zazed

Try not to fight yourself. You do not need yourself to shut up. What is thinking is not you. You should stop caring about your thoughts so much. And say fuck it, even if the thoughts continue. I was like this in the beginning, and it is a battle that you cannot win, it is fighting thoughts with more thoughts. Trying to put out a fire with fire. The thoughts are a separate thing, they are part of the dream, why fight them? It is the battle that makes you tired. Accept these thoughts as part of this body in this dream, and lose interest in them, because they are uninteresting and meaningless. Let the fire burn, and just become the water you truly are, and see what happens to the fire... You think you want answers, but the you that wants this, is not you to begin with. It is a good way to start, and i was/am like this off-course. Give up even this desire, give up everything. This desire to stop thinking is just another thought from the ego, giving it strength. It actually defines you as a separate self, and everything that defines you as separate from life is "wrong". Going back to your movie-screen analogy, it is literally one character on the screen fighting with itself, why would the screen be impacted in any way by this? There is no meaning or purpose to be had in life. There is nothing but life itself, it just is. I am that i am. The movie is just the movie, it cannot change the movie-screen. As said before, it is not this body that will become enlightened anyway, so why care so much? T'is the caring too much about all the small things, even the attempt at controlling your own thoughts, that is neurotic. Just, breathe out, and let go of this constant battle we are waging with ourselves, drop your burden. Also, i am not enlightened, but i have taken long walks in the forest (literally). It is easier to be in nature.

I love this analogy, it is wonderful But it is not so much that the frog is enlightened. Enlightenment is reality, it is life, it is everything. The frog does not resist reality, it just allows being to unfold. Same for the fly, it does not feel sorry for itself while being eaten. It is resistance that creates ego, it is acceptance of this moment that releases the lower self as a separate self. Perhaps you could define non-resistance as enlightenment. And consciousness is the reality that is allowed to be by an enlightened one. It is just language after all, it means what we decides it means I've always found it fascinating, when you watch a wildlife documentary, like BBC's planet earth. When a young grass-eater is caught by a lion, it just lies down and submits. Not sure if this means anything, but it made me wonder about nature and existence.

Basically, you can never know on an intelectual level what you truly are. Don't try to understand it, try to not care about understanding it. Because this intelectual level is part of the dream, it is part of what you are not. So you can only know what you are not on an intelectual level. Because what you are not, is all you can hope to understand. What you truly are defies understanding.

This is a question from the perspective of the human experience again. The human can never become enlightened. You can never understand, don't try to understand it, try to let go of it. These identities are the dream, you as a human creates these identities. But the dream actually has no substance, it is nothing as @Leo Gura says. What is dreaming the dream is what is nothing, and this nothing is big-you. This dream just is, everything is the dream. It's why enlightenment is a leap. You do not become enlightened, you do not even grasp it as a person/human. The human can try to understand it, as many do. But what is typing here, my person will never be enlightened, this is why it is all so confusing. Consciousness has no language to communicate with, so all the teachings of it are just a poor signpost to a concept that defies words. Not a single sage, as you see him/her walking around, was ever enlightened. They are allowing consiousness to be aware through them. So have I . People cannot step out of the dream(ego game) because they are the dream. Big-you has to let go of the human as the dreamer and realize it is the dreamer and not the human. Everything you think/see/touch/hear/smell/feel is from the experience of the human, and none of this can help becoming consciousness. Knowledge can only point you towards enlightenment, you have to let go of the dream, by various meditation techniques to find it. This realization is ego-death, it is a kind of letting go of a burden and dropping it completely. Once you stop trying to make sense of it, it will start making sense, it will lose its importance too. It is not important, you cannot do life wrong, you just are, nothing is required of you here. Naming it, defining it, creates duality. Thinking about it creates duality. Only techniques such as mindfulnes (and others) are helpful, and you need no pre-existing understanding aside from how to do the technique. All of what i said is bullshit, it is all mental mastrubation i should not be doing, I should just sit down and become. When meditating, do not think about it, do not visualize, do not project ideas. Gently fall into it, let the mind be still, perhaps be curious without any expecations about what you will find. You must just see what is. Because you cannot know, you cannot imagine the truth of nothing. The biggest danger is mediation with an expectation/imagination of what you are supposed to find, because you will create an illusion. You will create a false dream of enlightenment, this is far easier than enlightenment, and done by 99.9% of all meditators. So all of this is useles to you, because i have just given you concepts that will only be a detriment to consiousness becoming aware of itself. Your ego will conjure up concepts from this thread during your next meditation session, and you will be stuck because of me, sorry It is called nothing, some call it the Tao or Dao, it is called God, Ishvara, Allah. It is called enlightenment, consciousness, awareness, being, existence. It is called the dreamer, and it is called the dream. TLDR : Just be

