SOUL

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.

Enlightened view it the way I view it, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, believe the way I believe, act the way I act, experience the way I do, perceive as I do.....that's how you can tell Ideas that aren't like mine are deluded conditioning of illusion but my ideas are the Truth and reality!

There is pleasure. there is pain, there is null thing that's not the same There is healing. there is harm, there is detachment to keep me warm. There is one thing, there is another, there is unthing that is no other. One awareness, one abyss and one time birthed one existence. Just be................... here................. now.

Yup, bullshit.... absolute bullshit.... infinite absolute bullshit.

@username Ah, that's interesting. Of course just capitalizing the word still fails to address a distinction that rarely ever gets made. The thing that people often refer to "nothingness", small "n", isn't an absence of anything, it's the presence of all things undivided, it's the all of everything in unity manifest without any delineation in the state of it that exists before any separation takes place in existence. The "Nothingness" with the big "N" is another distinction that can be made but it's the type of understanding that comes from experience in awakened awareness of a personal revelation. Without it there is no way to describe the understanding to another person, it's actually possible to conceive of but it likely is impossible to communicate.

@alyra In relation to words, yes, there is not nonduality without duality but in reality wholeness exists without duality existing. Even if we would divide the wholeness in half to create a perceived duality it still isn't really a duality because it consists of three parts, the two contrasting parts and the whole. So our mind will fixate on the perceived two contrasting halves it thinks it sees in duality while not realizing the whole, which is something that either of the two halves are not and cannot be in of themselves.

Well, "nothingness" isn't quite accurate either but it's close enough, that's part of the illusion, the mind thinks it understands it's "nothingness". It's just the paradox that we will take on this journey with a destination which cannot be charted because all we can conceive of is merely a reflection of what we think we know and can understand. So in calling it "nothingness" it is just another concept that our minds think we can understand and search for it with. The reason I say this is because while the concept of "nothingness" may be useful to sort out some of the confusion when observing from a more dense "physical substrate", as you called it, eventually to continue on the journey with no destination we have to abandon all concepts in the mind...even the ones that have served us well. There is a reason so many fruitlessly seek enlightenment with thoughts of nothingness in their head, they refuse to give up the attachment to the notion that their minds have perceived it accurately.

Oh, it's the "leftists" who instigated it you say? Have 'rightists' played no part in it? Do you have any solutions you can offer or were you only going to air your political gripes?

I don't even really like to use the term nonduality because it implies that duality exists as some basis to contrast which forms another duality in mistaken perception through the premise.

@alyra That duality you speak of you called it a belief, though it's not a reality, there is no duality. So it's a belief that would be transcended, not a duality, which would make no sense to tell others it exists just to transcend, when it really doesn't.

@Revolutionary Think That response was merely a reflection to a specific reply so the poster could possibly see the nature of it. Of the person acting that way I see someone in pain very much like everyone who identifies with their pain and creates the self caused suffering carried on with d an ideology built to justify their self suffering. It may be an extreme version of it but it is no different than what we all can experience if our self suffering manifests unchecked. It is the very same method we all use to justify our self induced suffering and while it can produce hatred of others it also is the source of what can also become the depression of the thread topic in so many even if it isn't so outwardly offensive. With depression it may be a hatred of oneself or one's life or a helplessness but just like that man it's a pain, that the self continues to suffer with. Of course that isn't the chemically caused depression which is another matter altogether, that isn't a self induced suffering.

Do you think it's healthy that you find happiness in others misery?

You keep focusing on all the externalized opinion "sides" but are failing to recognize the source of the anger, hatred and hurtful behavior, the in "side". No, I don't need to understand their opinion "side" but each one of us understanding our own in "side" is how we will cease building up and expressing the type of emotions and actions that harm ourselves and others. If someone is awake and examining their self no opinion or viewpoint should foster such harmful emotions and behavior, it's that simple. Although, if is someone is asleep in ignorance of their self this is the type of stuff that it produces. Whether it's "perfectly human" or not isn't the question.

