Joseph Maynor

To me they're the same. What it means is that you're just being the atmosphere not the clouds and observing things happen. It's you resting as Awareness. You're just observing but not neurotically. You're non-neurotically being Awareness. And the reason why this is such an important practice is because that's what Enlightenment is. Enlightenment is non-neurotically being Awareness. Now, that's a bit of a gloss for someone not that far along the Path. Enlightenment isn't exactly like Do Nothing Meditation, but you'll see the similarities for yourself at some point. Don't cling to not controlling either that's a trap. Do Nothing meditation is a resting as Awareness not an opportunity for the Ego to try to do anything. You just watch Thought and Experience. Don't try to do and don't try not to do, if that makes sense. Trying to "do nothing" is Egoic and defeats the purpose of Do Nothing Meditation.

"The" moon? Whose moon? Your moon?

This is kind of a contemplation exercise where I am genuinely interested in your take. We have a Mind acting deceptively as a premise. What is this Mind? Who is this "you" that the Mind is deceiving and distracting?

This reminds me of this interview with Warren Buffet that I watched where he said in the right context he could easily be bear food nevermind his extraordinary skill in investing.

The great Philosopher David Hume famously complained that his new book "'The Treatise of Human Nature' fell stillborn from the press." Nobody wanted it. But it turned out to be one of the most influential books ever published. Most of the books that sell well nobody knows about in 100 years. It's just a bunch of rubbish. A big pile of steaming nothing. By the way, Hume wrote 'A Treatise of Human Nature' when he was 28 years old! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Treatise_of_Human_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

I think you can sell something genuine, but you're not gonna do it neurotically. The problem is need for money introduces a new variable in that. Let's say for example, I wanted to sell my personal development book. Ok, well it would make a difference if I were doing that as a side-hobby or doing that to put food on my table. If I were doing it as a side-hobby maybe I would be ok selling 20 copies or none at all. If I were trying to put food on my table with my book, maybe I would need to sell 2000 copies. If I write a book, I'll sell it, but at the same time I won't give a shit if people don't buy it too. The value to me has already been exhausted which was was in writing the book itself.

I don't think so. Paradoxically, it's easier to become Enlightened with a strong sense of self and your own values and who you are. Otherwise you're just not gonna do the work required. If you're a sheep, paradoxically you're gonna stay in Ego. It's people who transcend a strong sense of self that become Enlightened. And that's because Enlightenment requires a lot of balls and a lot of not caring what others think, and it also requires following the Truth wherever it leads, even if it leads you off a cliff.

And also please explain how you're using the ambiguous terms 'Relative' and 'Absolute'. Where is this word 'must' coming from -- in the sense of "'must' be one"? That sounds like covertly buying into what we might call a logical conclusion or logical necessity.

When the motive becomes making money, that's where the manipulation starts. If people did what they loved without the motive of making money, we would see a totally different outcome. Imagine someone selling and marketing something without the motive to make money off of it. It would look very different. I. Now, here's a couple of questions for you to ponder: Would people even be doing what they're doing if they didn't make money off of it? Isolate a particular person and inquire into that case. Take each person who's a do-gooder in the world making money off of that. Would they be doing what they're doing if there was no money in the equation? II. Now, here's a couple of questions for you to Contemplate: Would I sell and market any services without the incentive of making money off of them? Would I become a do-gooder in the world if there was no money in it for me?

People do not want to contemplate. I’ve observed this aversion for some time now. It doesn’t matter how much info we have if people don’t want to self-observe and be rigorous about it.

I am 40 years old, verging on 41 in almost exactly two months from now. I feel like one of the elders on here sometimes. I know there are a few people older than me on here too.

More detail please. You would not write just this one line if you were contemplating this for real. You would have one line written on your journal page? Can you write a decent paragraph addressing this? Nobody really wants to contemplate I find. I've always loved to contemplate, and I think that's one of the things that separates me from other people. Could I freewrite 10 pages on this? -- probably not now. 5 pages? -- I don't know. 1 to 3 pages? -- definitely. Anybody should be able to freewrite 1 solid page on this topic if you really tried hard and put love into it.

