment, i.e. realizing your Brahmanic or "nothing" nature.) For self-negation (Deprogramming ego): The Enlightenment Trilogy + Theory of Everything - Jed McKenna (These books will put a fire in your ass as well as deprogram a lot of the bullshit you still have in your head. They are kind of dramatic though, so don't take them too seriously...) As Trump said, Peter Ralston's books are great too. Very effective techniques for seeing through all of your egoic flotsam and jetsam. Don't get too lost in his wordiness though.

Existence does exist...just not as phenomena (the world as we know it). That's what @Emerald Wilkins is referring to. Existence exists as you say: pure infinite potential. Also known as Truth, noumena, infinity, Being, nothingness, etc. You cannot "know" existence, because that would put you another level above it. Instead, you can only "be" existence. In a sense, you can really only come to the conclusion that "Truth is" through negating all that you are not.

Of course it's not a belief system (B.S.); it's completely beyond intellect. I try to avoid making grandoise claims, especially when it comes to enlightenment, because claims and arguments are in the realm of finite words, the realm of right and wrong, when there is no right or wrong. Maps are never the territory. But I'm sure you're already aware of that, Mr. Enlightened guy. Look, we can go back and forth all day. I could ask why an old chap like you is on this forum. I could make the argument that you're not really enlightened and you're just launching on "easy prey" because you have nothing better to do. But what's the point? Like any debate with words, they get nowhere. Just one ego defending itself against another, totally unaware of the fact that its arguments are just as untrue as the other's. I will say, your last few sentences there have a certain degree of personal validity, and I sincerely thank you for pointing it out. Fortunately, ego has been getting weaker and weaker by the day, but I do keep finding myself back on this playground of a forum. I'm not mining information; I'm not looking for new B.S. to learn. Just like you, I feel the urge to point out all of the falsities in the questions that people ask here. But of course, there's also the hidden agenda of wanting attention. I think I will take your advice about getting a life, and I hope you do the same, Socrates. Cheers... P.S. "No man is ever old enough to know better."

I never claimed I was enlightened like you did, old man If it's not what I read in the 20+ books about enlightenment, then I may as well just pack up and leave. The thing is, everything about enlightenment is idiosyncratic definitions of individual experiences. It's all hearsay. And if time and time again, I've read that enlightenment is about transcending the finite for the infinite and timeless (i.e. your true nature)... don't you think that's a good enough clue that that may be the case? Not to mention that these books have led to several awakenings of my own. I'd rather follow their definitions and pointers than someone who gives the vague definition of enlightenment as "moment to moment living and discernment." That's more vague than Eckhart Tolle's writing. I'm done here, Socrates. Thanks for trying to push my buttons. I'm serious, thanks. Cheers!

You tell me to stop trying to define enlightenment, but you just defined enlightenment as moment to moment living and discernment... Well, surely you can't define the non-experience of enlightenment with words, but it is something is it not? The sages of the past (Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi) as well as several people today claim to have discovered something they call "enlightenment" or "truth realization" or "full awakening" or whatever. It's not just that they've eliminated all false beliefs and neuroses; they've made the claim that they discovered their true nature, that which is real, eternal, and timeless. Of course, this is all hearsay, but when you have thousands of people making the same claim about their true nature being beyond the body and mind, you can't help but wonder if they're all talking about the same thing...that the concept of enlightenment is perhaps definable...that it could be defined as "the realization of your true nature." Of course, along with that is destroying all false conceptions, but that's kind of a given. So have you actually done that? Gone beyond your finite body and mind to find your true nature, that which is timeless and unassailable? Because if you're just living moment to moment, I'd say you're only at one stretch of the journey towards enlightenment and have a ways to go.

@Socrates Out of curiosity, how do you define enlightenment?

