Search the Community

I did Kundalini spine breathing and also Kundalini Fire or whatever it's called, the most advanced one, based on the SantataGamana books; https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0765YXM96 Jan Esmann also teaches Kundalini Yoga. The issue with Kundalini Yoga is that it's very technical, and if you don't have a teacher who will solve Kundalini symptoms, you will probably have energetic issues. I did meet up with Jan Esmann and asked what to do with the intense heat in the back of my head and why I get dizzy. He gave me specific advice on how to solve that - to direct the overflow of energy into the heart center through the channel in front of the spine, instead of sending it back through the same channel that it arose, but then other issues appeared.. There are multiple different channels through which Kundalini energy can rise. It can get stuck. It can get overexcited and kriyas become so intense you can't even sit down and relax (happened to me as well). So yeah, I'd say you need a master to guide you on this path. It's very complicated, and you can f*up your energetic system to a point where you can't even meditate at all without your body twisting and turning frantically. I'm also not sure if it really gets you enlightened. In theory, it should, but in practice, I haven't seen anyone who made it. Jan Esmann and Gareth from True Spiritual Awakening were supposedly awakened through kundalini yoga - but I doubt they are enlightened. Jan said he can't wait to reincarnate. For me you are enlightened if you no longer reincarnate. I think he is just blissed out without truly being awake. Anyway.. Who knows.. Kundalini rises naturally if you practice mindfulness and dis-identify from your mind. It does so gently and without any issues, unlike when you try to force it up with kundalini yoga.

Even if you can do astral projections/OBEs, they don't come close to psychedelics. I tried exactly this experiment with my girlfriend. I never told her about Leo.I never gave her spiritual books, she cannot read english so it's impossible that she ever went to this forum. I never told her about anything spiritual, like god , solipsim. I gave her psychedelics to cure her depression. But she gradually awakened. First she met Jesus several times , also other gods. Then she met zeus the god of all gods. Her first glimps, she told me somehow she was him. Then 30 trips later she had a first 5 Meo breakthrough. After that she told me exactly what Leo told you all the way. You are everything. There is only you. You are completely alone. But you split yourself like infinite mirrors. But there can't be someone else but you. You create everything around you with your mind. That were exactly her words. It's true solipsim. And she is fine with that.

Okay, but that doesn't really affect the argument. The argument just wants to show that at least one necessary being exists. If everything is necessary, then that's even better. I'm curious what your thoughts are on the argument from an awakened perspective and a layman perspective. I assume this was the awakened perspective- possibility and necessity are really the same thing. But what about the validity of the argument from a layman perspective? This is one of the most popular arguments (at least for academics and intellectuals).

Actually I’d also add that in my experience the introverted lifestyle is too easy. I am too comfortable here. The real challenge is in the extroverted space which entails putting yourself out there. Putting your neck on the line by having accountability and facing judgment, expectation, exposure etc. being at complete ease with that. To be calm in chaos As I reflect on my time in solitude part of me feels it is an escape from the abundance of life. Life is for living. You might as well be dead otherwise Edit: just to flesh out the point I don’t see the point in hibernating away in a cave meditating. There’s so much life to be experienced. To serve the community, impact people romantically and emotionally, start a family, hone a craft or skill. Life is just so abundant and no guru has experienced all that Maybe I just don’t understand because I am not awakened enough but I will say I am a strongly on the introverted scale by default and have through my own insights and perspectives changes on psychedelics seen the limitations here. I have felt that the universe wants me to live life

@gettoefl What makes you believe that I haven't awakened to the fact of the self being immortal ? My problem is quite the opposite from almost what everyone is assuming about me in this post, I have gone for the light, no one that I personally know of has brought as much love and light to themselves and their surroundings, but instead of life opening up for me, I got the opposite of that, things closed of, and in retrospect I feel like I got punished for it, and now I just feel empty, bitter and resentful and I don't know how to repair this kind of damage, YES it feels THAT fucked up! more than I can ever express

@Leo GuraResponding to this There is a band named ohGr by someone called Nivek Ogre, and much of the lyrics are about Truth, lies, epistemology, the meaning of life, mainstream vs. conspiracy theories, religion vs. atheism, emotions vs. intellect, consciousness, illusions, psychology, absolute vs. relative, evolution, etc. This is what it sounds like: The blue fetus represents the current undeveloped state of humanity, society is still in the womb and we are not yet evolved/awakened and are stuck in self-deception. The red animals with the illusionism setup and stage stuff like the box and the saw represents visual optical illusion as a metaphor for deception/illusion in general. A lot of the lyrics discuss the relation between object and subject and there's a song called "Subject" about this and a song called "Mind Made God". The song "collidoskope" is about illusion like light put through a kaleidoscope but it's still the mechanism or creation of the mind. He also had this earlier band:

