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a lot has been written here about the spiritual process and descriptions what it is and what it is not. you get soaked in for the wrong reason, you as an entity want some Kind of Liberation for yourself. either to be free from suffering or to experience something that is told to be sooo incredibly big brings blissfulness, peace and joy. In a way what you know right now seems to be not enough you don`t want to settle for it or you are just curious what that Thing is. then you learn about it intellectually and absorb an amount of descriptions & Information that is processed within your mind. You also learn that it includes you being not what you thought you are. You are creating an alternative model of how that could replace the old identity. But this is just hallucination even if you try to see everything as yourself and reflect that intellectually. You can be stuck in this state probably forever as it is very entertaining. next step is that you have an experience glimpse of that you are not what you thought you are. You find out that there is no person that could get enlightened or otherwise stay in the dark. The mind cannot grasp that and holds onto his picture and even fights against it. Or it hallucinates about being God and how good this "God mode" might feel and what it brings along for you. The mind is proven wrong again and again by experience and contemplation. A distance is establishing between you and your mind, you take it only seriously when it is inline with your experience or awareness and let it think what it wants otherwise. the Body/mind is understood as something that is like an awareness control Center and "seat or perspective of experience" but that is as "outside" or "inside" yourself as everything else that you can become Aware of. As the outer world comes closer, the inner world gets more distance and they are moving towards a merger. then there is no inside and outside, there is just "you". This seems to be the magical path as it can be somehow described also there might be a lack of logic. I understand that when I am not recognizing everything as myself from experience that I am not yet enlightened or awakened. It`s not something that can be missed. You can surely hallucinate about being enlightened but being far away from it, but you cannot be enlightened and not know it. It leaves you completely transformed whereas everything else are just some changes of identification. At the end stands your honest recognition of your true self through experience and releasing all fascinating hallucinations about it once and for all. so what or who is triggering the final Switch that cannot be reversed? What prevents us from pushing the button? Why can`t we let go what we created in an instant? It seems like we don`t want to take the toys of the Little kid that we are. OK we are spiritual, we take some toys but we hesitate to take all. Why? Probably because we are not conscious about the enormity of what we started just playing around with this enlightenment stuff? like playing with fire. It makes fun only as Long as you have the fire under Control even if it is a big fire. Letting everything burn happens either as an accident, as an act of Desperation or out of tremendous curiosity that makes you forget about all kind of consequences. That`s what we are aiming at right? as always, everything posted can just be words, even not my mother tongue, just thoughts, just concept. But questions are helpful as even experience can come out of posing it. (otherwise this talking is all nonsense and in fact it is in a way...) universal regards, Wendelin

I have come to my understanding through my own experience and doing the work. If Im "attached" to that just means that its working for me. I was ready to commit suicide two years ago, and if it was not for my spiritual path i would not be here now. Its going to take 20-30 years to become non attached to a system that saved me from taking my own life. If you imagine that this is a case of just dropping all ideas then you are mistaken. Ideas in the end release us from all ideas and identifications, in the end, not halfaway through, not just because some idiot on a website requests it of us because they want to win and disarm others by telling them they are identified with their path. And not because i couldnt really give a toss about what you think you know about "enlightement" while you stand there and speak in a way that very clearly deomostrates that you have merely made a conceptual ideology of this work and that you are indeed not free, or do you see that your ego was an idea, because free people dont need to strive for a better happiness than what already is. And yes, you can learn what projection is from one of leos videos and then use that as a weapon against anyone who doesnt fit your ideology, but this does not mean that you know what projection is, merely means you use it as a weapon while you project the idea of me projecting onto you. Projection is a mechanism you use to decieve yourself in order to win arguments based on internalized beliefs that are not in harmony with your experience. Ive already pointed out youre lying to yourself and everyone else by claiming you dont exist yet your ego makes value judgements and seeks to gain a "better" life than it already has. That is not the sign of an enlightened person, or an awakened person, its the sign of a liar who has taken on a belief system.

