Joseph Maynor

Make sure to come back after your deep-dive into the work. Share your insights with all of us! You’re gonna have more stuff to teach, more insights about the path and about awakening.

Me-Ism is narcissism We-Ism is socialism They-Ism is racism You-Ism is masochism

I like walking up stairs and hills.

The perfect Yoga is probably Jiu-Jitsu.

You'll be aware of the Dream experiencing Enlightenment. Awareness is just awareness. All it does is awareness. And it never changes. Awareness is the one thing that never changes. Have you noticed that?

That's a good point. I'm on board. It seems like a great avenue to explore.

Bliss is when you don't have a dog in the fight in the Dream. You can stand back and watch the magic show all the time, rain or shine.

That's fair. I do want to get into it.

Full Enlightenment is not a state, it's permanent. You're just as Enlightened when you're sitting on the toilet as you are when you drop 5-MeO-DMT.

It's amazing the rules people think they need to conform to to be spiritual. The whole point of spirituality is to realize that you can't live by rules. There is no you that is living by any rules. That's just a pipe-dream. So, yeah, just be authentic. I have a masculine side to me. That feels really natural to me, and I let it fly, I don't try to control anything. I appreciate both masculine and feminine energy. Video on point to watch:

What is to think when you can see.

Crystals are amazing to have around. They have a kind of stirring effect on the mind. I'm a fan. I have a more intellectual way to stir my beliefs that I prefer, but that's just me.

Authenticity = BE-ing. It's funny, at the advanced stages, this material can be expressed in such simplistic ways. It's very paradoxical. Things are really very simple. The Ego doesn't want things to seem simple. But things are very simple at the advanced stages of this work.

No. The best way to think of this is like this. You have no Ego. The Dream is the dream. You are aware of the dream but do not control, do, or conceptually know anything in the Dream. The Ego is what you falsely believe is controlling, doing, and conceptually-knowing. What you are is Atman, unchanging Awareness. And that's what everybody else is too, Atman. Thus we have, Atman = Brahman. Brahman = Atman. It's that simple. Ego is what is false!

I define authentic as no Ego. Ego is the sense of controlling, doing, or conceptually-knowing. So, once you give Ego up, that's where authenticity begins.

In self-inquiry yes. But he doesn't really teach you the final bit. You gotta go back to Shankara and Nagarjuna and the Upanishads. The Samkhya, Yoga, etc. Maybe that's just the way he's interpreted by people. But I don't see Ramana telling people that reality is a Dream. He leaves that part out, right? You gotta go back to the Upanishads to see how they distinguished Atman, Brahman, and Maya. Those guys were on to a lot of really good stuff. Unfortunately our culture just didn't carry it. It doesn't support the Ego-Paradigm.

Cool. That's good. Unchanging Awareness has nothing to do with state changes. You can do psychedelics all you want, you're just not gonna become Enlightened solely through their use. Like I said, they're good on the path, but people get too stuck on them, and miss the point of this work. You're not gonna find Enlightenment using psychedelics. They can help you get up under a lot of beliefs though -- they can destabilize a lot of your beliefs. So, in that sense, psychedelics are more of a tool for self-inquiry than a direct path to Enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply the death of the Ego. Enlightenment is permanent. Once you get that final crack, that's it. But the Ego has to go piece by piece. You're not gonna get all of it in one go. That's why the path to Enlightenment is a path.

I’ll look into it deeper. Tibetan culture is a trip. Tibetan Buddhism is worth looking into.

Are you asking how long I like to meditate?

That’s a legit fear. This is my take. Always be humble about Enlightenment. It’s easy to delude yourself that you’ve reached the summit only to find out that the spiritual ego is clinging on for dear life. Full Enlightenment is the total surrender of the Ego. It’s letting ALL of it go. That’s kind of a tricky thing to “do” because it’s not a doing! It’s a constant resting as awareness. It’s a being. I know we say this stuff and it sounds like general cliches — but when you get to the advanced stages, this stuff is the most concise, literal advice you could receive on these matters.

So true. The Ego has to be let go of. That’s the only thing to do, and it happens by degrees.

No. He was super into identifying with a strong, idealized, Egoic perfection. Nietzche was one of the most Egoic of the Western Philosophers. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be read though. He makes some good points, especially about Christian morals. He argues that Christian morals are basically preventing Man from being as great as he can be. Like a self-imposed set of limiting-beliefs. Nietzche was big into liberating yourself from limiting moral beliefs and forging your own values based on perfection and growth. I think there’s a lot of Nietzche’s legacy in classical masculine-style Personal Development teachings.

What are you hoping to find as you continue to seek? What's the desired final endpoint?

Letting go fully. That's it. Just resting as Awareness. Not as attached to the fluxing Dream. It's like I'm always meditating or something. Just peace and stillness and mild bliss. I don't have any more illusions of control within the dream anymore. So, it's just a surrender to reality. There never was a me doing anything in the first place. But what is missing is the illusion of Ego -- the illusion of control, doing, and conceptual-knowing. The illusion of being an actor in the dream who is trying to understand the dream. No. I am simply Atman, or unchanging Awareness.