Heart of Space

Yea, I feel that too. I know now exactly what I have to do. Drop the illusion of self. Previous to this I was seeking, conceptualizing, then I realized I can't conceptualize, but then I was conceptualizing about not conceptualizing about nothing. Making it way more complicated then it is. Thanks guys and gals, ya'll have been great teachers.

I probably haven't had the full realization, but that video really helped. Because I've somewhat seen through the illusion of self. I still find myself attributing things to "I" that is false, so I'm not fully realized. But I have had the experience of seeing that my feelings are literally just nothing taking the form of that feeling or "layering" over it in a skin tight way. It's hard to put into words. But yes, you're the nothing, not the thing. Still, I feel I'm pretty caught up in the illusion of self. Now I feel like I can fully cut out all the seeking and journeying to find this so called state of enlightenment. Cut out the extra nonsense so to speak.

That's really all it is? I've seen this before. My thoughts and feelings are things, which are wrapped in a skin tight nothing and I am that nothing, not the content of that thing. Lol, it really is pretty simple then. I've already had the realization, I just didn't know that was what people meant by enlightenment. If that's really it, then there are a lot of people that are simply full of shit and shouldn't be talking about the subject. This is really super easy and simple to see. You could meditate for a few months and probably nail this no problem.

"I came, I returned, it was nothing special" I laughed out loud at this. Great video. I think I'm starting to see my errors. I'm expecting something and I've even fooled myself to think that I'm not expecting something, but I'm still conceptualizing expecting nothing. This is such difficult work for a lowly human with a small amount of self-awareness.

So, I've gotten to the point where I can see that I'm an illusion, but I have a problem. Whenever I try "to be," or put my attention on awareness itself I get all these concepts that pop up of what that should be. Should I just keep flattening the illusions of these concepts and images in my mind to progress? I can't see what's already there, fuck this is hard, ese.

Yea, that's been a big problem for me. I try to intellectualize and logic out everything that comes up in my meditation. I've gotten very, very good at being a mindful observer of thoughts and perceptions as they arise and fall in the mind without getting caught up in them. But, being a scientifically minded logical thinker I always try to logically understand the implications of everything and give myself a logical progression to work towards enlightenment. I almost have a romantic love of logical and rational thinking that is very deep ridden within myself. I've only recently been able to turn that off after an hour or so of meditation in a single sit. It's very hard for me to get past. Once I do, there's much more silence in the mind. I feel like I'm getting close to were I need to be, but there's no hint, no path, no goal, nothing to get me to enlightenment. So, this has become a someone defeating journey for me. Yet, I still continue to do this. I'm even skeptical about the whole idea and go in between believing enlightenment is something that can be realized, or that it's complete bullshit and I'm wasting my time. Oh well, meditating and mindfulness is a deeply ingrained habit at this point so I'll continue. Big thanks to everyone who has posted here. I actually feel like a lot of posts here stimulated a greater amount of self-awareness and I've made some short hops in progress just reading your posts. Appreciate the love guys, I hope you all are successful in your attempts to increase your awareness as well.

No worries! It seems Zephyr actually illuminated what we're talking about very well actually. We both have the right idea I think. Words are too fickle sometimes.

Absolutely could be. The thought crosses my mind all the time. Or it could be that enlightenment is not real and there's nothing to achieve here aside from a little emotional stability gained after meditating.

That's a misinterpretation. It's not meant that you cannot self-actualize at all before you reach enlightenment. It wouldn't make any sense to say that. I was only pointing out that there is most likely a radical amount of self-development to do after enlightenment and that it is not the "last step."

I don't know if I agree with this. I've heard a lot, including from Leo, that self-development begins at enlightenment. Obviously, to get there though you have to be extremely disciplined, consistent, and have a intuition for finding truth. I think I have all those. Another note for you all, my "n" ad "b" buttons are broke. My keyboard is all kinds of fucked up lol.

My life is about as fucked up as a life gets in a first world country. It's an absolute nightmare, so it could be a lot of things. If I recognize those things fully they shouldn't stop me though should they(question mark)

Longest for me was an hour and 40 minutes. I can regularly do about 40 minutes at a time.

