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Lots of assumptions here. #1 - The time frame one has participated in this stuff matters. Is it true? There are people who meditate their whole lives and don't get anywhere and there are those who go to 1 satsang and have an awakening. Which one is more awake? #2 - Meditation tends to not enlighten people in a short period of time. Again, everyone is different. #3 - Where you come from matters. Does it? Wayne Liquorman did coke for 20 years before he went to India, met his teacher and got awakened. Does that mean his awakening is not real?

I find it hard to really fully explain, but I know I awakened some time ago when was I high off my balls on weed. Basically, I came to realize my own life was something truly unknowable and that unknowable-ness is the very fabric of the universe, and the two just became one. I felt selfless for a time, sadly to my own detriment but after a while my ego came back but perhaps, more detached? I'm not entirely sure. I liked debating politics, society and god, all that stuff with other "enlightened" minds beforehand. It made me feel really smart and unique then but looking back I did nothing but intellectual masturbation. I had some nuggets of awakening before, but not to the scope of my enlightenment so I was still stuck in a "trapped in a body within a physical world" type of thinking. After my actual enlightenment, I don't really want to talk about anything with anyone, it all seems done and dusted. I asked myself the greatest question and found the one true answer, so discussions about politics, society and god seem so radicicolous and restricting to me even in the most radically open minded spaces, including this one. The more I come to see how silly everything really is, the less I want to defend my position and just let things be, even within myself. I'm not entirely sure what to ask but if anyone has any advice, it would be highly appreciated.

I definitely didn't know I was God until 5meo I didn't really resonate with this. I reality this goes pretty deep and you can be more of less God like. Everything IS God. You are God whether you know it or like it or not. But there is a difference between being part of God, and being awakened and God like.

I used to be subscribed to him. I'm very aware of what he has done. I hadn't followed him for years because his 'spiritual content' just feels so full of delusion and there's a ton of better stuff out there. The dude has been on 3 vipassana retreats, I think he should cool his jets a bit. Honestly, it seems he's made progress, but I feel it's very unlikely he's as awakened as he claims. He's also gotten better at parroting spiritual concepts, but he always falls flat on his face once he goes off of the script and makes his own philosophy.

By development, I mean developmental stages. Would it be easier to be awakened at say, Stage Yellow/Turquoise than at Stage Blue/Orange? Since you're not clinging as much to your ego as the latter?

Through meditation alone very difficult. But with sober techniques in general, more plausible. I've awakened to God, Love and that life is a dream sober. However, there are degrees. My current degree is a lot deeper than a few months ago. But probably incomparable to Leo's 5meo awakenings. But I believe I will get there eventually Your best shot is a combination of many different tools. I've done / have experience with following: kriya and kundalini yoga RASA transmissions shamanic breathing, wim hof breathing, DMT breathing self inquiry experimented with 30+ meditation techniques mystical experiences during dreams devotion, bhakti yoga dark room retreat sleep deprivation help and transmissions by spirits advanced law of attraction / manifestation techniques fasting masturbation and orgasm exhaustion trance hypnosis brainwave entrainment subliminals mantras prayer certain music (2 psychedelic trips) Many of them I do on a regular basis. And I'm working on mastering sleep yoga. The next step would be time dilation in lucid dreams. And then taking psychedelics in these time dilated lucid dreams. If I manage that, that will be the ultimate technique. My advice is: EXPERIMENT. And combine as much as possible. I've experimented with countless techniques and developed a powerful meditation technique that combines every hack / trick that works for me. A benefit of awakening sober is that your baseline consciousness is naturally very high. If a normal person experienced my baseline they would be in a psyche ward within 10 minutes lol.

Even though awakening often occurs after a whole lot of spiritual obsession, I'm not convinced that means the awakening was the result of that. In fact, upon awakening, it's recognized it was always that way -- there was never anyone there. Just identification with an idea of who you are. "I am awakened" is an example of a perfect oxymoron.