If you are the observer of the screen, there is duality. There is you and the screen. This is a problem if you believe in nonduality. (or have experienced it) It's my experience that we are the screen, and the screen is aware of itself. Or basically, we are reality/existence, and this existence is aware of itself. The thing that we truly are, that experiences our thoughts, or sight, our touch, our feelings. It does not have thoughts, it does not have sight, it does not have feelings. Who is to say what it truly is. In such a construction, there is no information flowing downstream into our human brains. It is impossible to even know with our human mind/brain if it can only see our physical bodies sight, smell, touch, feelings, thoughts. Perhaps this consciousness is aware of everything, and our human brain/perspective is only aware of its small part in it? You cannot experience it, you are it. When people ask "how can I experience it", they are asking the question from a perspective of the human experience. This is wrong, the human cannot experience reality. There is enlightenment or being, and there is the human. The human lives within the reality, the reality does not live within the human. Still, people search for lifetimes to find reality or enlightenment within themselves. You can only let go, and let reality exist as it is. There is nothing left to do, there is nothing to gain, nor anything to lose because you already are part of being. Like the waves are part of the ocean, a single wave has its perspective that is distinctive from another wave. But it's still just water. A wave can search all its life for water and never find it. But it is water within, and it is water all around, in fact, the wave's existence is the duality that is not real. Remove this duality, and there is only water, not even the ocean remains. It is my belief, and perhaps I have brushed against it briefly, seen the ox's tail. That there is no individuality, that reality and the experience of it, are one and the same.

I wish this was true, but i have to disagree with this feel-good fairy tale . Sadly there are many of these in leadership positions that will never be refuted. Without discussing the pro/con of the recent American president, I hope we can agree, he is an alpha male type. He will be taken out, after 4, or 8 years, depending on the next elections. But let's not go into political discussions, it's just the most well known example i think. @Shan @unknownworld @Zephyr Some of you have said this indeed, lets not equalize being an alpha male with being a sociopath. I was talking only about sociopaths at work, which is prevalent sadly, but not the same as being an alpha. Alpha male behavior, just means being a leader and being looked at as a leader by a social circle. This is not inherently wrong, and does not require putting people down either. @Leo Gura himself is the "prime alpha male" on these forums, you see this in the amount of likes even his smallest posts receive, and how he can often steer a conversation in a direction of his desire. People desire his approval here (hence the likes). But he is, we can all agree, not abusing this leadership position for any desired nonspiritual gains. He has it, mainly because he deserved it, because of his confidence, his knowledge and how he carries himself trough life. This is how a real leader acts. Like in a pack of wolves, the alpha is not the enemy, he is the leader keeping the pack safe and together. Without him they cannot survive. It is not something to avoid or look down upon, from a spiritual standpoint, if done with respect for the beta's in the pack. One can even say, that without love for the beta, the alpha is not a real alpha at all. One can be an alpha in many ways. An expert at work will often be an alpha automatically in many meetings, because people respect his expertise. The only thing required for a person at such a point, is to stand up, and do the most natural thing there is. Fill people's expectations of you with confidence. This is just acting according to consciousness, it is being non-striving with what is in life, and following the natural order of being with awareness of it. Again, there is no duality here. This is a part of enlightenment, such as everything in life is. @Leo Gura Perhaps an idea for a video "how to be a true alpha"?