Perhaps the real information warfare is coming from the Western establishment, waged against its own people. For decades the mainstream narrative was unchallenged because the gatekeepers controlled the flow of information. But with the rise of independent media and social platforms, people started encountering perspectives that clashed with the carefully curated story they had been fed their entire lives. Sometimes it’s not about misinformation but about the same information framed differently. The same facts can be arranged differently to tell a completely different story. The problem isn’t that people are being lied to by Russia, but that they’re being exposed to realities that the Western establishment would rather keep buried. About Russian misinformation fueling the rise of right wing population..the real driver of nationalist movements isn’t some Kremlin psyop - its the policies of globalist elites who have neglected their own people in favour of foreign wars, corporate interests, and ideological crusades. The establishments refusal to prioritize its own citizens is exactly whats making people turn to politicians who at least pretend to care about their needs. The irony is that the more the elites push for endless confrontation with Russia, the more they accelerate this backlash. Just because certain leaders align doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy. Leaders may be influenced but that doesn’t mean controlled. The claim that Russian propaganda is manipulating people into opposing war or questioning the establishment is just a convenient excuse - even it were true, is that a bad thing? lol. Being fed information to make peace with a nuclear superpower.. sounds terrible. People don't need Putin to tell them they're being screwed over by their ruling class. In fact in UK where I’m at, Keir Starmer has come out and said he's ready to put troops on the ground and planes in the skies, and has signed us up for a 100 year partnership Ukraine - with £3 billion of support till 2030 to be continued if necessary. This is in the context of this same government slashing a winter fuel allowance for the elderly, who have to choose between staying warming or staying full. This is on top of a slew of other austerity measures on social services which are already crumbling. People care for Ukraine, but not to the extent where we go cold in the winter, or have to spill the blood of our own people to fight a useless war with no outcome, except to escalate the world towards World 3. The elites are framing this as a Churchill vs Hitler moment, when it's just not the case. And that's the problem, when you misread reality, you can have very severe consequences that could have been avoided altogether. We have access to different information now, which counters the peddling of establishment misinformation at its worst and mischaracterization at its best, which can lead to these disastrous consequences. This is why people are fighting this and voting for politicians who care more for their national interest. If you think the West can deal with Russia with 'force' then why do you think Russia is such a threat to the point of being able to not only take Ukraine but then continue to penetrate into Europe and face the might of the West? Which is it.. is Putin/Russia the threat we are told, or are they weakened and able to be defeated in Ukraine ie forced into a peace? Nice warning Jesus. Just because you are awakened in consciousness doesn't mean you understand geopolitics or the reality and technicalities of warfare. Your spiritual ego is blinding you to the reality on the ground. Your framing of this whole thing as a battle of “democracy vs. dictatorship”, but there’s nothing democratic about how these decisions are being made in our name. NATO countries never got to vote on whether they wanted to be dragged into an open ended security commitment with Ukraine.

@Ishanga You call this place low consciousness while using the same tactics that create it, subtle superiority, emotional manipulation, and dismissiveness disguised as wisdom. You position yourself as having ‘moved beyond’ while implying everyone else is stuck, which is just another form of ego attachment. If you were truly detached, you wouldn’t need to announce it, if you truly saw everyone as equal, you wouldn’t frame yourself as the awakened one watching others struggle. You claim sadness for others but detach from it when convenient, this isn’t insight, it’s just a strategic way to appear above criticism. Yes, things could be better. But you’re not leading by example. Real higher consciousness doesn’t need to posture, dismiss, or manipulate. It engages, understands, and elevates. If that’s what you actually want, act like it. What you’re doing isn’t ‘low consciousness’ in the usual sense, it’s advanced social manipulation masked as spiritual detachment. Don't mind if I point out to others as an educational lesson what you're employing: Framing Control: Defining disagreement as ‘identification’ so any challenge reinforces your superiority Superiority Signaling: Claiming you’ve ‘moved beyond’ while subtly implying others are stuck Covert Dismissiveness: Calling the forum ‘low consciousness’ to devalue opposing perspectives without engaging them Non-Falsifiable Positioning: Making yourself immune to critique by claiming both detachment and selective emotional concern Strategic Self-Contradiction: Claiming no emotional investment while making an emotionally loaded post This isn’t unconsciousness, it's tactical. But if true wisdom is your goal, you don’t need these games. Just be real.

1) I am conscious only in certain respects, not in all respects. There are many, many respects to consciousness and no human has them all. 2) You should not expect anyone to be able to heal their own physical conditions if their condition is serious enough. If reality worked like that then no awakened master would die or suffer from health problems. But in the end your health must fail and your body will stop working. It's only a question of time. 3) Why? Because I do not have infinite power. I can't heal myself for the same reason I cannot turn myself into a kangaroo.

