Carl-Richard

Locked for being an endless cycle of contempt and abuse, kinda like the ego. If you want to teach, teach yourself some manners.

Trueee.

So what is wrong with my thought experiment?

JustPearlyThings says things like (paraphrasing) "Women have to be stupid or something. If you're in an abusive relationship, why don't you just leave? I think women subconsciously want to be abused", or "abortion should only be legal if the abuse was one-ended", or here: "some slaves had positive things to say about their masters, so slavery must not have been as bad as it's made out to be". These statements are examples of not being aware of how context works as a general phenomena, in particular with relationship to human behavior and the human mind. In the first statement about leaving an abusive relationship, there is for example a lack of awareness of how abusive relationships aren't just abusive (there are positives as well as negatives), and that leaving a relationship in itself is not an insignificant decision without its downsides, and that there are various interpersonal dynamics and psychological mechanisms (both normal and pathological) that complicate the situation further (e.g. manipulation, cycles of fighting and making up, power imbalances, financial dependency, etc.). The second statement about making abortion legal only in cases of one-ended abuse shows a lack of awareness of how abusive relationships are probably very rarely purely one-sided (based on the fact that relationships are complex in general), and that investigating or let alone defining one-sided abuse is probably extremely difficult, and therefore making it into a law is probably practically impossible. The third statement about slaves saying positive things about their masters shows a lack of awareness of how people in tough situations learn coping strategies to get on with their lives (e.g. seeing something positive in a dire situation), as well as getting habituated to those situations and maybe even accepting them. You could imagine that if you took the same person and let them grow up in a Western 21th century context that has abolished slavery, that they would say very different things about the same slave owners. You could probably find even better examples than this from other people, but I just think JustPearlyThings is a particularly notorious example of this. It would be interesting if you guys could post your own examples.

Hilarious

What do you call a state which lacks acceptance? Not enlightened; the normal state of consciousness. Acceptance is synonymous with letting go and an antonym for resistance.

I think somebody who is conscious is able to conduct themselves in a way that is appropriate to the situation, and raging at people on a forum is not that. You're using ideas about non-duality to avoid taking responsibility for your behavior, and I suggest to stop doing that.

It is yours, it is your problem, and focusing on it is not a big mistake (you're focusing on it right now by trying to justify your past actions). My advice: when you're talking about egoic matters, talk like you are an ego. It's unfortunate to use non-dual language in that situation, because it's providing unnecessary information, it confuses rather than clarifies, it creates an aura of denying responsibility, and you're really just invoking a spiritual ego. When you're being a bit of a dick, then you're being a bit of a dick — simple as that.

There is a difference between enlightenment and the normal state. You're here trying to guide people to enlightenment, because there is something we're not getting and which is keeping us away from it. That would be resistance, or ignorance, or suffering. That is what distinguishes enlightenment from the normal state.

To remove most of your resistance to the now and letting that state become the new normal. That is different from understanding it conceptually, or experiencing it as a glimpse and contracting back into your normal state.

I guess when you're running through a shifting environment, there is a feeling of progress as you go along. On the treadmill, you're stuck in an endless loop of putting one foot before the other. It doesn't feel very meaningful, and the experience of meaning is arguably synonymous with the experience of motivation. Besides, running in fresh air with a slight breeze while viewing bits of nature energizes the soul. Also, generally speaking, the more engaging an activity is for your various mental faculties, the more you like doing it, and the more motivation you feel (this is similar to "competence needs" in Self-Determination Theory, which is required for intrinsic motivation, the most optimal form for motivation). So in summary, you can tie this to various mental phenomena like the need for meaning, the need for stimulation and intrinsic motivation.

Didn't you max out the vanity sub-scale though?

Messianic proclaimations are not a license to be an asshole. Maybe work on healing that.

It assumes we can see them

It's harder, but again, it's not "Buddhism" that does that. A Buddhist turd denies it's a human thing. Buddhism certainly aims at something beyond human things, but it doesn't inherently deny that it's a human thing. That is just one of many human traps, and Buddhism is one vehicle for that trap.