It is also about loving yourself. From a oneness perspective there is no distinction between people, so there is no longer a reason to be a dick and to put yourself ahead of others. On the other hand, there is also no reason to put yourself behind other people. If you can see objectively in life situations, what has to happen, you can make it happen without swinging to one or the other extreme. IF something is right, you can fight for it. If it is just a neurotic tendency to always be right, you can let it go. When you are right about something, or deserve something, you can make people listen to you one way or another. However, you are right in a way. Sociopaths do often have more success. This is because they work to destroy people's reputation, resort to backstabbing, and lie or oversell their own value. They come across very certain, arrogant to us who can see, and can always bullshit their way out of difficult situations. Sadly, many people are blind to this, or misunderstand such sociopaths, and because of this they do climb the corporate ladder faster. They also have zero fear or doubt about their imagined value, and this gives them great confidence in everything they say. Confidence is attractive to people, even if it is not earned. You could say people can not easily sense if confidence is earned, and tend to trust the skills of confident people often. (If he is that sure, he must be good at it) One thing i noticed, is such people will often get people to follow them even. And because they are so pushy and aggressive, passive people tend to do their best to be on the aggressive people's good side. They do this unconsciously, but looking at it objectively, it does remove you from the persons cross-hairs (less backstabbing is a plus, if it's your back). Perhaps this is the easiest way to deal with it. In a situation where a lot of passive people are surrounding a sociopath, going against him might even prove to be career-suicide. Since the only person who will dare to disagree, will be you, and people will side with him, since you cannot give them anything(safety) in return. Reality sometimes sucks, and life is not always fair. If you have no morals, walk over people, destroy people's sanity even, then yes, you can make more worldly gains in many corporate situations. This level of sociopath cannot be gotten on will, and i wouldn't even know how to act like this. Sociopaths are not really happy, they are not really sad either. It seems to me, they don't really think like this, in a way they are more like machines than man, in that they seem to do no self-reflection on their actions, and have zero guilt. Once in a while, there will be a leader who notices this in higher positions, and then they are often pushed back. Corporate culture can help with this. Good leaders in a company is important for this, and they are not always available. When the sociopath is the leader, become his friend, or leave.

So much this! Seeking is dangerous, but off-course some seeking can help, and be required to start even. The danger of seeking to much, is that you start to identify as a seeker. "Being spiritual" becomes your identity, it becomes a way to value yourself as a self. This will create the biggest ego blockage there is, and is the ultimate ironic joke when trying to become enlightened (for which there is no trying). It can become impossible to escape from this, because everything such a person does will only strengthen the ego. Meditation, contemplation, they all will become tools in the domain of the ego then. The more you practice the stronger this ego will become, because it is how it has learned to identify itself with spirituality itself. It is part of its habits, its values, it very core to "be spiritual". Many new-agy types are fully stuck in this mode, (without meaning to insult anyone). It is not such a bad state to be in, it can be blissful/peaceful even. This state is usually only broken down when something very emotional happens, that shows the incompleteness of this imagined/projected bliss. That is not to say that meditation or contemplation are inherently to be avoided fully. But be careful once the ego or mind claims them for itself. By ego, i never mean some strange thing to fight against, it is just the human part of us, the monkey, or unconscious thought-stories. People need to feel valuable to be happy, and the ego provides this function in a way. If you get a sense of achievement or pride from long meditation sessions, if it gives you perceived value over others, even if ever slightly, tread carefully..

@AleksM Fair enough. I guess my monkey just likes to go more straight to the point, rather than having all sorts of practices. This is a dualistic idea/concept in its own, so not really relevant. I just sit and allow thoughts to fade out, and really just do nothing, without trying to do nothing. Like not touching anything mentally, a quiet relaxing into it. I become, I am. If you are happy with your practices, and it works for you, then good for you.

