SOUL

Or contemplate less. Our ego is the master of lacking always seeking something else to fill its identity. Always one more thing to do or have to be complete. The only real step in finding completion is stop looking for it and just be it because we are already it. Then everything we do is an expression of fullness overflowing into every facet of life. We are so complete that we pour out the abundance of existence instead of try to fill a hole that doesn't exist.

The absence of the void is so complete in its absolute emptiness it is the source of all existential yearning in the manifest as the fullness of god in its abundance seeks to fill it. To resolve this in our awareness to be at peace with the absolute fullness and absolute emptiness coexisting in oneness produces the experience of liberation and cessation of self suffering.

This is the very root of desire, a yearning for something, an emptiness, a lacking and to quench this 'feeling' and 'experience' is the cessation of self suffering. Realize completion and perfection so it quenches the existential yearning, it satiates that desire which keeps the wheel spinning in our soul thus the infinite stillness can emanate from our being. It is pure holism.

The void is devoid of everything and anything at all...no awareness, no consciousness, no god, no love , no thing at all...it is absolute in its absence. So nobody is there. I know this because I regularly go to the edge of the void and dangle my 'feet' off the edge of god like a kid does off the edge of a cliff....but only the edge, because the void is unblemished by any existence at all.

They are exactly the same in that they are both the pursuit of what is true but if you told a philosopher they are doing spirituality they'd disagree and if you told a seeker they are doing philosophy they would also disagree. The seeker will protest that their pursuit is from direct experience though this takes place in the imagination and a philosopher will say their pursuit is from reason yet this also takes place in the imagination. Both of these people will also claim that their pursuit doesn't rely on belief with one pointing to their experience and the other to their logic but both rely on what they trust is true which is the definition of to believe. So the difference between spirituality and philosophy is merely the spelling and what one chooses to call their pursuit.

I guess if everything is really nothing the better question to ask is if it's possible to understand nothing.

The original state of being doesn't require doing to be, although, awareness might be considered the original something 'done' by being as being awareness. Some might even consider being to be the original something awareness ever 'does' as awareness being. Some may also consider this the origin of the manifest with awareness and being coexisting in absolute consciousness. Once we find peace in simply being, peace meaning the absence of conflict so it is the cessation of self suffering, then all the things we associate with well-being are expressed through everything in life we 'do' such as love, joy, contentment, fulfillment, etc. We have those things in simply being and are expressed through all we do, we bring it to instead of derived from what we do.

Which is why the term detachment doesn't express what unattached really is. Detachment implies having to do something to sever an attachment one has while unattached suggests something that isn't attached. If our genuine state is unattached then we don't have to detach, we just realize the unattached state of being. Not to be contrary to what is quoted but even 'releasing attachment' implies we have to do something in releasing to be in that unattached state but really we don't need to do anything to be unattached except be unattached.

....absent-minded might be more apropos, hm

A.W.A.K.E. = always whining about koans eternally.

Yet you repeatedly tell others on this forum you know they aren't awake because of...*checks notes*...words.

I was about to reply to the original post the very same way. I'm glad you are aware of the story EVERYONE is telling themselves but it's just that some people believe the story is the truth while others realize it's just a perceived appearance in the imagination and really isn't as accurate as one believes it is. Which are you?

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say, either it's too many typos or what appears to be an unfinished expression of your ideas but I can try to parse out what you meant and respond or maybe you can rephrase it so I don't misunderstand your points. Although, using the word 'need' suggests it's like food, water or air and so belief is something we 'need' to survive but I'd prefer to suggest it's a mechanism of mind that allows us to get the things we 'need' to survive or avoid the things that would end our survival. Yet, after that I'm unsure of what you meant, would you clarify for me, thank you.

Why do people always add the 'without proof' part to it? Belief doesn't require that it's trusting something is true without proof though, yes, you can believe something without proof but it isn't the only thing that is a belief. If you have 'proof' it doesn't mean you 'know' which is different from 'believing' because 'knowing' something is built upon a system of beliefs like trusting appearance is true, that perception is true, that understanding is true, that concepts are true, that trusting your direct experience is true. Since we can't cease to 'believe' something why set up a limiting 'belief' that eliminating all beliefs is some goal to attain. Just accept that we believe and examine those beliefs to find whether they help or harm our being present.

Well, your posts are more like an unflushable turd that continues to circle the bowl refusing to go down, that's almost like walking on water so there's that.

Well, I wrote 'being' not 'Being', and you are imagining me gaslighting you? Quite the imagination you have there...

'Reality imagines all experience into being' is an imaginary conceptualization...how does the bug taste?

It is a conceptualization that there are states which are higher than others and that don't require conceptualization, which is all imaginary.

That you think there is something to understand is imaginary, what you think you understand is imaginary, and the very imaginary 'understanding' of the imaginary thing is imaginary. Your pointing is imaginary, what you are pointing at is imaginary, the reason why you are pointing is imaginary, that there is anyone to point at something for is imaginary. ...but then out of nowhere in real life walking outside a bug flies into your mouth. It doesn't matter what you imagine it to be using whatever mystical rhetoric to describe it there is still a bug in your mouth. But Leo, you'll say, isn't the bug in your mouth imaginary? Well, spit it out and see.

The ego feeds off attachment, so if we can starve all the trappings of attention it fades away. This doesn't mean we have to be devoid of any 'mapping' or 'story', it's that we should be aware of how attached we are to it. It can cause self suffering to contend with anything that differs, also be ready to burn the map and erase the story in every moment because it's all imaginary.

@Moksha It's amazing how people on this forum are ready to burn the ego more readily than they are to burn the map. The map isn't the territory, why the attachment to belief and paradigm is such a strong one is because quite often there is where the ego's identity hides in.

Your arrogance is so typical, but I love you anyway.

You understand my point. To expound upon that understanding, if we are already at the destination anyway and it's the map that's keeping us from realizing it by conceptualizing a separation between us and the destination, then burning the map is the most helpful solution.

That's not what I said, that's what you heard. Read what I wrote again.

I don't notice me saying there's a 'higher importance to no map' because I didn't say it, I didn't even imply it. You may have heard it that way because of your addiction to your map but it isn't what I said or meant. I did say that contending about maps is an obstacle to awakening and if that is the case you'd be better served burning the map and never drawing one again. It's the contention about the maps that is the obstacle, not the map itself. I also said a map is just the mind charting the past, creating a legend about it's concepts. People believe their maps are accurate, otherwise they wouldn't be using them but it's still based on the past, which is also imaginary. I didn't say anything about the right or wrong, good or bad and importance or not of the map, just the contention about the maps are an obstacle to what I will assume is the destination of the map. Can you understand the difference between what I said and what you heard?