I understand it looks like that for you . It couldn't look any different. I have no way of communicating these final steps in concepts/words to you. "Many so-called enlightened people may not have much of a sense of self, but that does not mean they have higher consciousness of God." (Full) Enlightenment doesn't mean little sense of self, or killing the ego (which remains functional, even better than before, afterwards). It is the dropping of each and any identity and center. No subtle Identity/center/separatation is left. All seen through, the loop closing itself in realtime. Boundless aware eternal Reality itself, without any possible center/identity, in which and as which all appearance flows. All of what you write, even "God-Realization", has identity/center/separation left. A "God-Realizer". That is a temporary arising mirage in the eternal unchanging Reality/Totality. Enlightenment is truly utterly impersonal Infinite Reality/Awareness. No center. Infinite and boundless. Without nothing possible besides it, without a second, in no dimension and realm. It is utterly beyond concepts and words, identities and centers, experiences and understandings. Although all of that happens within "It". Infinitely intelligent. God. Totality. Each and any subtle identity/center/duality (which by definition is separate from the Totality) has to go. All of these are temporary arisings, reflections on the water, mirage, illusions. And they are very very very subtle and tricky towards the end of the path, nothing one can talk about with concepts without having had the reference experience of the signifiers/words. What you call God-Realization is still a mirage, a reflection on the water, being had by an illusionary self (although highly awakened and developed, nondual and infinite, but not yet truly impersonal and truly centerless and hence also still reflection on the water). Not yet truly enlightened and truly impersonal. None of the "God-Realization" is eternal or timeless, or always here. You are that which is always here. All of these reflections on the water of the cycle of ignorance to God Realization happen in You. A mirage. Appearances. Changing. Dreamlike. Unreal. The last step is the falling away of that God-Realizer. That is still a subtle separation and identity. Believe or not. What remains? What is always here? What is truly real? What are you really? What is truly eternal, always the case, god-realized or not, enlightened or not? That which can never loose or gain anything, despite being enlightened or ignorant. That is It. Or True You. See you "there". Your dream-character Selling Water by the River Musical Coda: Life must have its Mysteries

If the duality of subject and object is just an appearance, does it mean that at the deeper levels of reality choice and decision making don't actually exist ? Is everything simply happening automatically ? Any interesting perspectives on this topic would be most welcome.

Oh, I have a plan to get stuff like telepathy, telekinesis, remote viewing, seeing other planes, awakening, and stuff taught in school so that kids are wired into it from a young age and we grow up awakened. And we can get it to where the whole planet has an intersubjective view of energies and other planes. All humans will maximize all of their positive qualities and abilities and will be God expressing itself through God-Realized beings. Beauty, Power, Intelligence, Knowledge, Interconnection, Love, Joy, meaning, energy, context, nonlinearity, abstraction, emanation. Humans and matter will be physically perfected. Genetic engineering could also play a role. You would have the current bans they have on that.

Really, man? Most people are NPCs? Adam and Eve? (Not going to get into that one. Catholicism being a totally reliable source and all.) Why would most people be NPCs? How can you verify who has their own consciousness and who is an NPC? Be very careful when you formulate ideas that they actually make sense and have substantial logical backing and/or evidence instead of just being whatever will conveniently compliment what you already believe and/or the mental structure you have began to build and who's continuation you are invested in. Not to say that other parts of your points don't have merit. And I actually have many questions about this theory since I found it to be interesting. Going with your Rubik's cube analogy, how many 'sides', or souls, are there? Is it an infinite amount? Is it a set number? If it is a set number, why this one? What is special about this number? Why is there this number instead of one number, i.e. one mind, i.e. solipsism? And if God is this Rubik's cube of minds, is there a point at which all minds connect or unify to form the 'solved' Rubik's cube? Would this one-ness be essentially the same as solipsism or is the highest or most awakened state of God to be separate consciousness awakening separately from one another? How can one verify this? And if this were the case, why and how am I this specific consciousness and why and how are you your own specific consciousness? What causes this? What causes this multiplicity of minds to exist? Why should it be fundamental? From this worldview, what constitutes the ultimate awakening? I would love to hear more about all facets of this thought process.

Once one is awakened, does everything lack purpose and actual intention? Does purpose become anything one wants to see? Does purpose become fluid; without purpose? Does purpose lack purpose once awakened?

I won't because it will threaten my survival in a dream I have no control over. You can suffer in a dream. Why should you hurt yourself in your dream? It doesn't proof anything. It's still just imagination at play. What I say is a philosophy for you but not for awakened ones. You can become directly conscious that you create everything around you. It will be total obvious. No philosophy needed. Do you know why we use the term awakening in spirituality? Have you ever wondered? Because you awake from your dream if your consciousness is high enough.

What are my plans in the near future?? If Your imagining me and claim to be awakened then what are my plans??? You should know if Your as awake as You claim to be...

