SOUL

What's happening is a reasoning from the ideological position of nonduality based on the concept that duality is a construct of the mind in which good/evil and right/wrong are just imaginary and symbolic but not 'real'. Although, to believe that someone who is "enlightened" would rape is to disregard many of the attributes expressed in enlightenment.

The op is my role model for not spelling it roll.......

If you don't know you have free will, you probably don't have it.

I didn't say it is.

Figure out what it is that will fulfill you and seek that. Just taking advice from people without the context of your own life is useless. It's not just about finding someone who has what you seek in fulfillment and following their advice because different people have different ways accomplishing the same thing. Discovering the methods and techniques that work for us just as important discovering what fulfills us. If we don't understand the ways wes effectively work it won't help to understand what fulfills us. So it comes down to understanding ourselves not just in who or what to listen to.

@Shin I was merely applying the reasoning commonly espoused in spiritual circles for ironic effect. Don't take it personally, heh.

Saying that enlightenment is realizing that we aren't the physical and not the self then defend the deplorable violation of someone else by a supposed 'enlightened' person indulging in a vile selfish impulse through harming others, especially women or an innocent child....hm how convenient. People that will go to such lengths to justify an ideological belief even if it means speak in defense of a despicable act of wilful disregard for well being are not the people who I would take life guidance from....that's just in my humble perspective but everyone is welcome to do as they see fit.

It's only effective to be an asshole when one is dealing with a piece of shit.

According to the commonly accepted spiritual paradigm the reason is there's no "you" to make any progress....

There is no real difference between unconscious and subconscious but if I were to draw a distinction between the two I would call unconscious things that we would never be conscious of and subconscious are the shadowy impulses that are on the edge of conscious. By our conscious work we hope to leave impressions on our unconscious habituation so that eventually they become reflexive impulses that rise from our subconscious and could be considered our new habits. There are undoubtedly plenty of spiritualists who present contradictory ideas that often get explained as a paradox of the illusion. As well as the inconsistent logic gets explained away that rationality cannot fully understand spirituality. I can agree that the abstract is difficult to describe but it seems those reasonings get abused in avoiding the doublespeak.

If he didn't identify with the self... or the "selfing" as he calls it that his mind is doing why does he remember his past at all? Where are the details of the events that happened to the particular body that houses his awareness so he later can expound on them as he teachers his self professed 'no-selfery'? If the self doesn't really exist then when he stopped identifying with this supposed nonexistent self it would leave his awareness as fully as particles of air leave our lungs never to be recalled again once we breathe them out. Oh wait... I know the answers to those questions, never mind. I like that guy, though, he's got a great attitude.

I'm so nobody that nobody actually wants to be like me.

Emotions aren't inherently negative or positive but how we react to the emotions stirred up inside us can help or hinder what we seek to accomplish.

My impression of him is that he had some paradigm shattering experiences in consciousness but since his career is rooted in science and the academics he tries to fit his personal understanding into the context that appeases the expectations of him by others as a result of this career path.

@Alii We are always in the present moment, we cannot ever be out of the present moment, the distinction comes in either attentive to being present or distracted from being present. We potentially can have presence, as it is also called, in every moment or never and anywhere in between. The mind, at the behest of the ego, prefers to view enlightenment as some esoteric knowledge, difficult to attain understanding and rigorous process that completely depends on the mind and the ego to achieve it. Almost as if it's an ironic cosmic joke spiritual enlightenment doesn't require any of what the mind and ego think it does but in fact only consists of a simple and natural expression of awareness. The mind and the ego does not want to believe it and by it's very nature cannot believe it is unneeded to be so it will do whatever it can to distract us from just being here now. I don't know this friend and I don't know what or if he is anything. If something prevents us from being aware of presence yet our mind clings to it as if it's valuable to us that is dogmatic, whatever that something is.

