SOUL

@Princess Arabia touché and bravo.....but please, paragraphs.

Just straight to the point, if someone uses another person's ideas of success they won't measure up to it, and it's not just because what one seeks for in life is not what someone else does, which can be a powerful insight in itself. Genuine success is not something accomplished, it's a state of being. Of course, I just pointed out the part about using another person's ideas about success...so feel free to disregard mine.

No need to create any self suffering from it, it's really nothing to let it disturb our peace. Words are whatever. Just be.

Over the years, I've come to recognize that a word like enlightenment is rendered almost useless because it means so many different things to so many people that it has lost all meaning as a word. Sure, it has book meaning yet a unique translation for each person, so can barely be used to say anything for us. Then in those years I've come to recognize the word truth is pretty much like enlightenment, it means so many different things to each person the word truth itself has lost all meaning. Yes, truth is the state of being true, but it also means being loyal, fidelity. People just want to believe their truth as if it's fact, this is innate in mind. There is another word that the meaning has so many variations it almost ceases to be useful in communicating anything about one's experience. This word is awake. Those three words have such an ineffable effect on each person that definitions can not represent them accurately. Meaning just about anything and everything to anyone of us, so really, it means nothing to all of us. Does this make them meaningless? In the way that they have no meaningful effect in us so to speak, from those three experiences for the lack of a better word? Or the opposite, they are three very powerful experiences which can mean more than any thing to any one of us. Yet, we can talk for years about them with others and still not really know how another soul perceives them. Although, it appears quite obviously to us if we have the inner life harmony that comes from realizing one's meaning and our being resonates with it, so emanates presence. The behavior it inspires in us is as infinite as the expressions of meaning we have, yet it is crystal clear to those that have this presence the distinctions of what harms and what heals. Again, for lack of betters words.

@Anahata Oh, you are pointing at something, ok, well, then nevermind.

If you divide white light with a crystal or water it creates a rainbow and if you combine the rainbow of material pigments together into one it creates black. Contemplate that...

Ah yes, another person on the forum telling others 'you are doing spirituality wrong' with even calling out Leo to explain your way through how you think he is doing spirituality wrong. To be fair, Leo himself also does this on the forum. I encourage everyone to realize liberation, which is the cessation of self suffering because once one abides in that all 'truth seeking' with the accompanying parsing out of what one believes is the truth is recognized for what it is. Until then, good luck with the mystical mumbo jumbo, I hope it leads you to well being.

I will mostly frame this in the context of romantic relationships but it is generally accurate about almost everyone so we can be aware of it when we interact with others. I have found that people will reveal to us so much about themselves when they are talking about others, especially past relationships. We will learn how they will talk about us to others and about us as a past/present relationship. So when we meet someone and specifically in the case of someone we may view romantically listen closely to what they say about others and their past relationships. It doesn't mean it's always a red flag if they have anything negative to say about others or their past relationships but be aware of how they talk about these others and what they say about themselves in the context of the circumstances and narrative they are portraying. This gives insight into how they think now and how they likely will tell it presently, not what they think and say of it in the past or the future, though. We can even apply this to ourselves, be aware of how we view our own relations and what we say about them. The aspects of the circumstances we highlight or ignore, the narratives we create about them and how we portray them. I've been aware of this for a very long time and even catch my own mind trying to 'tell stories' about past, present and future people and situations that I will not believe because it's just self bias. Also, be aware of how we 'tell stories' about others to others, it will give insight even to oneself about how we think about and view it all. It will help to interrupt the reflexive bias the mind will conjure up and allow us an opportunity to view things in clarity. Finally, don't beat yourself up because of this, even as I have said all this stuff about being aware of how people tell the stories of the things in their life it does seem like you take some responsibility for them though they might not be yours to claim.

Truth is some conscious agent efforting to verify what it perceives as real for justification....wisdom is that conscious agent realizing it doesn't require justifying effort to be at peace with what is so is in liberation.

So raging at others who don't accept your word as gospel truth is now them raging at you? Wow...just wow.

This is often what happens with 'truth seekers', they believe their experience is the absolute truth for everyone, preach it like they are an authority about it then lash out attacking others if their word isn't received as the gospel truth they think it is.