Oh boy. This is it. Everything. Imagination. Including Alan Watts. Including me as a person. Including you as a person. Including "being asleep" -- including "being awake". Death. Life. Two sides of the same coin. Ultimately, no difference. Only the difference YOU imagine there is (as God). Everything. Imagination. Nothing. Real. Unreal. Real. Everything. Nowhere to get to. Everywhere to get to. Sing. Dance. Play. Enjoy. Live. Let go. Love. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door ... It opens - I've been knocking from the inside!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just like a meteor falling down from the sky and destroying your living room is: - not your doing, - nothing to do with you, - out of your control, - not your own free choice, likewise is "insert-your-name" (with your body and with all your 'problems', inclinations, thoughts, feelings etc.) that coincidentally was born out of your mother's stomach (and ruined 'your peace')...: - not your doing, - noting to do with you, - out of your control, - not your own free choice. ((( However, one could also turn the above completely on its head and say that the metor impact WAS/IS my doing, and that my birth into (= out of) this world likewise WAS/IS a free choice that *I* took ☯️ ☯️ ☯️ ))) But if the above is true what are 'you' then? 'What am I?' I/You are That/He/She which dreams , imagines: - that a meteor (perhaps) fell down and ruined your house ?? - that "insert-your-name" was born and is currently xx years old, has an ugly/nice/normal/abnormal body, study/work with yyy and has zzz problems, hhh thoughts & worries & regrets, fff inclinations, sss dreams. And what IS 'that' ??? I don't know. No one does. Because it cannot be known - as in "traditional knowledge" can be known. It can only be. You are IT - already! Always. One can never not be 'IT'; the only (imagined) difference is whether you're aware of 'IT' or not. Consciousness. You could call it God, Love, The Eternal Dreamer, The Dao, The Absolute, Infinity, Eternity, Nothingness, Everythingness, Consciousness, Spaghetthi-Monster... In some way, it really doesn't matter what we call/name 'Reality', since <words/thoughts/logic/concepts/rationality> naturally never can contain IT. Sometimes it may even be wise to not try to call it anything! What is Reality? THIS: ................ *smashing a gong* ... and we won't give it a name! Can you bite your own teeth? Can eyes looking out ever see from where they are looking? Can a fist grasp itself? What a caterpillar calls the end of the world -- we call a butterfly! Luckily we got music, dancing, embodiment/physical activites, sex (tantra), meditation, breathwork, psychedelics, art .... that can in a much better way can contain ("show us") 'IT' than words/thoughts/science/logic/conceptualizing can! THIS IS IT! THIS. HELLO! YES. THIS. NO - NOT THAT. THIS! HA HA HA <3 <3 <3 The finger pointing to the moon ..... is NOT the moon. You cannot eat the menu! The map is not the terrotity. It is a SILLY idea to try to live life in your head all the time! (It can be very good and fine to think and reflect and contemplate a lot -- but you have to be practical about life too!) Form, emptiness. Emptiness, form. Life, death. Death, life. Good, bad. Evil, Good. Implicit, explicit. Outer, inner. Internal, external. External, internal. Physical, mental. Mental, physical. Material world, Consciousness. Consciousness, the outside world. Being, Nothingness. Nothingness, Everything. Up, down. Down, up. Worse, better. Better, worse. Self, other. Other, self. Free will, determined/controlled. Determined, free. Illusion, real. Real, dream. The real unreal --- The unreal real. Form is Emptiness --- Emptiness is Form. Hell, Heaven. Both here. Now. What you see is solely determined by 'the inner game'; that is: how you look at the world; from where? From which point of view? Which perspective? Believe in the story that gives you most inner joy. Anything else is a form of silly autism. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The world -- existence, life -- will never be good unless you are willing to see its goodness. What you experience depends on how you look at things. When you look with judgement -- either upon yourself, the world or both -- life seems twisted and empty. When you begin to look with an open heart and mind, life becomes fascinating and full of both meaning and mystery. When you realize the perfection, intelligence and beauty of everything in existence precisely as it is (without the filters of ego; yes, drop them - let go!), you see that every outcome is a good one. You start to live life fully without fear and regret. You learn and move on. When you look with love instead of judgement, you see a whole different world. Life isn't easy all the time. You're not alone. For there to be joy, there has to be some pain. So instead of looking at the painful life-phases that you're undergoing as "bad", look at them as absolutely necessary and beneficial in the long run for your own growth and eventual happiness. Remember, nothing lasts forever, everything passes away at some point. 0. Knowledge is but a rumor until it lives in the body/bones. 1. Reality is non-dual. Non-duality means: Not one, not two. The question is: do you get it or not? For example, let's take the extreme duality: good - bad . Obviously complete opposites. Right? Well, not so fast. "Apply non-duality to it": Reality is not: bad Reality is not: good (either) Reality is not: "good AND bad" (paradox). Reality is: ________________ (Or you 'could' say: "bad-good"). 2. To let go of power is to gain power. 3. To let go of control is to gain control. Life is about all the contrasts! As a wise man said: - The heavenly highs, one is capable of reaching, are directly proportional with the unknown depths, one has the courage to dive down into. - The apparent seperation / division / fragmentation, paradoxes, opposites ... only exist in the divided mind, based on subject-object-relations ... ((( that is how the illusionary, separate self -- the ego -- survives; or we could say that 'opposites/duality creates the illusion of ego'; a kind of 'strange loop' that is almost impossible to 'get out of' (impossible because 1. it is imaginary, 2. you imagined it yourself and deep down want to stay in it, 3. in a sense there is nothing to get out of; you *trying* to get out (becoming awakened / enlightened) is what keeps you in 'it' (= asleep, ego) ... - It is "possible" though, just like it is possible for a larva through 'rebirth' to become a butterfly; the larva is in a beautiful away ALREADY the butterfluy, just like an acorn contains the whole tree ... ))) ... - but from the Level of Unity (The Heavenly Self's Consciousness; God's point-of-view) all these 'apparent' opposites/paradoxes -- all fragmentation, division, seperation -- are dissolved & melted 'back into' what they truly are & have always been: Your Imagination - Oneness. One. Zero. Unity. Harmony. Oneness. Lila. Divine play. Game. Theater play. An Eternal Dance. Musical Music. The Bottomless Bottom. The Gateless Gate. The Ground of Being. The Groundless Ground. God. Unconditional Love. Nothingness. The Eternal Dao That Cannot Be Spoken. Buddha Nature. Christ Consciousness. Pure Awareness. Infinity. Source. The Absolute. Goodness with a capital G. Just Love. ☯️?????❤️?? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The difficulty in realizing this to be so is that conceptual thinking cannot grasp it. It is as if the eyes were trying to look at themselves directly, or as if one were trying to describe the color of a mirror in terms of colors reflected in the mirror. Just as sight is something more than all things seen, the foundation or "ground" of our existence and our awareness cannot be understood in terms of things that are known. We are forced, therefore, to speak of it through myth—that is, through special metaphors, analogies, and images which say what it is like as distinct from what it is. At one extreme of its meaning, "myth" is fable, falsehood, or superstition. But at another, "myth" is a useful and fruitful image by which we make sense of life in somewhat the same way that we can explain electrical forces by comparing them with the behavior of water or air. Yet "myth," in this second sense, is not to be taken literally just as electricity is not to be confused with air or water. Thus in using myth one must take care not to confuse image with fact, which would be like climbing up the signpost instead of following the road. Myth, then, is the form in which I try to answer when children ask me those fundamental metaphysical questions which come so readily to their minds: "Where did the world come from?" "Why did God make the world?" "Where was I before I was born?" "Where do people go when they die?" Again and again I have found that they seem to be satisfied with a simple and very ancient story, which goes something like this: <<< There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Look at my watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. But just as the hour-hand of the watch goes up to twelve and down to six, so, too, there is day and night, waking and sleeping, living and dying, summer and winter. You can't have any one of these without the other, because you wouldn't be able to know what black is unless you had seen it side-by-side with white, or white unless side-by-side with black. In the same way, there are times when the world is, and times when it isn't, for if the world went on and on without rest for ever and ever, it would get horribly tired of itself. It comes and it goes. Now you see it; now you don't. So because it doesn't get tired of itself, it always comes back again after it disappears. It's like your breath: it goes in and out, in and out, and if you try to hold it in all the time you feel terrible. It's also like the game of hide-and-seek, because it's always fun to find new ways of hiding, and to seek for someone who doesn't always hide in the same place. God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear. Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself. But that's the whole fun of it—just what he wanted to do. He doesn't want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will wake up, stop pretending, and remember that we are all one single Self—the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever. Of course, you must remember that God isn't shaped like a person. People have skins and there is always something outside our skins. If there weren't, we wouldn't know the difference between what is inside and outside our bodies. But God has no skin and no shape because there isn't any outside to him. [With a sufficiently intelligent child, I illustrate this with a Möbius strip—a ring of paper tape twisted once in such a way that it has only one side and one edge.] The inside and the outside of God are the same. And though I have been talking about God as 'he' and not 'she,' God isn't a man or a woman. I didn't say 'it' because we usually say 'it' for things that aren't alive. God is the Self of the world, but you can't see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can't see your own eyes, and you certainly can't bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding. You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn't really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. It's the same as when we play cards. At the beginning of the game we shuffle them all into a mess, which is like the bad things in the world, but the point of the game is to put the mess into good order, and the one who does it best is the winner. Then we shuffle the cards once more and play again, and so it goes with the world. >>> This story, obviously mythical in form, is not given as a scientific description of the way things are. Based on the analogies of games and the drama, and using that much worn-out word "God" for the Player, the story claims only to be like the way things are. I use it just as astronomers use the image of inflating a black balloon with white spots on it for the galaxies, to explain the expanding universe. But to most children, and many adults, the myth is at once intelligible, simple, and fascinating." - Alan Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damned thing in the cave that was so dreaded has become the center. You find the jewel, and it draws you off. In loving the spiritual, you cannot despise the earthly." - J. Campbell. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “This is IT! So you don’t need to do anything at all… It’s just the way it is. What’s required is a sort of act of super relaxation.. It’s not just letting go. It’s being with yourself as you are without altering anything.” ~ Alan Watts “When you look for your own mind, that is to say, your own particularized center of being which is separate from everything else, you won’t be able to find it. But the only way you’ll know it isn’t there is if you look for it hard enough, to find out that it isn’t there. And so everybody says ‘All right, know yourself, look within, find out who you are.’ Because the harder you look, you won’t be able to find it, and then you’ll realize it isn’t there at all. There isn’t a separate you. You’re mind is what there is. Everything. But the only way to find that out is to persist in the state of delusion as hard as possible…. So if a person believes that the Earth is flat, you can’t talk him out of that. He knows it’s flat. Look out the window and see; it’s obvious, it looks flat. So the only way to convince him it isn’t is to say ‘Well let’s go and find the edge.’ And in order to find the edge, you’ve got to be very careful not to walk in circles, you’ll never find it that way. So we’ve got to go consistently in a straight line due west along the same line of latitude, and eventually when we get back to where we started from, you’ve convinced the guy that the world is round. That’s the only way that will teach him. Because people can’t be talked out of illusions. There is another possibility, however. But this is more difficult to describe. Let’s say we take as the basic supposition–which is the thing that one sees in the experience of satori or awakening, or whatever you want to call it–that this now moment in which I’m talking and you’re listening, is eternity. That although we have somehow conned ourselves into the notion that this moment is ordinary, and that we may not feel very well, we’re sort of vaguely frustrated and worried and so on, and that it ought to be changed. This is IT! So you don’t need to do anything at all. But the difficulty about explaining that is that you mustn’t try and not do anything, because that’s doing something. It’s just the way it is. In other words, what’s required is a sort of act of super relaxation; it’s not ordinary relaxation. It’s not just letting go, as when you lie down on the floor and imagine that you’re heavy so you get into a state of muscular relaxation. It’s not like that. It’s being with yourself as you are without altering anything. And how to explain that? Because there’s nothing to explain. It is the way it is now. See? And if you understand that, it will automatically wake you up!” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Life is not a problem to solve, but an experience to be had. However, sure - you can imagine all kinds of problems that "should" be solved (in order for you & the world ? to be at peace ?️), but that is just it: imagination, fantasy, a dramatic good movie, a theater play, a book, a game... play ???. Life is what you choose to experience. The ultimate meaning of life is very simple: it's life itself! Of course! But this is so obvious that almost no one seems to buy into it, and everyone runs around in great panic and try desperately to achieve something beyond themselves. There isn't anything wrong with trying to achieve something beyond oneself, as long as one remembers it's just a cute game. But of course: We should all strive to make it a good game, a good dream, a good book, a good play, a good film... with total redemption for all the dream-characters in the end ??❤️?. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://youtu.be/wU0PYcCsL6o There’s aren’t enough words to describe how powerful this video is for me. It’s in my iPod and every single morning before I lift I listen to this speech. It’s absolutely stunning. Inspirational. Motivating. It’s everything to me. I would like for you to watch it and tell me what you think. We all should dream big. Without going after our dream, we cannot possibly live our best life. It is there for a reason. It’s necessary that we follow it…not just an option: "If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself – not as a stranger in the world, not as something here on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke - but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. I am not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it, I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities, I am not trying to prove it. I am just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about. So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be." And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today. That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have. Of playing that you weren't God, because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he is not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality, not God in a politically kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you are all that, only you are pretending you are not." - Watts up, Alan? Love ya all <3