Perhaps we are just limited by language here, and i am just misunderstanding your intentions/meanings. Sometimes i think you know what you are talking about, other times it seems just totally besides the point. Why? How? This is a strange belief of the mind. This is true, words are from the mind, they cannot describe enlightenment. That which creates words cannot become enlightened anyway. The moment you speak, write or think about enlightenment, duality is created. Who exactly is doing al this stuff? Is that you really? But who is doing things, who is imagining things? Who is being effortless, or who is using effort? Is that really the big you? Is the big you ever doing anything, aside from being (alive)? Is the big you even seeing, or is it aware of a monkey's sight creating seeing? If you do all that stuff and think it has much value for reaching enlightenment, you are just a monkey thinking it is aware of itself. Its not wrong for the monkey to do stuff, or to have fun in life, or to do activities that puts it in a mental state of bliss or calm or unity. But it has little to do with enlightenment, its more about manufacturing pleasurable feelings/thoughts to be aware of. What enlightenment is, is disidentification with the monkey, and awakening to the true self that is watching the monkey run around in life. It is the realization, that we are actually the entire world the monkey is running around in. It does not really matter one bit what the monkey is doing after that, from an enlightenment perspective. And there is more than one monkey running around in this existence. From a perspective of the monkey's life, regarding, money, success and the monkey's emotions, the monkey can still work to better itself. It can perhaps even become aware it is just a dream, while trying to be a good dream. But this is more an indirect result of enlightenment, rather than enlightenment itself, and it can be done without enlightenment entirely. This is why all those activities are just mental exercises and irrelevant. The monkey can never become anything more than a monkey, it cannot become enlightenment. You cannot be enlightened as a human being, because you are not a human being. But we were never really the human being to begin with, we are that which is aware, consciousness, one.

I wonder what is with all the software engineers here I'm a rather good Java developer, with more than 10 years experience. When i program i am always in a state of flow. Rather than being more aware, it is actually a total dissolution of self, of humanity even. Since it is object oriented, huge geometrical building blocks fill my brain, and i am rearranging structures in my head as i type the code. There is no thought or effort, it all just flows out of my fingers. It is the best thing in the world. But i do not know if it has a lot to do with enlightenment. It's why i said, you have become awakened to the self. You experience and see the distinction between consciousness and mind/ego. It allows you to see the mechanics of the emotions, the automatic behaviorism, that your body/brain is involved in. That you can do it 24/7 is very good. Now you can start really seeing how the mind/body/brain work, and start to let it all go. Somehow, your mind has convinced yourself this starting state is enlightenment. However it is far further than most people will ever get in life. So... , so far, so good. Until you begin with a whole list of things we should do. It's always a red alert, if we have to do stuff. Stuff about soundwaves. Crystals. Light Language activation. Altering your DNA trough sound and vibration. These are all beliefs. Constructs of the mind, thoughts. All of this is are thought projections, dreams. It is stuff to hide behind, to give the ego/mind something to attach to, rather than letting it all go. To be, you just need to be. I am that i am. Not all those extra things you drag into it. You are making the simplest thing in the world (enlightenment), seem like some sort of thing you can gain by doing stuff with your mind/body. When all you need to do is be. Enlightenment is so simple, people cannot do it, because the ego doesn't accept such empty simplicity. To be enlightened, you don't need to do more stuff with your mind, you need to do a lot less. You don't even need to constantly be aware of the breath, this is just a tool to allow your mind to empty and become what you truly are, being itself, existence. It doesn't really matter much to me. But for yourself, don't stop yet and dig deeper, because there is a lot more to find out still. You have just seen the ox's tail, as zen monks would say