I haven't listen to much from him, I have for a few mins on a couple of topics but not at all on the topic you mention. Although, I have personal experience that differs greatly from what you presented as his ideas. Things change and we change, our patterns, habits and behaviors along with our identity and associations to these change all by themselves even if we don't try to change any of it. In fact, we cannot prevent change or stop change from happening. So we can be an active participant in the change that happens so exert some influence in how it unfolds or we can allow the change to happen spontaneously without any intentional participation in the process but still will be affected with the random results. There is the idea that at our core our genuine nature is unchanging and the change we experience is just a temporal part of our expression. Even within that concept though we can attempt to influence the evolution of our experience by aligning our temporal expression more and more to reflect our unchanging nature. The mind may try to label the experience as "development" or "improvement", maybe "realize" or "actualize", even "empowerment" or "enlightenment". A paradigm in the mind could be built around the ideas and concepts with everything in it labeled and identified so it can be referenced to measure and guide the process. If you say he suggests it's impossible to change, I suggest it's impossible to not change. Maybe he only means that we cannot be an intentional part of the evolutionary experience of life but I myself have my own life as evidence of being an intentional part of my own experiential evolution.

@username Yes, that's pretty much my point except that I prefer to say the mind can be distracted by them, not always a distraction, otherwise this type of thinking can turn into another distraction by the mind fixating on positions, opinions and ideas are a distraction, so are. Ideas and concepts can lead us to realizing presence or away from presence, so there can be some value we get from them but the ideas in of themselves don't constitute what is called "enlightenment", it's presence.

@username My insight is that concepts and opinions about them can be a fixation to our mind.distracting us from being aware of presence. Me and you could hold completely opposite positions on every topic and concept imaginable yet both of us can be aware of presence. Getting the "right" understanding is merely a placebo for the mind in thinking it's "enlightened", though we can be "wrong" about every concept because awareness attuned to the present moment doesn't require accurate ideas.

@username Will my answer change your mind from being distracted from presence?

@username Will any of that cease the mind's distraction from presence? Or is it contributing to your mind's distraction from presence?

@username Well, sure, it can be dogmatic bullshit, any concept can be used by the mind to distract from presence. Even thinking something is or isn't dogmatic bullshit can become a concept distraction to the mind. Our awareness of being presence doesn't require we hold any position on any concept, it's only requirement is just being present to the moment and in that exercise of consciousness it is fulfilled.

@username That "no-self" stuff is just dogmatic bullshit... pun intended. The "no-self" quest is just another concept that people's minds will get fixated on and be a distraction from being present to the moment. What does 'endarken' our perception is when the sense of self distracts our awareness from being present, so to 'enlighten' our perception we attune our awareness back to being in the present moment. In the aware presence of being there is no attention being placed on concepts of self or no-self, truth or false, reality or illusion. Our attention is placed on the moment, on being here now and any sense of self that would need to be entertained are the ones that are of the moment. If they are not required for attending to the moment we can let them pass right on by without giving a second thought about them. Some animals have a sense of self, which and how many and to what degree I cannot say for sure but there are animals that have social dynamics to their genuine nature so possess a sense of self even if it's primitive compared to ours.

@username An awakening is an insight into our genuine nature while one is under the perception of being separate from that genuine nature and it is something to achieve, enlightenment is the realization, as in making it real in us, that one isn't separate from being our genuine nature through just being it in the present.....just like Sir Pawsalot is being. The difference between them and us, as it is asserted, is that they aren't aware of themselves as an aware being, they are just an aware being accepting of what is as is it without being aware themselves as such, while we are aware that we are. It's just an increased degree of awareness of being aware that we possess which ironically is what hinders us from being present, we often employ that expanded degree of awareness to be anyplace but present to the moment. So a dog or cat is "enlightened" without ever seeking enlightenment because it isn't ever not aware of being in the present moment and accepting of what is as it is, that's it's genuine nature and it doesn't cease to be it, although, it just isn't aware of it, we are aware of it. Yet we can turn our awareness away from being present in the moment through preoccupation with the past, the future, our story and a myriad of fixations.

If enlightenment is just being present in awareness and accepting what is as it is then people who spend no time at all concerned about what's real or illusion, about what's truth or false and about the "right" techniques or methods of spirituality are the most enlightened..... essentially, the most enlightened individual we know is our pets. So I will be meditating on the couch with my guru as they lick themselves.

The ego is the face of the subconscious.