A continuation of this line of inquiry is Derek Parfit's "branch line case." This particular thought experiment points to the idea that you are not your personality, memories, etc... It goes like this: Say you're going to use one of those teletransporters to go to...I don't know, let's say Switzerland. So you hook everything up, flip the switch and...nothing happens. Weird, you think. But then the phone rings. You pick it up, and it's you on the other line! The other you says, "Oh hey there SkyPanther! Greetings from Switzerland! You may be a little confused, but yes, I am a clone of you. The teletransporter malfunctioned and created a duplicate you by mistake. And I've got some bad news for you... the operator told me that the malfunction caused a problem in your heart, and you're going to die within 24 hours. But don't worry SkyPanther! It's not like you'll be losing anything, right? I'll be continuing your life just as you left it. It'll be as if nothing happened!" If you were the SkyPanther who was going to die within 24 hours, wouldn't you feel sh*tty? Even though your clone will carry out your life in the exact same way, something still feels wrong. That's because fundamentally, you're not your memories, your habits, your personality. You're the consciousness, the "I Am", that those things occur in, and you'll be losing that after your heart fails. Cheers!

"The most difficult thing about enlightenment is that it's too simple." --Sadhguru

You're being too dogmatic and in your own head. Stop it!

Nope, you're spot on. Thanks for pointing that out.

Of course I could say there is nothing but 1st person narcissistic spirituality, that my first-person phenomenal perspective is the only perspective I know to exist (solipsism), that the idea of other perspectives is just a baseless assumption, that I have no way of confirming the existence of other "I Am's"... But where's the fun in that!? I like to assume that there are other perspectives. To some degree, I even like to assume that I have free will. It makes the ride more entertaining, does it not? I'm digging the username, by the way.

The thing is, absolute truth is the only truth. Truth as in, the only thing that's timeless, eternal, and encompassing absolutely everything. It's always true. Any other truth, especially so-called truth in words or truth in the phenomenal world, is finite and therefore untrue. That may sound dogmatic on paper, but the Truth I'm talking about is beyond words, as I'm sure you've already heard before. Using Kant's terminology: phenomena are transient and therefore untrue; noumena is eternal and therefore true. This does not mean that I should stop eating, or stop weightlifting in order to gain muscle, or stop treating my gangrene-infested foot because I'm not absolutely sure if the medicine will work. If something works, it works! Cool! Keep doing it! However, that in no way makes anything in the phenomenal world absolutely true. All knowledge is belief, and no belief is true. We can predict with 99.9% accuracy that a red rubber ball will fall when we let go of it due to our ideas of gravity, but we can never be absolutely 100% certain that it will happen. As skeptical as this sounds, there is always a chance that it won't. Have you ever wondered what the substance of your sense perceptions are? I mean, not the stories you tell yourself about nerves and light and sound waves...but the actual subjective quality? When you really stop and think about it, you will begin to realize how little you know and how much you think you know.

Hi Stephanie, Thank you for being skeptical! Talking about enlightenment is some of the trickiest, most esoteric sh*t and it can be very easy to dismiss it or be skeptical. I encourage you to continue being skeptical. This is a very insightful thing to say. The short answer is no, the sort-of long answer is it can be. No: A barebones definition of enlightenment I use is the realization of your true nature. Your true nature is right here, right now, and it is absolutely perfect. Hope is imagining something better for the future. How can something perfect be better in the future? After realizing your true nature, hope is no longer necessary. However, if you're just starting out, you'll at least need some hope to motivate you to pursue enlightenment. It can be: Sometimes, people take enlightenment teachings that are only supposed to point to your true nature and spin them into a religion, i.e. a belief system. When that happens, "hoping for a better life" is usually included in the belief system. Why is it so difficult for you to accept that you may not be an organism with a brain that triggers thoughts and emotions? Here are some thought experiments to get you started along this line of inquiry: If I cut off your arm right now, would you still be you? Your cells apparently replace themselves every 10 years. Are you still you? You can't experience your apparent brain. How do you know it's there? Where does "Stephanie" fit in with the organism? Cheers!