Thanks for sharing, although a bit long You have awakened to the distinction between the actual self and thoughts. You have seen there is an ego, perhaps not yet exactly what it is. This is an amazing tool on the journey. It is not "enlightenment", but appreciating the value of this insight is important. It is a big step that should not be brushed away, and i myself once thought it WAS enlightenment. Until i saw more, and realized i am standing at the bottom of the grand-canyon and just opened my eyes, I still have to start my metaphorical climb. But at least we are no longer blind. At first sight, there is too much belief, ideas, projections in your experience. Projecting concepts creates feelings of whatever you want, it is another layer of ego which is hidden still to you. Using imagination to visualize during mindfulness creates these illusions. You should be like water, and flow without effort into it. Let the mind not create anything in this space, because all it creates is from this world and a kind of veil over the true self. Become life without effort of any kind, without any mind-projections, without any expectations or concepts. Remember, beliefs are just thoughts, they are mind stories. Its easy to imagine yourself into a blissful mental state, and think you've found the truth. But you are still just telling a story. Feelings are created easily trough visualization, and all visualizations are hidden thought stories. Or perhaps you are enlightened, who can say for sure...

You can't let go about wanting to let go. Your desire to let go, is probably what is blocking you to let go. By placing so much focus upon your tendency to repress your emotions, you over analyze the emotions also when there is room to let go. Can you try to just be as you are, and let go about monitoring your emotions either way. Don't work to let them go, don't work to let them in. Like a child, don't pay attention to it and the child will play on its own sooner or later. Let life just happen, it's easy and hard because it cannot be thought, you have to do nothing really. Perhaps this is too spiritual an answer, and not what you are searching for?

@Leo Gura I didn't know that, we used to buy them in the Netherlands in smart shops. A quick drive over the border in my school days We ate them, followed by some OJ

Some science for those interested... LSD and Psylcobin are DMT deviations. DMT is a molecule that exists naturally in low doses within the body. Attach some extra branches to it, and you get LSD. Attach branches to another side you get Psylcobin. So its not strange there are similarities in the way they work, since they attach to the same receptors in the brain. Their shape is slightly different tho, because of the extra branches, so their effects differ a tiny little bit. http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/worth-the-trip-psychedelics-as-an-emerging-tool-for-psychotherapy/ The LD50 for all these things is well known, and its impossible to poison yourself on these above. For shrooms, you would need to 17kg or 37pounds of fresh shrooms if you weigh 60kg, which is, kinda impossible to consume https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin#Toxicity Ayahuasca is a blend of DMT and a Mono oxidase amine inhibitor. The mono oxidase amine enzyme within your digestive system destroys DMT and makes it inactive. Taking an MOA inhibitor blocks the destructive enzyme and allows you to digest DMT into your bloodstream. The inhibitor also makes certain food dangerous to eat, and poisonous. Because the MOA enzyme actually is intended mainly to destroys these "poisons" in foods making them safe to eat. This makes it slightly more dangerous than smoking DMT, or taking LSD/Shrooms. All of these things are as such very similar in their effects. Thanks for the video. Magic mushrooms taste disgusting and rotten by the way, and taking that much would make me very nauseous due to flavor alone. They are not at all like any mushrooms you know for cooking.

This is normal. Really, why would you only meditate when sitting cross legged on the floor? Is the meditative state not always a good state to try to be in, does your mind need your legs to be crossed somehow? Basically, I often fall into meditation whenever i stop talking and relating to people, which is all the time when i have a spare alone moment. It can become boring, it can lead to a dark night this way, because your daily activities can lose meaning, if there is only being. In my experience, the dark night is when the monkey mind is still uncomfortable with the silence and emptiness of the true self emerging. It's better if i'm just with family/friends, their chatter soothes the monkey and the true self via love. It's easy to be meditative if there is only input, but if work or family requires output the monkey needs to act. Being is not doing stuff, so that's what i'm struggling with now. If i have to think about things, i seem to be attached to no mind, which is also a desire, which is not rly good for me. If any of this makes any sense whatsoever... Good for you, keep at it <3 I think you are on to something here, especially if master Shin says so!