Nothing you said is inherent to Buddhism. Idolization, authority, ideals; these are human things.

I don't really recommend quitting whatever you're doing right now to decouple yourself from outside influences, as not everybody has the luxury to do that without facing consequences. But you can simulate that kind of mental state by imagining some hypotheticals. For example, "if nobody could tell me what to do, or if nobody cared what I'm doing, what would I do?". Now, you should check if the answer agrees with firstly your higher values (it can't just be "I want to eat ice cream until I die"), as well as some level of social conscientiousness (something that makes you a viable member of society and not a burden to others). So you always need some kind of balance if you care about those things.

I haven't had a drink in almost 2.5 years, and then I found out that soy sauce has 2% alcohol in it, and I used to eat sooo much of the green Kikkoman kind with 50% less salt in it ? I used to think it wouldn't really affect me, but then I used so much once that I actually felt a buzz from it, and that is when I decided to start buying the red one with more salt in it instead so I don't need to use as much. That time, I think I got the equivalent of 40 ml of beer (that's like 1/4th of a small cup ?).

There are other teachers who use the word "God consciousness", and it's treated as a transitory stage between lower levels of non-dual realization to more complete levels. They think Leo is just stuck in a loop jumping in and out of God consciousness with 5-MeO. But I think 5-MeO could be qualitatively different and lead to different outcomes than sober God consciousness (although the concept of reactivations could question this idea). Yet there is a difference between abiding in it 90% of the time and 1% of the time. The first one we can refer to as having it as a baseline, the second one we can refer to as experiencing it as a transient state. I've been in non-human states where I had no body, no thoughts, no space, no time. Human is not what I am fundamentally. Fundamentally, I am consciousness. But is consciousness then not a state? It's tricky, because consciousness is simultaneously constant while also cloaking itself in various fleeting states. Consciousness is the stateless container of states. I've argued many times that there are many problems with the type of spirituality that most people are familiar with in the West today, and that several core aspects of religion address these problems quite effectively. I don't think people really dislike religion as a concept, but they see the various examples of historical corruption and survival-based incentives that co-opt religion into something ugly, and they attribute that to religion as a whole. I believe that I was irresponsible with how I practiced meditation during an immature phase of my life, and that this could've been avoided if I would've had people around me that knew what spirituality even is and could provide guidance and wisdom. Preferably, everybody should have access to a teacher in their local community (a "priest") that your family can refer you to if you're considering the spiritual path. These priests should be well-versed in a deep and rich tradition of knowledge and practices for engaging in the spiritual process safely. You can already get some of these benefits by actually joining a religious community or enrolling in a monastery, but again, most people in the West are not aware of why that might be a wise thing to do, which is what I would like to see change.

When I was a bit younger, I learned a saying "to know what you really want to do, you must do absolutely nothing". I guess there is some truth to that, as you decouple yourself from outside forces that affect your behavior, and it disrupts unconscious habits. The problem is of course: at what level should you interpret the saying? Should you be an unemployed squatter for a while? Or should you just meditate in silence without any distractions sometimes? On the flip side, you have the advice given above: actually do something and see what you like and don't like. That is also how you grow and develop as a person. Maybe you'll discover a hidden talent, or learn a useful skill or activity that you come to truly enjoy. Who you are today is not necessarily fixed and might be completely different tomorrow. Then again, there are definitely things that come more naturally to a certain type of person, but that is also discovered by trying new things.