No, its not. Who is saying "society is not the way I want it to be" "my life is not the way I want it to be" thats the ego. Its clear to me that you are not awakened either, and you are an idiot, because youre speaking about things you dont have a clue about. How can a "non existent" ego do what it wants and strive for a happiness greater than itself in the form of an external life situation? You disclose yourself as a fool who is making this up as he goes along

The moment of the death of someone you have loved deeply brings your own death into your mind. The moment of death is a great revelation. It makes you feel impotent and helpless. It makes you feel that you are not. The illusion of being disappears. Anybody will be shaken because suddenly you see that the ground underneath your feet has disappeared. You cannot do anything. Somebody is dying that you love: you would even like to give your life but you cannot. Nothing can be done; one simply waits in deep impotence. That moment can make you depressed. That moment can make you sad or that moment can send you on a great journey for truth...a eat journey into the search. What is this life? If death comes and takes it, what is this life? What meaning does it carry if one is so impotent against death? And remember, everybody is on his or her deathbed. After birth everybody is on his deathbed. There is no other way. All beds are deathbeds, because after birth only one thing is certain and that is death. Somebody dies today, somebody tomorrow and somebody the day after tomorrow: what is the difference basically? Time cannot make much difference. Time can only create an illusion of life but the life that ends in death is not and cannot be the real life. It must be a dream. Life is authentic only when it is eternal. Otherwise, what is the difference between a dream and what you call your life? In the night, in deep asleep, a dream is as true as anything is, as real – even more real than what you see with open eyes. By the morning it is gone, not even a trace is left. In the morning when you are awake you see it was a dream and not a reality. This dream of life continues for a few years; then suddenly one is awakened and the whole of life proves to be a dream. Death is a great revelation. If there were no death there would be no religion. It is because of death that religion exists. It is because of death that a Buddha was born. All buddhas are born because of the realization of death. When you go and sit by the side of a dying person feel sorry for yourself. You are in the same boat, in the same plight. Death will knock on your door any day. Be ready. Before death knocks, come back home. You should not be caught in the middle; otherwise this whole life disappears like a dream and you are left in tremendous poverty, an inner poverty. Life, real life, never dies. Then who dies? You die. The “I” dies, the ego dies. The ego is part of death; life is not. So if you can be egoless, then there is no death for you. If you can drop the ego consciously, you have conquered death. If you are really aware you can drop it in a single step. If you are not so aware you will have to drop it gradually. That depends on you. But one thing is certain: the ego has to be dropped. With the disappearance of the ego, death disappears. With the dropping of the ego, death is also dropped. Don’t feel sorry for the dying person, feel sorry for yourself. Let death surround you. Have the taste of it. Feel helpless, impotent. Who is feeling helpless and who is feeling impotent? The ego – because you see you cannot do anything. You would like to help her and you cannot. You would like her to survive but nothing can be done. Feel this impotence as deeply as possible and out of this helplessness, a certain awareness, a prayerfulness and a meditation will arise. Use the person’s death; t is an opportunity. Use everything as an opportunity. Be by their side. Sit silently and meditate. Let their death become a pointer to you so that you don’t go on wasting your life. The same is going to happen to you.

It can be the most challenging and extremely exhausting thing in life but once you master the art of love w/o attachment you will thrive! The hardest part about it is having a partner that's not on the same level of consciousness. I fell in love once, then rose in love with an Awakening and sadly she didn't experience the same thing and we had to break apart or sacrifice my enlightened state. I couldn't let go and It destroyed me and my enlightened state but after the deepest darkness there's always a door to a greater awakening around the corner. What made it hard for me was that she was the exact replica of my un-awakened self which was crazy.. Its hard but possible as i have been in and out of states and stages(if you will) with these types of things but cant say much further as i am still growing in this process.