does-development-make-awakening-easier By development, I mean developmental stages. Would it be easier to be awakened at say, Stage Yellow/Turquoise than at Stage Blue/Orange? Since you're not clinging as much to your ego as the latter? ........ Yes awakening will depend on the development stage. I don't believe that stage red people would be capable of having an awakening consciousness of they were only concerned with survival needs and never thought beyond that. Much of this thinking leads to greed (although highly conscious survival is also a great possibility to consider) but as we see it in the world being too fixated with survival has its own downsides. Stage Red is about domination and making rules for survival. This can also lead to relentless mindless competition to survive mindlessly at the expense of others. Which is in no way close to awakening. Much of awakening can only happen from stage green to Tier 2 phase where unity is realized and a form of higher consciousness provides a Fertile soil for further awakening.. For me a combination of standard models developed over the last century make a lot of sense. Putting them together - the Chakra system, Spiral Dynamics and Maslow's Heirarchy of needs all come together to force a person to climb upwards. Of course, essential needs cannot be ignored. Only then you will focus on higher needs. Sometimes it is possible to forgo lower needs like yogis who give up sex or shelter or basic security in exchange for higher consciousness and liberation. However this is not completely necessary. It varies from person to person. A more holistic system would combine the benefits of both optimal survival as well as spiritual consciousness. Also Maslow's hierarchy of needs only focuses on need based Actualization.whereas spiral dynamics focuses on integration. Of value vmemes and subsets at different societal and developmental levels and basically relies on group worldview and integration.. Yes, but if you think you can rely on development to awaken you, you'll be very disappointed. It won't. If you want awakening, the only way to get it is to work your ass for it with intense focus and clarity of purpose. No hardcore spiritual practices, no awaken. It's that simple. Which is the reason 99.9999% of people are not awake and will never be awake. Yes I agree with this perspective. If it were that simple, then we would have people only focusing on the Maslow system to give us all the answers. Even Spiral Dynamics is not enough to explain reality. You have to do tons of work in terms of contemplation, psychedelics and meditation and exhaustive work to have some level of awareness and awakening. I feel it is more so the other way around awakening makes development easier, awakening gets you to realize what is true, & development is a lot easier when you are in line with what is true. You are painting a picture called you, and it is perfectly what it is, to change it is alright & to not change it is alright. Not being attached to needing to change or needing to stay the same makes everything a lot more enjoyable. Developing yourself can also make awakening easier as well, as there might be less neurotic stuff going on, but it is harder to develop a self when you believe you are a self. I totally agree with this.. It's much easier to gave high levels of development once you have awakened yourself. Because development begins to look like a quick snapshot. If you have learned how to do drums, creating music is easier. Same way. You're learning advanced things and basic stuff gets much easier. However this does not mean that we should abandon development for awakening. Development is a must both on the Maslow and the spiral. And awakening is the icing on the cake. Also I think that all development eventually crumbles in the absence of awakening.

Awakened = there’s no ‘you’ nor ‘your ego’. “Clinging as much to your ego” = thought attachment = pretending there’s a separate self. You’re actually supporting your suffering with complicated theories and models which have nothing to do with thought attachment.

The LOC model of Ramaji & Ananda has always gotten a lot of flak on here from most, and I get how it can come across. For those who can’t relate to the numbers & what not, Rupert explains in this video how not all awakenings / Non-Dual teachers are talking about the highest truth, and in fact, most aren’t. It is essentially distilling 1000 into a 10 minute video, also has some nice points that not all awakened beings will end up as teachers, in fact the majority will carry on as “normal citizens”