Because the truth (which is beyond words) has to be put into words and practice, and there are many seemingly conflicting ways to do this, e.g. cataphatic vs apophatic descriptions ("God is x" vs "God is not x"), restriction (e.g. ascetism, monkhood) vs indulgence (e.g. "aghori", tantra), sensory deprivation vs sensory stimulation, devotional vs focused practices, various ethical codes of conduct. Throw into that variation based on geographical location and local cultural history and the co-opting of religion for various survival needs, and you have an answer. And how to solve these apparent contradictions ("what should I do?"), if you are an intellectually awakened and pluralistically aware New Ager, is simply to try out different things and see what works best for you. Different people may respond differently to different things, simply because they are different, but also because they may be on different parts of the path. What may be appropriate for a newbie with 0 hours of meditation experience vs an experienced meditator with 1000 hours of experience and multiple awakening experiences can be quite "contradicting".

We do need words and names to communicate. It's like when you are in relationship with someone; at first their name means everything. Later you don't even think of their name. Mind cannot understand. Mind is a barrier to understanding. Mind pretends to understands and likes to feel smart. All minds do this and can do no else. Words are useful until they have no use. When you want you foot to move forwards, do you need words to tell it so. Same with God, we are one and all is clear. Jesus needed to communicate in terms that the people 2000 years ago could grasp. He had to be extremely careful in his teachings. All his teachings make abundant sense to one who is awakened. One caveat is that sometimes his words were distorted to fit the prevailing doctrines. Two things that are important about Jesus: one he showed that death has no power and two he was the first man who saw the face of God in every person he looked at and because of that he was able to perform miracles and forgive misdeeds. We are told to go out and do likewise. The highest teaching of Jesus imo is the gospel of Thomas recently dictated by an angel of God called Pursah: https://www.garyrenard.com/pgoth.html