These are the people who use the word "enlightenment" in the first place, so I'll naturally use something that is in alignment with their definition of it. Leo seems to have drifted away from that crowd a lot, even to the point where he is no longer interested in the concept of abiding in an elevated baseline state. So to re-iterate, my definition of enlightenment is when you abide in a state of non-duality; non-duality as a baseline state. It's a "baseline state" and not a "permanent state", because there will always be fluctuations in your state, e.g. due to something as mundane as blood sugar levels, or various egoic challenges. It's also any "form" of non-duality, as long as you're abiding in it. You can of course divide the realization of non-duality into different levels, or you can add highly expansive God states in the mix and make it all very complicated, but if you're abiding in something that you would describe as non-duality, I would call that enlightenment. There is a reason why Leo says "God-realization", or "Absolute Solipsism". It's because the word "enlightenment" doesn't really vibe with him anymore, and it makes sense, because he seems to be talking about something else. EDIT: I could also add some nuance to the definition based on my own experiences, as I'm someone who in the last 3-4 years has had countless run-ins with non-dual states, only to be interrupted by my terrorizing fear of them and not being able to let go into them. In fact, it feels like it's actually more natural for me to have non-duality as my baseline state, but I'm consciously resisting it with every inch of my will. And for this very reason, I would not call myself enlightened despite being strongly inclined (forced) to have it as a baseline state, because there is some type of resistance that is keeping me away from it. What is maybe special for me is that I'm largely conscious of the resistance. If I get into a non-dual state, I know exactly how to contract myself back into a more normal state, and it hurts, physically and mentally (I use both physical and mental means). Then over time, when I let the controlled contraction run for too long (days, weeks), I get used to it, and I start experiencing it as automatized. Then eventually, I become largely unconscious of it, and I have to consciously engage in controlled "uncontraction" or quick meditative techniques for it to relax again (or it may relax spontaneously in some special circumstances). For most people, the resistance is largely unconscious, and they're unaware of how they're creating it, and they're often unwilling or unable to use the right techniques that make them more aware of it (e.g. meditation). The more I become aware of the fact that I am willfully creating my own resistance, the more see it as a fiction, and then it starts slipping away like sand between my fingers. I rarely get to that point nowadays, but it's a frightening experience when all your coping mechanisms are taken away from you and you just have to pray to God for mercy. So for the definition, the added nuance would be the amount of resistance you have to most importantly the non-dual state itself and of course life in general. So to me, enlightenment is when you have non-duality as a baseline state with no resistance to the state itself and minimal resistance to various life challenges that can pull you out of that state. Now, you could technically say that the resistance that is making me afraid of the non-dual state and making me choose to engage in "conscious resistance", fundamentally boils down to a type of life challenge (and an unconscious contraction that can be dissolved by living life), which makes them effectively the same thing, but for me they're experienced quite differently (one I feel I can control, the other I cannot), so I think the distinction is useful. EDIT2: I just came up with a cool book title: "the boy who didn't want to become enlightened - the experiences of a young man who woke up too soon". I actually think that could be a cool book I could write: pretty niche, sort of original (I know of only one person who has written about the same thing), could be helpful to some people. I could also give my "religion > spirituality" spiel (about how hyper-individualistic spirituality exacerbates these kinds of problems and that we need better social safety nets for people who get into spirituality).

My definition of enlightenment is to abide in isness, or to clearly see that isn'tness is just isness in disguise, pretending to be something it isn't

@DefinitelyNotARobot Interesting. Do you have any family history of psychosis? I tend to get something similar to the word interpretation thing, but it's very minor, and it's almost like I can control it. It tends to happen with random sounds like the bathroom fan. The fact that you were high on weed and that you were scared of being caught might definitely have contributed to that experience. Weed paranoia makes you do (and think) the weirdest things lol. I also get the thing where if you see something ambiguous in the dark, you can sometimes project weird stuff onto it (e.g. a tree becoming Slender Man). I'm curious because my dad has bipolar type 1, and my little brother sometimes get hypomanic for short periods of time if he gets little sleep or experiences stress. Me on the other hand don't have any of these things (although I have experienced the hypomanic thing a few times in my life, and I did have a drug-fuelled near-mental breakdown in my late teens where I became slightly psychotic, e.g. feeling like song lyrics where commenting very accurately on my life, difficulty speaking and concentrating, thoughts racing, being absorbed in my own mental story). If I were to diagnose myself with anything, it would be a weak type of schizotypal personality "disorder".

What happens specifically when you experience those states?

He helped me so much with re-integrating my rational and scientific mind after my mystical experiences. Questions like "if consciousness is not made by the brain, then what does the brain do?", or making fine distinctions between things like perception and consciousness, etc. His work is very useful.