Page 2 and The Fountain is only mentioned once. For shame. Very underrated film and one of the best films with enlightenment as its theme.

I agree and disagree with that perspective. You can still self-actualize and smoke. But, you have less incentive to do so because smoking can bring you to a state of happiness without any of the hard work. It's a kind of cheat code that doesn't force you to work for your happiness as much. That was my problem with smoking. If I ever start smoking again it would probably be used almost strictly 30 mins to an hour before bedtime. It's a real problem if you're getting high all day for sure though.

Alcohol has been apart of some of my worst nights and has also been a contributor to my worst behavior. My life would be better if I never have touched the stuff. It hasn't destroyed me by any means, but I do have a minor drinking problem. Haven't drank in two weeks and that's a miracle. The last year I went full months drinking every evening maybe skipping a day or two here and there. Worthless chemical.

Yea, that sounds similar. I would be interested in watching that, go ahead and shoot.

Yea, but his response was petty and defensive and served no real purpose other than to sustain his bloated guru complex.

I wish I could say I've had a true enlightenment experience, but I can't. I have experienced some pretty profound states of mind, albeit on drugs. The last one I had was pretty recent. I experienced it after going lying down balls deep in pot cookie realm. I was really tired, I started to slip into a state between sleep and being awake Eventually, I was in sleep paralysis, my body unable to move at all. I've grown very comfortable with sleep paralysis as I get it often. For some reason I started thinking about religion and wanted to pray to god. Which is weird because I'm very much an atheist. I was religious when I was young until about 11 or 12 when I discarded my religion. I remember when I realized that Christianity was BS it was incredibly depressing to me as a child. It sucked the magic out of the world. Well, I started praying to God, just like I would the christian God when I was younger. At this point I could still see my room, my eyes were slightly cracked open. Then the weirdest thing happened. I started to become more aware and I had a realization that I was looking for God the wrong way. It's as if I had previously been stuck focusing on a concept. It's hard to explain further than that. As soon as I had that realization I became very self-aware and my body disappeared and I had the sensation of space. My room fractaled into a kaleidoscopic pattern and I was starting to lose my sense of self. I stayed calm as the experience got more and more intense as my awareness grew. It got to a point where I became scared of permanently losing myself and I quickly woke up out of that state. Experience over lol.

Duality usually has to do with the separation of soul and body, or at least body and mind. But I think I understand what you're saying. And it's a good question. I'm not sure I believe such a state exists. So, I guess I'm curious to hear the answer too.

Wait, so you actually get information about dead relatives that is verifiable objectively? Why not put yourself to the test and show what no human has ever done before and prove your ability in a study? It has nothing to do with money or notoriety. Something like this would change the world and turn everything we thought about reality on its head. Either that or you'll get proven to be false like the thousands of people before you with similar claims.

Ok, I follow most of everything in this post. What I have issue with is some of the stuff you said earlier. Do you disagree with this statement: "Happiness is a state of the biological brain and can only be temporary." And if you do disagree, why?

Physical meet ups would be hard, but you could do stuff like google hangouts or whatever. That'd be fun. Texas boy, here.

Ok, so are you claiming that the state of happiness is independent of the biological brain? That doesn't make any sense. You're getting a little woo woo on me here. Perhaps you could explain further?

Op, what do you mean by duality? Because most people are talking about the soul and physical body. I'm not sure what exactly you mean. Man, you're all about that Mooji aren't you? I liked him until I saw a video where he was clearly being egotistical and having a guru complex. I tried to find the video, but he has so many I couldn't. To describe it, this girl was questioning him about kundalini energy and at the end she asked him if he had experienced those energies and he got defensive in his response claiming that it was simply "childs play." I can't stand people who dress funny, have Jesus beards, sit in chairs in front of an audience, and pretend to be enlightened. It wreaks of ego and guru complex. You have to be careful about people. Some are just charismatic and use vague language about letting go of the self.

My go to. In all seriousness, I don't play any music because it takes away from my ability to focus and be aware. Great stuff in here though, will be stealing to listen later.