Not your average Jim that took ayahuasca a couple of times and now sells his psychedelic paintings on hippie conventions. But artists that have had a true, no BS, profound ever lasting awakening, and are often in the service of awakening others. On top of my head I know Daniel Schmidt, director and creator of the Samadhi, and Inner Worlds Outer Worlds documentary series which are excellent, and he also happens to be a very talented musician who composes all of the music present in his documentaries, and the music is fire.

There are stages to this and the journey goes full circle or keeps spiraling into higher and higher levels of transcendence and integration. Monks & teenagers as @Leo Gura described them may be at a certain stage but it continues so don't get stuck and put one state of being onto a pedestal. My theory (informed by my experience and the experience of the most awakened guys I know) is this: Freedom is the movement of transcendence (up & out) & Love is the movement of descendence (inward, integrating, inclusive, whole) When we have built external abundance—through friendships, meaningful relationships, and fulfilling life experiences—there's a stage at which we start to realize that a deeper form of nourishment does not come from others but from ourselves & Self. This is where a shift happens: instead of looking outward for love, wisdom, validation, or support, we turn inward. We learn to fully meet our own needs, nurture ourselves with love and wisdom, and connect to the source of all abundance—our own being. This source is deeper than the heart, deeper than the soul—it is the source of our existence. At this stage, reliance on external validation or social stimulation diminishes. Relying on your Self becomes the purest form of freedom. People often misunderstand this as withdrawal or detachment from life. But it's not about rejecting the world—it's about no longer needing it in the same way. When you love being alone, you love yourself. And this is when the turning point where the purpose of True Freedom gets revealed. It's not a functional purpose but a transcendent and immanent purpose. When we have totally freed outselves, from all aversion & resistance to ANYTHING, even drama, pain, and people. We are FULLY FREE TO LOVE. My definition of Love is making the Ultimate Sacrifice of 'giving up' your transcendent freedom and VOLENTARILY descending back, turning back, to face the Pain of the world. That embrace is real compassion. It's becoming a channel for the highest light to descend back to the world. Unifying Heaven & Earth. The journey is not about retreating into solitude forever. It may be the midpoint of the journey. But it goes full circle. This is where true service and contribution really come into play because for the first time we are truly free to serve completely volentarily. Having freed yourself from external dependency, you are no longer taking—you are giving. Relationships are no longer based on need but on genuine love and pure generosity. Social interactions are no longer transactional but are instead expressions of your overflowing presence. Paradoxically, this is the stage where 'socialization' can become deeply meaningful again. Instead of being an attempt to fill a void, it becomes an opportunity to share wisdom, light, and love without depletion. You interact with others not because you need to but because you choose to. This is true freedom having gone full circle—not the rejection of socialization, not the clinging to it, but the ability to engage in it from a place of wholeness. It is the freedom to connect without attachment and to be alone without loneliness. Engaging fully in life, not out of need but out of pure creative expression. This is the path beyond both escapism and attachment. This is where life, solitude, and connection all merge into one seamless dance. Everything gets recontextualized into Pure Divinity.

Lots of people don't like themselves that's why they might not like people. Other people reveal too much of the shadows. They can't stand it. It's like looking in the mirror. That's why so-called awakened people fit more into this bracket. Their senses are heightened and they see things more clearer and with more precision and the veil gets a bit more loose. The energy is a bit less contracted and now everything seems clearer and more as it is. Now, the stories begin that they are more conscious and people are just not into their bracket anymore and they can't stand to be around normal people and so on and so forth. No, what's happening is your bullshit is being revealed to you more clearly and the ego can't stand it so now it wants to recluse and go in it's shell. A mind like mind doesn't take things on face value. There's always more that meets the eye. The ego is very sly and the mind very deceptive. When the bigger picture is utilized and looked at in almost everything, these things gets revealed more clearly. We live in time and space and separation, but that's just an appearance and cannot be mocked; meaning, no amount of "I am separate" can conquer what really is the case. So, when you recognize this, you can usually see through the ego's bullshit and the mind's stories about itself and the world. I'm not exempt, so I'm not excluding myself. Infact, i can see through my bullshit too, sometimes. Why is it that social media is so popular, but so many claim to dislike people and can't stand certain types of people. In the same token loneliness is feared and not welcomed. So many are depressed are suffering and hate life but are afraid to die and do everything possible to avoid death. You would think most people would run into busses and jump off bridges if this was really the case. No, they hate themselves and are trying to escape themselves. It's not pleasurable to be a person that thinks it's separate from the whole. It's very painful and gets disorienting. The suffering is the separate individual. Not the other way around where the individual suffers. The suffering IS that energy. That's why it tries to escape itself. It wants to die but it can't because there's no one to die. It's the energy that's suffering itself. That's what suffering is. That's it's nature. It can't be anything other than suffering. Joy, happiness and every other emotion is the same thing. It's the individual itself. Those emotions aren't separate. THEY ARE THE INDIVIDUAL. They are energy that arises and the individual is that in the moment. The state is the individual in the moment. Not a state that the individual is in. It is that. If it's pleasant, and disappears, the individual seeks for it again because it feels like it lost a part of itself. That's why we seek out happiness and not it's opposite because it wants the feel good parts of itself to remain. There's no one there, just a bunch of sensations, emotions, states, perceptions, feelings and a storyline to perpetuate those things to keep the individual alive. People hate these sayings because it knows deep down what's being said is true and it doesn't want to realize it's unrealness. The energy isn't open to it so it turns away and defends it's unrealness.