Go back? I'm not sure you thought this through...there's no going and no back... Also, sorry to hear about no healing for you, others can and do heal whether you ever experience it or not.

What if someone is addicted to pickleball? Asking for a friend...

I'm not one for esoteric deepities, so I take a practical approach. Although, it's difficult to express it without touching on some abstractions. In the mind there are sensations associated with motivating our behavior for survival and these appear in what we call awareness. These are things like emotions, thoughts, urges, impulses and such. The ego is the story telling part of our survival process that pulls all of these into a self identity, which it seems humans have a quite developed sense of this. The issue with ego is that it will use even suffering to get what it wants as long as it motivates the behavior for survival. In fact, suffering without actually being under any actual present duress is a very powerful tool for it to do what it does, it's imaginary suffering, it's self suffering. Also, the story it tells is an important part of its process, so it protects the story as if its life depends on it...because its life is the story. All of these things I've mentioned like mind, self, ego and awareness comprise what we call consciousness. Yet awareness, though being a facet of consciousness also can transcend the appearance of individual consciousness and awaken to absolute consciousness. So the ego is merely the storyteller of our individual consciousness.

You change what I wrote in the quoting of me but it was you who created the premise about me awakening from a line of thought, not me. Thought has nothing to do with it but you want to make that it was me suggesting it does because you want to disagree with it as if I did...which I didn't. That's some sketchy discourse, maybe you should stop there.

So you are telling me that I will never awaken with a line of thought that you don't share because, well, you have your specific delicate way that cannot be explained here and it must be done the way you trust is true. Ok buddy.

By wanting to destroy the ego it's empowered it to be something that is fought against. The ego desires to be real and by feeding into the notion it is a real thing to destroy it is creating it to be something to fight and as strong as the force trying to destroy it. This also puts consciousness in a state of conflict and peace, which is the absence of conflict, isn't found with conflict. This conflict causes self suffering so instead focus on being at peace no matter the appearance of sensations in the mind and eventually the ego will reflect this peace back because it only is what we feed it through our experience in the present moment. Of course be aware to not desire the ego to be something of our creation or destruction, attaching one's peace to transforming the ego is just another device of the ego to get the attention it craves. Just be at peace, no conditions are required, just be it, this is unconditional peace.

That is the reasoning which describes the nature of being at peace, as soon as it is realized in your consciousness it stops being a reasoning of the mind and it becomes reality in presence. The cessation of self suffering which is called liberation is when we cease to join with the ego's desire to attach to things in life so our consciousness is freed from the bondage of identifying with the temporal which is genuine peace. Also, these 'told ya so' people haven't realized it either...it is self evident.

Do you think they are your thoughts?

@Danioover9000 I don't know that he was being all that manipulative in a malicious way. I understand the context of how this 'wisdom' was conveyed to him under the guise of father to son but I suspect it was simpler originally when he received it and then he filled it out to the form he is presenting it as now. He is a smart guy and I'm sure he is well aware of how this 'wisdom' isn't gendered but he also is smart enough to know where most of his bread gets buttered so he's definitely going to lean in to what he knows will be heard by those who have been his core audience that has brought him to his current notoriety. I don't think he was trying to be demeaning or dismissive in his traditionalist framing as others in that space who use similar framing can be but I'm going to guess he'd rather not incur the wrath of people in that space who aren't as smart as him and might get triggered by a more 'diverse' framing.

It's a mystical riddle.

Nothing works for enlightenment...contemplate that.

Doesn't work for what?

At least intellectuals study something, they have some basis of knowledge and understanding to draw off of even if their common sense is skewed by the lack of real world experience and feel peer pressure to form their opinions. On the other hand there are those who reject all academic rigor, their common sense is warped by their biases and have zero intuitive ability. These people's opinions are merely parroting what their 'thought leaders' want them to believe. It may be a choice between dumb and dumber but don't allow their ignorance become your stumbling block.

@ChrisZoZo I'm actually quite unserious about it...my focus is on well being and any awakening to absolute is simply a byproduct of the well being I experience. Although, I appreciate the kind words.