Humor me for a second Henri, because there will be resistance if you read onward. Have you ever stopped to consider where this "fallen apart" world is? Where all the bad things are happening? Where is the "bad-ness"? Contemplate that for a second before reading on. You may notice that all the bad things in the world, the idea that the world is "fallen apart," is all in your head. Your mind created the idea that all the events happening in the world are somehow bad and need fixing, and because you are One with everything it is your duty to fix things and help others. Remove all these ideas, and things just are the way they are: absolutely perfect. Nothing ever needs to be fixed. I think it was Shakespeare who said, "There is no good or bad, only thinking makes it so." While your belief in service and fixing the world is certainly noble, you're going to have to see through it eventually if you're on the pathless path to enlightenment. All beliefs are fundamentally limiting, and your true nature is unlimited. That doesn't mean stop believing in this particular belief; it just means see through it. See it for what it is: an arbitrary belief; a bunch of random words strung together in a children's rulebook. Also, see if you can find any hidden agendas in your belief. The one I mentioned before about being validated as a saintly human being is likely in there somewhere. Look, I'm not saying that all that service/Yoga/heart chakra stuff is useless if you want enlightenment. Literally anything can be useful as pointers to enlightenment, because it is a pathless path. There are no true methods for realizing your true nature, because you're already it. However, your beliefs about service and all that other stuff being necessary is limiting your true nature and your true spontaneity. In my opinion, to say that Leo's way or anyone's way is just half the way is "low consciousness," (I really don't like that phrase but couldn't think of any others) and you may want to re-examine your claim. Cheers!

As nice as that sounds Henri, I disagree. By believing that you are One with everything, you're just as delusional as all the others out there. You still believe in a bunch of words, which are of the realm of duality. And the thing is, if you believe that we are all One, you are also likely to have a bunch of other hidden beliefs and agendas, and because you haven't transcended words yet, you likely won't be aware of those hidden beliefs and agendas. A perfect example of a hidden agenda is to treat others with love and respect so that they can reflect back to you how amazing of a person you are. Yet you wouldn't realize that if you don't know what you are (and what you are not). Agendas are egoic. They tell you that this moment is insufficient and something needs to be done about it. Very subtle. Can you see? Believing that you are One with everything means you should treat everyone with love and respect, because you are them. By having that "should," you're trying to convince yourself to act in a different way in order to fulfill the agenda of treating everyone with love and respect. In other words, you're trying to control the situation. Where does the illusion of control come from? Ego. Believing that we are one world family is just another paint color in the prison cell of beliefs that is ego. Become liberated from that prison cell, and you will feel no sense of obligation towards "others" because that "should" was seen through. By completely releasing the illusion of control, by being as spontaneous and agenda-free as a dog or a baby, people can't help but be affected in a positive way. Real liberation starts within you, and within you only. Change your perspective of the world, and you will change the world.

Not crazy at all. In fact, that is exactly what mind will tell you. Mind, i.e. the domain of the character, does not want enlightenment because that means the end of the character as you know it! You want comfort and security. You've been playing the character for so long, and it's familiar. Sure, it's pretty miserable at times, but at least it's known, certain and familiar. The journey of enlightenment is one of entering into the unknown, into uncharted territory where "here be dragons." I have a suggestion if you choose not to take this journey. If you're not going to see through yourself, learn to see through other characters around you. NYC is a hub for egoic delusion. Watch everyone scurry around like salmon, taking everything so seriously as if it were all a life-or-death situation. Watch everyone bitch and moan about their circumstances, hoping for a better tomorrow. Watch everyone chase after materialistic possession, as if that will make them permanently happy. With any of your friends, see if you can dissect their character: their motives, their desires, why they do the things they do. By seeing all of this in others, you will learn to see it in yourself, and you will at least learn to loosen up and not take everything so seriously. Though something tells me that I implanted the virus in you...and it will only spread until you can't help but begin the journey Cheers mate!