People's behavior speaks itself and is what it is, I don't "judge" anyone. You think being so attached to one's own opinion to the point that it produces this type of hatred and behavior is psychologically healthy?

I don't have to understand anyone's "side", pro or anti anything, it doesn't benefit me at all to "understand" an opinionated "side", any of them. All animosity and hatred is a product of not understanding one's self on the in "side". That's the only "side" I seek to understand, my in "side".

@Clint Eastwood What is there to understand about the other "side"? It's people extremely attached to their opinion and finding an opportunity to vent their hatred on others, it not about understanding someone's position, it's about something on the in "side" of themselves they need to understand.

@alyra Please explain this "duality", I don't see it.

In my opinion most of the pro Trump mentality is just a form of psychosis. Those people have problems with everyone.

Who is it that said the human condition is a mental illness? If they didn't, they should have.

I am one with everything so I am all the Rolls Royces that ever existed... just no smoking in me, it stinks.

....because the alternative has produced such a sane society devoid of suffering, right?

This is an example of how enlightenment isn't about knowledge, understanding, truth or any ideas, concepts and beliefs. Enlightenment is about awareness, both in focusing awareness on the moment and expanding our awareness, so the mind will get preoccupied with what it can be aware of and fixate on that as a way to gain it's identity. The way I view it to limit the disharmony in me or anyone is to let it come to me, I don't seek out opportunities to tell anyone anything. If someone seeks out my opinion or are venting or complaining then I offer what I can but not much more than that. This limits the exposure in real life to potentially running afoul of egos and possible conflict. Online it's a little harder because in public forums people seek all sorts of stuff and it can be difficult to discern exactly what they are seeking or need to satisfy them. This is where most of the disharmony comes in my own experience now so I am always learning ways to offer what I can with few expectations and avoiding conflict even while addressing a wide range of topics.

I'm pleased to see that you put the words "control" and "negative" in quotes because those are words that can complicate things so at least you recognize they need to be contextualized. Trying to control, especially something like emotions, is very frustrating and virtually an impossibility since emotions rise from our unconscious mind. "Negative" is really just our personal perspective of something, it's not that emotions are in of themselves either positive or negative. I'm also pleased to learn you have already begun to see the distinction between pain and suffering, while we are in painful circumstances it is commonly referred to as suffering, though, there is a self imposed suffering that happens when we aren't immediately in the painful circumstances but it continues to linger in our consciousness. What you called being a victim and it isn't necessarily a commentary on whether the painful circumstances were of our own doing or not but the victim mindset is a form of self suffering which you apparently recognize. It doesn't mean you are weak minded at all, even the most strong minded people will self suffer, it's just the way the ego will exert influence to guide us into certain behaviors. It seems you would benefit from becoming more detached from the reactionary emotional impulses evoked by the ego, this doesn't mean become detached from all emotions, it's just not reflexively endorsing the ones that the ego offers up. When the ego wants you to suffer with an emotion that makes it the situation or you feel even worse, don't agree with it. It's difficult to counter those reactionary impulses the ego instigates in us in the moment they are occurring so it's helpful to work to counter them in meditation beforehand. By using visualization to envision ourselves in circumstances that would normally trigger the suffering emotions but instead we see ourselves thinking, feeling and behaving in the alternative ways we seek for ourselves. Music is a powerful resource for us to inspire emotional connection to ideas so if you can find non-distracting music to use in these meditation sessions it will make them more effective when coupled with the visualizations. Cultivate the emotional response you seek with help from inspiring music while envisioning yourself in those circumstances will influence the unconscious mind to make the associations we intend and will "recall" them in the circumstances. It may not happen right away and it may not disappear forever even after we do see some change in us but eventually we can find relief from self suffering through letting go of the old and using the imagination to create new. The mind can't really tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined because it uses the same parts of the brain for both, use that to your advantage.