Carl-Richard

which is why I say it's a valid perspective, but it's not the only one, and I won't pretend that it is. Maybe it's someone's path to pretend that it is and that is how they'll awaken, and sure, you can awaken in many different ways, even by hurting yourself physically. I just personally don't like hurting myself (in this case intellectually). Generally, hurting yourself (your relative self) is not something I'll promote. I think it's very possible to awaken while having a good head on your shoulders, and that you'll be generally better off that way. There are certain trade-offs that I might consider, but trading off your intellect would be too much (or like Frank Zappa would say: "treating dandruff by decapitation").

It's the same general dynamic: person 1 says something relative, person 2 says "but the Absolute though"; repeat ad nauseam.

Why it gotta be liquid? Eat some fruit. It has 80% water in it.

Ok, so language is bad, yet here you are talking very much. This has essentially been a long-winded version of "The Advaita Trap": I say instead of skirting around these performative contradictions, just embrace language to your full capacity. https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/the-advaita-trap-a-one-act-play/

There are relative manifestations of consciousness, and thus also enlightenment.

His point is that the only valid language game is the Absolute language game. I disagree. I'm saying that you can talk about the relative sides of enlightenment without negating the absolute side of it. The disagreement might lay in the fact that he doesn't think it's just a language game. But that is all we're doing here. To think that what we're doing right now is more than just conceptual talk is certainly not very non-dual.

Yet "I think Truth lies in the abnormal" is a statement about the relative domain and how it pertains to enlightenment. So you see, you can talk about enlightenment in both the relative domain and the absolute domain. For instance, the relative domain is where "enlightened people" live ("people" are relative things), as well as processes, practices, brain states, etc. Meanwhile, the fundamental nature of enlightenment is of course in the absolute domain.

Nuh-uh, not according to @UnbornTao. There is nothing in the relative domain that has anything to do with enlightenment, supposedly. "Abnormal", "finding", etc., is all conjecture, not direct experience.

Sort of. My point is that it's possible to speak like a normal person sometimes. It doesn't have to always be "...but direct experience!". It should be possible to say that there are enlightened people, that these enlightened people went through a process of awakening at some point in their lives, and that to say these things isn't necessarily blasphemous or negates the Truth with a capital "T". It's only an observation about relative reality, and if you recognize it for what it is, it's not a big deal. To demonstrate how absurd this really is: there is no reason why you shouldn't apply this "direct experience" business to any other topic than spirituality. For example, "going to the toilet is not actually a process with a start and an end; it's simply a pure happening of Infinite Consciousness; there is nothing truly happening, there is nothing being done, nothing being achieved, etc." Now, that is a completely valid perspective to take, but it's also completely ludicrous to think that it's the only valid perspective or the only useful way to engage with the topic.

Oh no, don't rob the New Agers of their only speciality! ?

You should re-read what I wrote above about Neo-Advaita. There are benefits to conceiving of things the way you're doing right now, but it's just another language game. If you recognize that it's just a language game, you can subscribe to other language games as well without problems. In other words, you can describe things as a process and also not a process. Because there is utility to both descriptions. It's not for no reason that people talk about enlightenment as a process (with a start and an end result), and you do understand that reason: people meditate and learn various things that give them insights, shifts in perspective, and which eventually lands them in a place which we call "enlightenment". Is it the same for everyone? Is there a mandatory step by step recipe you need to follow? No, but these are things people do and that we associate with enlightenment, which can be conceived of as a process with a start and an end result. If you want to be thoroughly consistent in your skeptical approach to describing reality, you should go all in and not say anything, because that is already "delusion" from the perspective of the Absolute (and you save yourself the performative contradictions). But again, you want to say things, so you need a language game, and I'm saying you might as well use multiple language games in a way that is rational and not get religiously stuck on just one.

To get you a certain result, in this case being enlightened, which is preferable to not being enlightened. You do understand this.

I think very few people become enlightened without ever having engaged with various technologies or tools that were available. Even Sadhguru meditated regularly in his early years, even though his first awakening was rather spontaneous. Besides, whatever you're providing here in this conversation can be thought of as a tool as well. Science is just one way to provide better tools over time. I think this is the very definition of Neo-Advaita: "there is no tool, no knowledge, no practice, no path that can take you there — only direct knowing of Yourself." It's of course a performative contradiction, because the very utterance of Neo-Advaitan words is a tool for making you gain insight into something, words said with a purpose to illuminate a path. In reality, Neo-Advaita is only a particular language game that can help to prime certain insights in certain contexts for certain people, but if you take it as something more than a language game, you shouldn't be surprised if you find yourself stuck with no insights, no progress. There are many language games, many tools, and they can be helpful for different people at different times.

You think meditation is not a technology or tool? Psychedelics? Transcranial magnetic stimulation for inducing flow states?

Haha if you guys still don't think Neil is a narcissist, watch this: Even his own people can't deal with him But like seriously, see how he leans into contextual things like incessantly interrupting people, shouting, waving his hands, even running up towards the person he disagrees with? Even when done half-jokingly, it's still frame control, and a specific kind which normal people don't dare to counter. You really have to be a narcissist to do these things, and the other people on the panel are not that, so Neil takes advantage of it (and you can see the mix of genuine distress and the "oh Neil" smirk on their faces, because again, it's not normal behavior). You know who does exactly the same things? Alex Jones. Don't tell me you don't see the similarities.

Please elaborate a little bit more than that.

Interesting. Your bad trip might be due to your intestinal issues influencing the gut-brain axis (and also sleep deprivation). Why did you expect to sleep on a psychedelic? (especially LSD analogues which are dopaminergic).

Let's also do science and make technologies and tools that help people become enlightened.

The addiction rates for cocaine are not that much worse than marijuana, certainly not alcohol.

Sometimes

You think we're enlightened or something?

I do too. Alright, so if enlightened humans exist here in physical form, they presumably also have a brain, and this brain looks like something. Now, it just so happens that a part of the brain called the Default Mode Network works as a good indicator for whether a person is enlightened or not. This shouldn't be a hugely problematic issue. It's just like looking at other behaviors we think are correlated with enlightenment. For example, how enlightened you are correlates with how many Rolls Royces you have

Are there enlightened people or not?

Scientists know very well how to control for these things. Still, I said "generally". I'm not referring to any specific study. Maybe she could've had a PhD in mathematics if she wasn't small. You don't know that

Nope. You don't have to think that the brain comes first in order to talk about the brain. Notice how I'm using the word "correlation", not "causation".