@Dazgwny It's trickier still, because if you stop making the distinction between nothing and something then you get thrown back out right where you started -- which is with something. But now that something is identical to nothing, where previously it wasn't. See, ordinary humans think something isn't nothing. But the Awakened see something and nothing as identical. In this way you can hold a table fork in your hand and realize it is nothing, as you hold it.

Deepseek R1 assisted — Your reflection captures a profound and often disorienting stage of intellectual and existential maturation—the awakening to epistemology, where the scaffolding of "known truths" begins to unravel. This is not just a phase but a pivotal shift in how we relate to knowledge itself. Here’s a perspective that honors that journey: --- ### **1. Embracing the Unraveling** What you’re describing aligns with what philosophers like Socrates (with his “I know that I know nothing”) or Nietzsche (critiquing absolute truths) grappled with: **the friction between certainty and the abyss of questioning**. When unexamined assumptions collapse, it can feel like standing in rubble—but this is where true inquiry begins. - **Relativism as a Gateway**: Recognizing truth’s relativity isn’t an endpoint but a catalyst. It opens the door to *critical thinking*: “If my old ‘truths’ were unexamined, how do I rebuild?” This is the heart of epistemology—the study of how we *know* what we know. --- ### **2. The Challenge of Radical Uncertainty** Relativism can spiral into nihilism (“If nothing is certain, does anything matter?”). To navigate this: - **Lean into curiosity, not answers**: Treat uncertainty as a practice, not a problem. Ask, *“What can I learn from not knowing?”* (This echoes Zen’s “beginner’s mind” or Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith.”) - **Rebuild with intentionality**: Use tools like **phenomenology** (examining experience itself) or **pragmatism** (what works vs. what’s “true”) to construct a framework that feels alive, not rigid. --- ### **3. Bridging Hedonism and Depth** Your history with “low-brow” pleasures and your current awakening aren’t opposites—they’re part of the same spectrum. - **Integrate, don’t reject**: Pleasure-seeking often numbs existential discomfort. Instead of judging past habits, ask: *“What did they protect me from? What do I now crave beyond them?”* - **Mindful engagement**: Even “dumb” entertainment can be a mirror. Observe what hooks you—boredom, nostalgia, escapism—and use it as data for self-inquiry. --- ### **4. Practical Anchors** - **Journal dialogues**: Debate your own assumptions on paper. For example, write a conversation between “Your Younger Self” (clinging to old truths) and “The Awakened You” (questioning everything). - **Study the mapmakers**: Dive into thinkers who’ve navigated this terrain—e.g., David Hume (skepticism), Simone de Beauvoir (ethics of ambiguity), or Alan Watts (playful spirituality). - **Community**: Seek out others in this liminal space (philosophy groups, meditation circles, even online forums). Shared inquiry lessens the vertigo. --- ### **5. The Paradox of Growth** This awakening isn’t a flaw—it’s a sign of courage. As Rilke wrote, *“Live the questions now.”* The discomfort you feel is the friction of old shells breaking; what emerges won’t be certainty, but a deeper capacity to *dance* with uncertainty. You’re not losing your mind—you’re rewiring it. The path is messy, but it’s yours. Stay fierce. 🌱

@Hardkill sure, Being an American patriot means everything to me, nothing to others. I am the strong one in the yard, the bully who beats everyone and steals their resources. Well, it's over, the US doesn't dare to go against Russia. It has unleashed a war machine that doesn't care about the dead and has awakened a warrior culture that glorifies the military, since it is its only chance to avoid falling into misery. The US sends Ukrainians to die from their comfortable homes, but their plan is absolutely stupid. It doesn't have the necessary force for a real war, only to crush cockroaches like Gaddafi or Saddam, now the US hegemony is over, it's over, it's not the strongest country anymore. You say that Trump would kiss Putin's ass with Ukraine. Ukraine is the Russian sphere, forget Ukraine, forget Taiwan. Enough already American clowns, the world is not yours. The Russians and the Chinese are going to eat you, don't leave your borders because you make a fool of yourself everywhere.