It's okay to be skeptical; that's a good trait to have going forward. As the philosophical/analytical type, I was the same way. I'll give you a little preview of what enlightenment is, as concise as I possibly can get: You identify with your character. The problem with this is that you do a lot of things that cause you suffering...without even realizing it. Because it's a character, you constantly need to think it into existence, maintain it, protect it with all your might, because that's who you think you are, right? As a result, most of your life is lived in fear of losing the character. On the flipside, you're also working hard to add on to the character, so you have an endless number of desires to chase after fruitlessly. Not to mention that your potential is held back by the character's "rulebook": its set of should's and should not's. Enlightenment, in simplest terms, is realizing your true nature. This Truth is very special, because it's not bound by anything; it's timeless. It is what you were before you were born, what you will be after you die, and what you are right now. It sounds a bit airy-fairy, yes, but bear with me for a second. What if you discovered that you were not the time-bound, finite character? That you were not the body nor the mind? That what you fundamentally are cannot die because it was never born? That it is absolute complete perfection right now, and you are it? Can you imagine the sense of relief that would bring? There is no longer a need to constantly fear the character's death, to constantly strive to add on to the character. You don't take it seriously anymore, but you can wear it like a costume and play with it, as should normally be the case. Every single ineffable moment is perfect for you. You are quite literally reborn, and you now approach the world in child-like wonder. Life becomes a vacation. You wonder why everyone is so serious...and then you remember that they all identify with their characters. Those who must play...cannot play. However, all of this comes at a cost. In order to realize what you really are, you must realize what you are not: the character. Fortunately, the character never existed in the first place because it's just an idea, but it sure as hell won't feel that way when you start the journey. At times, it may feel as though you are dying. After the fact, you may still use the character (or another character - you're free to act however you want after the character is seen through) to interface with the world, but you will no longer identify with it. Hopefully that clears things up for you a little!

Here's an analogy for ya. The job of an actor is to don the role of a character. A character has a certain personality, memories, habits, etc. The degree to which an actor portrays the character sets the good actors apart from the bad actors. From this analogy, you see that the "character" is an imaginary costume garment: that entity with all the personality traits, habits, memories we call the "character" doesn't actually exist. It's just an idea that's portrayed through mind and body by the actor. All humans are the greatest actors in the world. We have come to identify ourselves completely with our character (i.e. the "sense of false self") that we don't even realize we're not the character. We actually believe that we are such-and-such: a lawyer, a carpenter, a mother, father, son, a boyfriend, an unworthy bastard, a worthy salesman, a powerful billionaire, a snarky person; that we are shy, stupid, smart, like this book, like this movie, have a grudge against this person...the list goes on. The journey of enlightenment is the process of seeing through and de-identifying with the character you created.

Yep

In my opinion, the "full power of your wisdom," if you are truly wise, includes the ability to cater to others' levels of consciousness. Wisdom is not just the knowledge that you know nothing, but it is also the ability to identify wrong-knowing in others. In other words, just from a few sentences the wise person can get a sense of what the other person assumes to be true and how seriously they take their words. From that, the wise person will naturally respond at the other person's level of ignorance. If someone were just learning about enlightenment, the wise person would not say right off the bat, "You are neither conscious nor unconscious, you are beyond all experience, the body nor mind exists, there is no external world. Wake up!" Based on the person's questions, they may just say, "Enlightenment is realizing who or what you really are. You can start by examining your belief that you are a separate self." The issue with this forum is that everyone's at a different level, and even if you reply to someone far down the pathless path, there will be others not as far along who will read what you wrote and be really confused. Imagine this were a forum about a Mario game and someone who's only on level 1 reads a post that says you have to get yoshi to eat a blue shell and fly into a secret door. However, that post was referring to level 2 and the person reading the post has no idea. So now that person is going crazy desperately searching for yoshi and the blue shell in level 1 when they'll never find them because they're in level 2! A bit of a long-winded analogy, but you get the point.