another Thing I consider important. don`t judge your Ego, thoughts, beliefs you had, fear, Frustration and suffering etc. as something bad. In fact it all served you to bring you to the place of your journey in which you are right now. And there is no other place for you, everybody is just on the right place of his journey. If you didn`t have this longing to go beyond duality, because you were lacking Motivation, then you simply were not playing with Things that don`t work long enough. It was not a small Thing for you to get this human device (body-mind), you had to evolve it first. Your Body carries a lot of Memory in it from a single cell organism to cave man Memory. Much than in your brain. I used to listen to Advaita Vedanta masters. These are wonderful awakened People and wonderful examples how you can realize what you are NOT. But for me it seems that as soon as they have the relief of having no seperate self, that they are no seperate Entity, they settle for the happiness and peace that brings. Speaking in the Terms of the metaphor/analogy with the Radio again, they seem to be Content with being no seperate "Radio Station" within the Radio device that was thrown into existence. But what is lacking here is the sense. Why was this Radio created, what was the Intention of the creator, how was it created, and why placed in this exact context of this Family, surroundings etc. etc. the enourmos intelligence that was on employed to create it would not just drop this precious device into something by accident. It is put in a context where it has the best possible conditions to evolve on its Evolution Of Course you can pop some 5meo dmt and have some Kind of preview of what you really are. You might even have a deep understanding of what you are in These Moments and you might be able so have some takeaway from that. But taking this also means that you are not ripe for the "real thing" yet, as you could simply just sit there and have the same sensations without any external stimulus. And will you REALLY still be really motivated to giving nearly everything up to build a ladder to climb above the wall, when there is the possibility of a chemical that makes you jump up and have a quick look what lies on the other side of the wall? Why not just jumping endlessly if it is so easy? ;-) Please don`t misunderstand me, I do not say " don`t take it " I just hint at some possible side effects that some of you might not be conscious about. One might be a Super-Godlike-Ego after having had a small Ego before. Or you might deviate wrong conclusions and therefore be on the wrong track then. Or perhaps it makes you so foolish to look down on others, who seem to have not explored their true nature yet. Life is not playing a permanent prank on you with all that Maya/Illusion. You intended that for a reason. The Beauty of Life is that we are seperate and one at the same time. Rupert Spira for example says in an interview that when you believe you are this little ego Entity the outer world seems to confirm this to you. And when you discover what you are not and that you are in fact pure awareness, then the outer world seems to confirm that too. Why to the hell is that if this Maya/Illusion has no real sense and Intention? He has well noticed that but where is the Point of just noticing that without doing another inquiry for the answer? What if the outer world is a reflection of your awareness? Boom. What if you just Encounter whatever or whoever SERVES you the best in mirroring your current Status of awareness. Boom. Imagine a fog where People with limited view stumble into each other whereas others with better view just move trough effortlessly. Whoever or whatever gets in your way is only there to Support you. Pure Love in fact. There is an Australian Girl who became enlightened when she was raped (!), becoming Aware that this is just pure Love.... How absurd that may Sound to most People on this planet? What kind of awareness do you Need to come to that insight in an instant. You can use just anything to create a ladder. suffering or good stuff. In fact most Enlightened People wanted to be free from suffering and that is what drove them in the first place. just thinking about writing a book with all the stuff I kind of "downloaded" while in shivering mode. universal regards :-)

Ok, but how is it not happening? From what i hear from Rupert spira and is verified in my own experience is that experience IS real. Even last night, when I dreamt, that experience was just as real, even if it was a dream. What i mean is i both understand you, that this existence is after all a dream, even though i dont experience it this way yet, becausse i havent awakened completely out of the dream and disagree that its not really happening, since even dreams are REAL experience and experience is all there is. I think most need to bite the bullet and believe that this is a dream instead of knowing foe themselves. We need to trust the source, thats enough. That way the whole planet can get on the same level more or less and live in a peaceful dream. Cause experience is real nontheless. One can suffer in his all dreams and that suffering is real indeeeeed. I know from m experience as a professional dreamer.

You likely haven't met EVERYONE at your school yet. Your will meet more awakened people as you continue on your journey. Keep your senses open for signs from the universe, maybe a poster for a conscious workshop, or something...

@Barna Enlightenment is the next stage in natural human evolution. Enlightenment as we refer to it is the realization of something that most are just blind to as of now. The big picture of unification that is missing from our everyday mindset as a civilization. Maybe someday we will look back on these days and see it as the coming out of the dark ages of understanding and into realization that everything is one unified field. That change in thinking will in itself change the way our brains are wired and profound insights could than flourish and multiply upon themselves. Physical changes to the brain structure may happen by shrinking certain parts of the brain that are remnants of our caveman ancestors and the activation of higher thought areas could become awakened. I didn't know about trinfinity before but it sounds great to me. I really hope it catches on in a big way. Thanks for sharing that.

I believe that an awakened/enlightened person can still have 'leftover' desires, like sexual desires, a normal human love of money. Or even have somewhat of an ego (the key word here is somewhat). But I highly doubt that Adi Da is enlightened. Once the Wikipedia article read 'Adi Da declared that he was a uniquely historic avatar', my doubt/inner cynic came up. Because I had an awakening experience a year, and a half ago, and I realized that enlightenment isn't about being 'unique', or 'special'. Because there is no shape/self to be unique. I do believe that you, Leo Gura, are awakened/enlightened, but not that Adi guy. As for personal development, yes for me!!