Nicely put. The ego is a concept of the mental mind to identify parts of the mind, or the whole mind. But it does not exist as a person/being/entity. One big warning with the term ego. It is a dangerous term often misunderstood. Many seekers see the ego as a part of their thoughts that is undesired, part implying there is a true part of their thoughts. Thus the two parts go to war with each other, trying to let the good part prevail. But in reality, all thoughts are ego. Our true self does not directly think, does not have opinions and does not have emotions. There is no duality in the world. There are many objects in it. The body, the thoughts, the senses, trees, houses, animals, other people. But all these objects are one and the same. Which is life, or existence, or being. We as enlightened awareness or consciousness experiencing life. We are being. We are not the body, nor the senses, and not the thoughts. This body or senses are our instruments to experience the world with. The body is a machine, thoughts are also function of this machine. This statement many people reject, because there is pride in intelligence. This pride in the self as a human intelligence is the ultimate enemy of enlightenment, some call this pride alone the ego. It is the reason most cannot reach enlightenment. But we are not who we think we are, we are not this machine. So as for ego-death or transcendence. These are things the machine can do. You could say, ego-death it is the machine permanently realizing and accepting it is the machine. But this is not as important as you might think. Because for consciousness it matters little what the body-machine does. Leo describes this as a leap. Because you really have to go from A to C here. The mind A, cannot properly realize or know Enlightenment C. I always liked Rupert Spira's tv analogy (poor quote from memory). @Joseph Maynor Leo's version of enlightenment is the same as any version of enlightenment rly. Words are just words, terms and concepts are things from inside the movie, not of the screen. It is always better to pierce to the meaning of them.

Everyone is a copycat, everyone is a wannabe. This is because the human personality is formed through education and experience over many years. You place importance on unimportant things. The one placing the importance is not even you. What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve, how is this a problem for you? You are overthinking it, and overvaluing the power of thought. You can know things without thought, think of a sunset, describe a sunset, or watch a sunset. Yes it is. It gives rise to various problems. It is not without reason many "buddha's" isolate themselves from the world. On the other hand, I never said "nothing matters" in this extreme and absurd way. What most people describe as being unauthentic is people trying to hard usually. Someone who is a people-pleaser, who does not really speak his mind, but he says what he thinks you want him to say. Such a person is not living in the Now. He is living in the projected future of what he may gain by being unauthentic. Most people are unauthentic to actually be better liked. Leo has a good video on this, called "How to stop caring about what other people think". In essence, it all boils down to non-dual enlightenment, like everything in this world . Live in the Now, be pure consciousness in this present moment. Then there is no expectation or worry for the future opinion of others, there is only the joy of what is happening now. And thus you can act freely and be authentic as yourself. So to be authentic, you need to stop overthinking it, and just be. When everything comes natural, then you will be authentic.

Who follows this way, what of these thoughts is you, if half of them are influenced by others? It is an important realization, that your thoughts are not you. What your body does when walking around is not so important really. You can only accept what is, influences included. What does it even matter, why would you care? You can see it as proof of the non dual consciousness. Perception, or awareness is the source and your true self, these thoughts and opinions are just manifestations of life or being. Your physical body is just a manifestation of life. Following your own way, does not mean ignoring everything outside of you. Perhaps, being influenced, is the way and the path. What else is there, when every bite of food and every breath of air influences and changes your physical body and mood. One can only accept this, and go forward unencumbered. TLDR : You are overthinking it. Thinking is often not helpful and not required to be. And also, is this a question for people's opinion you have here, or a challenge for us to prove something regarding these statements?