Hi Felipe, Thanks for inquiring into all of this! That's where the journey begins. 1. Enlightenment = Realizing your true nature. Your true nature is what you are existentially. Another way of putting it is, what you were before you were born, what you really are right now, and what you will be after the body dies. 2. Yes. We all arrive at enlightenment eventually. For most people, that happens after the body dies. The "enlightened person" just found their true nature before the body dies. 3. It's hard to say, since we're not in their perspective. However, we can assume that they do not have an ego, which can point you in the direction of your true nature. That's why dogs are such great pets; they are zen masters in disguise! 4. You may not understand this at the moment, but bear with me. Anything written in words is invented. Words are concepts, which are basically depictions of what's actually there. Think of a menu. All the items printed on the menu (hamburger, shrimp, fries, etc) are not edible; they are merely depictions of what is actually edible. In this analogy, writing "enlightenment" is just a word on the menu; that word is invented. However, actually having a taste of enlightenment is discovery. 5. If it felt right to do so, yes. Enlightened folk don't have any sense of right or wrong; they are amoral. Like babies, they do whatever they feel moved to do, because they don't identify with their body. The body just does its own thing. 6. Who knows? Flying unicorns would fart rainbows across the sky? 7. Yes and yes. What you call happiness is better defined as conditional excitement: you get something you want, therefore you're happy. However, if you lose that thing, you're no longer happy. After enlightenment, your happiness is unconditional; you are happy for no reason at all, and you have no reason to label it as "happiness". It's just the natural state. 8. Yes. Just because someone is enlightened doesn't make them superhuman. Your true nature is right here, right now. It's just a matter of seeing it clearly. 9. Like I said before, enlightened folk are amoral. If they feel inclined to be vegetarian, then they'll do it. If not, then so be it. 10. I'd say the enlightened folk closest to mainstream media would be Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, or Mooji. You're not going to find any enlightened folk in the general newspaper. 11. If it felt right to them, sure! After enlightenment, there are no rules. In fact, part of the journey to enlightenment is destroying rules. Rules can come in the form of beliefs, attachments, assumptions, programming, etc. Your rulebook is essentially what's preventing you from seeing your true nature. Cheers!

I've lost my mind, come to my senses (Come to my senses) Escaped the haze that clouded my vision (Clouded my vision) My thoughts were steering me off course (Off course) And I can see clearly once again (Once again) My fears are melting like water from the ice (Water from the ice) As the fire from the sun burns bright (Burns bright) I feel its warmth upon my skin (Upon my skin) All my doubts, all my worry, all my hope, They don't haze me anymore They've been burned up by the sun's violet fire My desires, all my will, all my want, They don't haze me anymore They've been burned up by the sun (By the sun) All my thirst, my ambition in my mind They don't haze me anymore They've been swallowed up by the sun They don't haze me anymore Nothing is left here in my path. I'm free... (I'm free, I'm free)

??? ???

Ralston actually talks a bit about this in his book Pursuing Consciousness. He calls self-realization as "having enlightenment experiences" and self-negation as "transformation". Basically, he says that enlightenment experiences can help speed the process of transformation, but they are not a substitute for transformation. I agree for the most part. You may realize Truth in a flash, but your entire self-structure full of neuroses and hidden beliefs will likely still be intact afterwards. His bottom-line contemplation is an excellent tool for chipping away at that self-structure (that one's in The Book of Not Knowing). Also, writing/journaling can be used to uncover your psychological hang-ups. Even during meditation you can sometimes become aware of self-agendas. I'm sure you'll be able to find at least one technique out there that fits your preferences!

You are most definitely the queen of doing that Just because you have an excellent map doesn't mean you're an excellent driver. All words and concepts are untrue. I suggest that you pay less attention to semantics/wordplay/saying the 'right' things and more to what words are pointing at in direct experience. Not necessarily; this sort of inquiry is more for self-realization, or awakenings. There are other techniques for detachment, i.e. self-negation, that I'm sure you already are using (meditation, contemplation, etc.). Self-realization is the easy part; sloughing off bits of yourself little by little is the hard part. Do you at least see that you are everything? That is a huge breakthrough. Close your eyes for a second. Forget about the ideas of "inside" and "outside." Go into a room with some noise. Where are those sounds coming from? Where are they going? Do you see that you are not limited to the body? That you're not 'inside the skull'? That there is simply perception in this limitless blanket of empty "I Am"? Now play around with the ideas of "inside" and "outside". Touch, smell, taste, and thinking are just as much "inside" as seeing and hearing, are they not? P.S. Don't worry around trying to constantly flip back to the "I Am." It will become your natural state once you do enough self-negation.