Was the monk that punched Shinzen awakened/enlightened? Maybe he wasn't. As for the teacher, maybe he was just showing tough love. I mean, enlightenment is all about being ego less. What a better way to shed the ego then hit someone in the head with a stick, or yell at them?

How does a spiritual awakened person or a spiritual aware person deal with this modern society? If it has already been agreed that attachment to external sources disappears, then how does one survive in this current day culture? We cannot change humanity or how it behaves on the whole so how does the enlightened person live their life today? If we need nothing to be fulfilled, then what happens to the goal setting & personal achievements such as developing a successful business. Also what happens to our external appearance if we realise that other people’s opinions of us do not matter. Would we become overweight, unemployed & living in poor conditions? If this is the case, then why do we see spiritual teachers looking rather well dressed & running successful business? Is this not an aspect of the ego? I believe that when one is awakened all their beliefs about materialistic things fall away & this realisation can result in going through the dark night of the soul? If been awakened is the end of all suffering then if there was a magic pill that could awaken everyone, would that mean the end of civilization as we know it? Would we all start to live meaningless life’s? Is it not possible to live a modern day life as a spiritual plumber or a spiritual computer engineer? Look forward to your comments. Thanks, Tony.

hey , for people who don't understand as much try this article... https://lonerwolf.com/awakened-soul-reincarnation/

@Elzhi Who said enlightenment can't be realized during a sleep state? It sounds like you tapped into something. Perhaps a glimpse of the ox's tail as the saying goes. Consider the dream story part as just a story from within you. An experience no different from any other experience. But look beyond the visuals of it and ask yourself, "how did it make me feel?" Did it feel like truth that you totally trust in? When you did wake something remained. Your perception was shifted beyond the usual "me" as an observer. That's real. Usually when we wake in the morning, we assume we are fully awake. That's not necessarily always the case. Often we awake into just another dream state of self and start our day. Most do that their entire lives. It's sounds like when you awoke this time, you truly awakened.

This is an awesome thread Zane. I have been wanting the same thing more and more on my journey; a circle of creative, awakened, like-minded individuals (with a real "community" vibe). I have also found some niche events/activities that allow me to meet people on a similar frequency.... even though I am somewhat bold and eccentric, I am also quite introverted...so the new connections I've been making are often limited to the initial meeting...unless I make the effort to connect online, or see them in person again soon...or the universe intervenes with another synchronistic chance encounter... I know what it's like to be eccentric; I may not come off as creepy, but I do inadvertently offend &/or annoy people with my honesty (because I often see more than people want to outwardly show, and speak boisterously with no filter). I have a large circle of friends, but I've been connected with them for decades (pre-brain-injury)...and most have no interest in personal evolution, even if they are rad and creative. Recently, I thought it was just a neurosis, that I felt uncomfortable connecting with mainstream less-creative types; now I understand that although that is also true, I simply do not resonate with non-eccentrics in the same way. How do you interact with your new friends ....to the extent of establishing a whole new circle? I suppose this would mean spending more time with all of them, plus trying to connect them with the other new friends in the hopes that they would also bond?...What do you suggest? Is it better to just find an already formed circle that you'd fit into? Also, I love my current friends, dysfunctions and all, how would one transition circles (while keeping some ties to the old friends)?

When you are dying, it is not only fear that makes you unconscious; you already have too much unconsciousness – fear only takes away the thin layer of consciousness and you are drowned in your own unconsciousness. In meditation, when you are witnessing, you are by and by, without your knowing it, dispelling unconsciousness. You are becoming more and more conscious and a moment comes when your whole being is full of consciousness. This is witnessing. So when death comes, you witness death. When life was there, you witnessed life. Meditation is a kind of metaphysical dying. Through our becoming familiar with that inner passage, we can relax when it extends into our physical dying. In meditating as in dying we close our eyes (generally); we drop the effort to control and instead relax. In doing that we are leave the outer world for the interior one. We leave the world of ‘the other’ for a state of aloneness. Our identity as a body, a persona – created by the various positions we may have held, the relationships we are in, by what we have achieved and so on – becomes irrelevant when we move into our inner world. So meditating provides a natural and a simple way to consciously ‘die before you die’ – to rehearse dying. And of course the more familiar you are with entering meditation the easier it will become and the deeper will be the effect. The fear has reasons. The fear arises because it is always somebody else who dies. You always see death from the outside, and death is an experience of the innermost being. It is just like watching love from the outside. You may watch for years, but you will not come to know anything of what love is. You may come to know the manifestations of love, but not love itself. We know the same about death. Just the manifestations on the surface – the breathing has stopped, the heart has stopped, the man as he used to talk and walk is no more there: just a corpse is lying there instead of a living body. These are only outer symptoms. Death is the transfer of the soul from one body to another body, or in cases when a man is fully awakened, from one body to the body of the whole universe. It is a great journey, but you cannot know it from the outside. From outside, only symptoms are available; and those symptoms have made people afraid. Death happens to you involuntarily: you do not want to die but you have to die. That is why death is a sorrow, a pain, an anguish. And the pain of death is so intense that the only way to bear it is to become unconscious. A meditator can die consciously. A man who has been going deeper into meditation passes the door of death many times.