I'm a guy, who has seen a lot of guys and girls in my 30ish years of life. This is what i would tell my younger self, if i could go back in time Most Woman looking for especially a long term partner, have a man-child filter. It basically means, you have to be a man, period. You have to be grown-up. This means mentally, you need to be a strong and confident man. This does not imply physical strength. It also definitively does not imply any form of aggression. It implies a high level assertiveness in life. Example, how do you treat a waiter, how do you check into a hotel room, etc.... With a group of male only friends, do you let other people do the talking to strangers when stuff needs to be arranged (group vacations for example)? There is always that one guy who will do all the talking, arranges the tickets, talks to the cabbie, etc... That guy is the leader, and he has confidence, and a girl most often. At a bar, will you signal the waiter and make sure everyone has a drink, or will you let your "leader" do it for you? It's many small things like this that show you can handle the world. You need to be a guy that can take action when needed. Let's be honest, if you cannot take good care of yourself, you cannot take care of her. And, how you approach her is the ultimate test of your confidence. Don't mistake the above for being a chauvinist and like choosing what she has to drink or eat. No, you ask her if she wants to order, then you make sure the waiter get's there asap, so she can order what she wants. Don't make her signal, don't make her ask for the check, don't make her go to the cash register. Doing it from time to time with just dudes, or solo, teaches you assertiveness in a "safe" situation. Physical appearance can help you feel confident about yourself, so it's a good idea to lift some weights if you need a boost. It's healthy anyway, so it's always good for you to get some muscle. I've seen many less confident guys get buffed and find some self-esteem in that, whatever works for you embrace it (such is life). But aside from confidence, you also need some humor. Especially if you can laugh with yourself, humor is a sign of intelligence. Humor about yourself is a sign of humility and in general, it shows you are not an arrogant guy. Arrogance and confidence are very different things. TLDR If you lack confidence, the girls will think you are a kid that can't take care of himself. Few girls want to date a man-child, which is what most man lacking confidence are, in their eyes. This is hard to read, if you are a manchild (i was, perhaps still am), but it's reality...

@cetus56 i didn't read that story, fair enough.

i can give you clarity. Everything anyone can teach you, can be simple condensed: "You are" That is it, end of teaching, if you understand this one phrase deeply, you are enlightened. Or watch a similar no bullshit guy, spend about 40m of non bullshit description:

Using the pm system to start a cult, is wrong i suppose. But i regret not being invited, because I would've joined him for shits and giggles. Seems like some fun role-playing to do On the forum, he had strange idea's, but he was never really offensive to me. At worst, i found him entertaining. I will miss him, for his weird and colorful posts. For me, it was not insane what he was saying, it was artful and beautifully abstract and bizarre. And for that i enjoyed reading it. But it was the right call, with all the information regarding him starting a cult.

I love you too my friend!

Who trained what, and who was aware of the training? If you are not training, do you dissapear? If you are not feeling anything do you dissapear? When you dream, do you not wake up and remember these dreams, you were aware while dreaming, but not "in control". Consciousness makes it different from a machine, nothing else. You can look at it like this, if you like machine analogies: Your brain and body are like an antenna, a receiver and a transmitter at the same time. The brain and body and thoughts are not you at all, they are a machine as you say. YES, even your thoughts are not really you, and just a function of the machine. Then what you are, is that which is "connected" to the machine from the outside. You are the one that is experiencing the machine. Sadly, somehow you have come to identify as the machine, and so there is only the machine and its needs/desires. You will realize, that no matter what the machine does. You are aware of it. When the machine thinks about the past, you are aware of the thoughts. When it thinks of the future, you are aware of the thoughts. But in reality, you do not visit past or future. You never exist outside of your current experience. If you look inside, and go "searching" for "me", you will find nothing. Thoughts may popup, various feelings, sights, sounds, and then there is this presence, or space, where it all is "known" by consciousness. It can be "felt", by letting go. Letting go means no effort. It means to stop caring about your thoughts, not to fight them. Its easier to let go, if you realize they are not your thoughts you are aware of, but created based on some trigger inside the machine. If you let yourself slide into this acceptance, you will see what awareness really is, perhaps only for a few seconds. You will realize, you can just be. You don't need to do anything really. What is now, is what is now, it exists. You exist as consciousness, whatever state the body is in at that point, you are aware of it.