Exactly. You and me are on a very similar page on this issue.

I like your passion for Enlightenment Work, but I don't think you're really interested in discussing things. Whatever you have to communicate or teach is lost on me, I don't get it. It's easy to say that everyone is wrong -- but a lot harder to say why they're wrong and how they can correct their errors. That requires discussion and contemplation, which I get the sense you think is "mental masturbation". You gotta be a little bit more careful on what you think mental masturbation is. Contemplation is necessary in Enlightenment Work. There's a difference between Contemplation Work and mental masturbation. Mental Masturbation is Thought focused away from self-observation. Contemplation is Thought focused towards self-observation. If I'm trying on your insight to see if it fits and I ask you on what basis you have to say what you do, that's me trying to get more information from you to try on your insight. Otherwise your insight is just mental masturbation to me and 100% hearsay.

Leo said it not me. And I quote -- "Relative and Absolute must be ONE. God's creation is not separate from God, it IS God!" -- Leo Gura Source of quote:

The only way is to cultivate your own seeing through your own self-observation. Theory is moot with this. Understanding don't mean squat unless it's grounded in your own looking at yourself.

Who do I believe you or my lying eyes?

What if "God is ALL" is not quite correct? That would upset your applecart substantially. Your entire view of Enlightenment would change. I say this because I went through the shift myself. Of course, it's only by you doing your own seeing that you're ever gonna challenge such a definitive axiom that you've built for yourself. If fact, you don't challenge it, you'll have the awakening and then a shift. Ego doesn't kill Ego, Truth kills Ego. Keen seeing of reality kills Ego. Ego tries to define reality or Truth to include itself. God is not Ego. God has nothing to do with Ego. That's because Ego is a literal illusion.

No. It’s a desire for Awareness to discover what it is. It’s the extraction of Awareness from being entangled within illusory Maya.

Leo and I see this issue very differently: (1) Leo: Maya is none other than God, Brahman, and the Absolute. (2) Me: God is not Maya. Maya is a literal illusion. ----------------------------------- (1) Leo: Nonduality means embracing both, not elevating one over the other. (2) Me: Who is doing this embracing? ----------------------------------- (1) Leo: Relative and Absolute must be ONE. God's creation is not separate from God, it IS God! (2) Me: Relative Truth is an illusion. There's only one reality. Reality doesn't have facets. ----------------------------------

A true Dark Night of the Soul is like grieving a death. Either the death of the Egoic self, or the death of Ego more broadly; i.e., the death of Other Beings, the death of the External World, the death of Thoughts.

You don't give up rationality. You don't give up anything. You still have some work to do to see through the illusion of the Egoic self. Contemplate these: Does Experience need a controller? Does Thought need a controller? What is controlling Experience? What is controlling Thought?

Find your own levels of Enlightenment. Track your own journey. People don't want to look at themselves, they want to cling to theory about something. But in this work looking at yourself is the only relevant thing. You don't need to look anywhere else other than you for your answers. What are/were your Enlightenment levels? Contemplate that. Can you look back on your own Path and see something there? Would you be willing to write about that and share that with us? That would be doing the real work. You tell us what the levels of Enlightenment are from your own looking at your own Path. That's the opposite of hearsay theory in this work.

Although I use the word 'Mind' to communicate my Thought in my writing, don't get hung up on the word 'Mind'. Mind doesn't actually exist. All there is is Thought and Experience. Actually, all there is is Experience, but it's useful to section-out Thought from Experience. Thought is part of Experience. But what the word 'Mind' does, the way I intended to use it, is to point you in the right direction regarding your contemplation.

That's good to know. I scanned the table of contents and it looked much more rigorous that I expected.