In the night you dream. While dreaming you start believing in the dream, that it is true. Your senses are reporting the dream - your eyes are seeing it, your ears are hearing it, you may be touching it. Your senses are reporting to you; that?s why you fall under the illusion that it is real. Every dream is true while you dream. You cannot rely on the senses. In the dream they deceive you. If you take a drug, LSD or something, your senses start deceiving you; you start seeing things which are not there. Even without drugs we have illusions. You are passing through a dark street, and suddenly you get scared - a snake is there. You start running, and later on you come to know that there was no snake, just a rope was Lying there. But when you felt that there was a snake, there was a snake. Your eyes were reporting that the snake is there and you behaved accordingly-you escaped from the place. Senses cannot be believed. The inner experience is immediate, Once you are rooted in that inner experience then many things will start happening to you. It will not be possible to understand them right now. One is rooted in his center, in his inner being, one has come to feel it as a direct experience, then senses cannot deceive him. He is awakened.

But... for the sake of trying to guess what is it, I think awaken is when you intellectually see there's no self, when you begin to understand and look for enlightenment, etc... when you know in your head but not in your experience all the things we talk here in the forum. In my opinion, everyone here in the forum (not 100% but all those who are seeking) are awakened, but that's the first step to enlightenment. Enlightenment is when you drop completely all believes systems.

@Orange The video explains it well. I would also like to add that when ego is no longer there to hold on to the awakened state enlightenment has occured. A.k.a ego death.

The inner world cannot be expressed literally, but symbolically -- only symbolically. Books like the Vedas, the Geeta, the Bible, the Upanishads -- they are not written by people who are asleep, they are not written as beautiful poetry or prose; they are written by people who know what truth is, who have awakened themselves to truth. Then whatsoever they write is almost like a map. You have to decipher it, you have to decode it, otherwise you will go on missing it. As we become more awakened, more we understand the hidden meaning.

The best I can describe it, it was like a stillness you get from meditating and acceptance, but there was still slight anxiety arising at times. Anyways that stillness state lasted for most of the day and I really don't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, it just was what it was. I don't think it was an awakened state, or maybe it was and I had been expecting something more from it.

I can only guess but it sounds like an awakened state. There is calmness and a peacefulness, and you are fine with just being still. Mind can translate that into a sadness or depression. Was there a sense of detachment to everything around you?

I’m not enlightened so all I can do is conceptualize it. Someone please let me know if I’m way off base, but I believe if everyone is enlightened, they’d be detached from their identity and stories. It’s a high level of consciousness, so everyone would be aware of the dangers of judgments, hatred, ego, materialism, harming the environment on a significant scale, pursuit of power, dogma, and addictions. Sounds like a nice Utopian society, but humanity will be wiped out before we reach that level of awareness, considering the extremely low percentage of spiritually awakened people. We're on the conveyor belt to extinction, and it's a tragic reality. The end times are nigh.

This is none of the enlightened persons business. The "world" is a perfectly balanced system and karma is being facilitated fairly and justly. Sure but again, you cannot clear another persons karmic account, so it does not matter in the least what effects you have. The only reason you have an effect is because they judge you to be either positive or negative according to their own illusions, the fact is awakened people are just in harmony with life, there not special nor do they actually have those effects on others, it only seems like they do from the dualistic perspective. I dont know what this means.

It's a world wide zombie apocalypse out there of people sleep walking in a dream state of self, destroying this planet and each other. There is such a thing as detached action. Awakened people can have a very positive effect on those who are not yet awake. It takes no force, when a person shines with higher truth people recognize something special about them. When oneness is present, others naturally align themselves with that. Let it shine brother, let it shine through you!