I didn't want to address the following until things settled down… Breakingthewall wrote: What do you mean exactly when you say that reality is not originated? Originated for your mind? Creation is what it is in terms of karma, time , infinity, birth and death because it is originated. The nature of awareness is nonorigination itself. It could be said that awareness works the way it does by virtue of nonorigination itself. Why? Simply because that's its nature. Since awareness is already your true identity and the nature of awareness is nonorigination, awareness obviously has never fallen into the created realm. Our own everyday ordinary awareness is not created. Your own mind is not created, but it goes along with creation unawares; that's delusion. The fact that awareness is nonoriginated is how and why beings are inconceivable, whether they know it or not. Beings have the potential for not only experiencing their nature, in terms of the absolute, but beings can also experience their inconceivably transcendent nature in the midst of creation simply because creation's nature is the same inconceivability. It's just the way it is and no one knows why. The buzz-kill is habitually mistaking your brilliantly effective ego-function for your identity. Why? Ego isn't real. Why trade in the innate enlightening function for the innate psychological function? At least the innate enlightening function is itself transcendent accord in reality before the first thought. Habitually self-reflective thought is a killer. As for reality, which is neither absolute nor created, since it is itself the realm of transcendent nonorigination as the scene before your eyes, by seeing potential where ordinary deluded people see things to exploit, enlightening beings (those awakened to their innate spiritual function) don't go along with creation. Not going along with creation is simply a matter of seeing potential, which isn't apart (differentiated) from enlightening being. Not using the mind to differentiate self and other is automatic nonorigination on the spot. In this respect, one's self-refinement is carried out by not-doing. Simply nonoriginating conditioning before the first thought is transcendent enlightening activity unbeknownst to anybody. When I say that reality is nonoriginated, that means, by virtue of its nature (no different than who you really are), there is no reason to deliberately or unconsciously go out of your way to follow birth and death, not to mention get hung up on all kinds of fascinations in the process of accruing and perpetuating karmic burdens. I don't know about your mind, but… MIND IS ITSELF REALITY. THERE IS NO REALITY OUTSIDE OF MIND. NONORIGINATION IS SUCH DUE TO MIND ITSELF. MIND IS NOT A THING AS OPPOSED TO REALITY AS A THING. THERE IS NO THING. THE ABSOLUTE IS YOUR NATURE— BUT THE PERSON DIFFERENTIATING THOUGHT ISN'T IT. Enlightening accord in reality is simply abiding in the nature of mind which is nonoriginated, whereby one simply transcends creation's karmic rounds of situational and energetic rounds of birth and death. All that means is that it is possible to save a hell of a lot of energy that naturally and automatically goes towards fueling your spiritual evolution without end (as long as you don't set up your mentality as a checkpoint for discriminating self and other relative to ego). You have a choice: either maintain ego-reification at all times and go along with delusion and experience endless rounds of karmic evolution or forget self-differentiating habit-consciousness in order to spontaneously absorb creation's spiritual potential. All authentic teaching points toward the latter option. The two terms italicized in the quote above may serve to clarify certain notions frequently associated with the tathagatagarbha literature, specifically, the "natural purity of mind” (cittaprakrtivisuddhi). Creative potential is another term for "unrefined potential." Unrefined potential is the "raw" element inherent in the created aspect of situational evolution (karma) that spiritual adepts key into as is, instead of seeing (mistaking) potential as objects of speculation. Unrefined potential is the basic element of spiritual alchemy "absorbed" by enlightening beings in the course of subtle selfless adaption to temporal realms. Such potential is "absorbed" simply by seeing. Seeing is perception which is not relative to the person. Those who dwell in nonorigination and deal with situations in terms of reality as is (without employing self-reifying consciousness) absorb karma's inherent unrefined potential and seal it away void of intellectualism. The process of enlightening function is simply a matter of experiencing life without habitually referencing ego-consciousness. All wonder arises naturally from simply abiding in nonorigination. Taoism calls this "resting in the highest good." ed note: add quote and the following two paragraphs at the bottom

@IAmReallyImportant If you can't tell that Daniel and Bret are smart guys, your head is screwed on backwards. Of course smart does not mean awakened or God-realized or perfect. Smart people can still say dumb things. And I have heard both these guys say a few dumb things. But that doesn't mean they aren't smart. Nuance.

Now tripping is rather shift in an energetical state, I do not experience very significant change in activity of the ego. When I tripped for the first time there was a very clear cut between being enlightened or not. During past two years I shifted from thinking to observing my energetical state. My decisions are better because I am addressing my needs directly. I also had my dark night of the stuff a couple years ago. I was thinking a lot about death and suicide. I felt like a failure and I sort of accepted this situation. This took off pressure from me. If you don't care about your life you can do whatever you want! I consider myself unenlightened mostly because of energetical impurity. My mind isn't getting triggered easily (ideology etc.) but there are MANY MANY MANY small annoyances. If there is any way to determine enlightenment, it would be ability to sustain observation without interruption. When you just observe you are awakened. I think that it also fit well to Turquoise or unitive stage. Everything is illusionary, there is nothing to get, there is no way to be shamed. Now decision are based on existential needs not complicated thought constructs. Love live is also better because that person is you, so you can always reach them inside of you.

@AuthenticSelf I totally accept that you have awakened to your true nature as infinite consciousness. But you still seem to believe that enlightenment would make someone's life easier. It doesn't do that directly. Rather, it enables one to love and enjoy the struggle and hardship more. It's a beautiful game Disclaimer: I am not enlightened

Hi Breakingthewall— yes, the sudden and delusion do seem really different~ hahahaaaa! First, I will address the obvious point you raise (thank you for posting!) If one posits the Absolute (before the dichotomy of the primal organization) as different than everyday ordinary existence (being delusion), I would tend to agree with you. On the other hand, if one clings to the experience of Absolute nature as a thing, and then proceeds to reject delusional existence as something else (different), one has turned both the Absolute and delusion into things— which is itself delusion. And that won't do! The point I make is that reality (Suchness, being neither ordinary nor holy), is not dependent on the experience of sudden enlightenment. It not only is reality without distinctions (absolute/delusional), it is already thus, before the first thought, without needing to experience the Absolute (by virtue of sudden illumination). It's your own mind right now. If you see reality, it's your mind. If you see delusion, that's your mind too— if that's what you are doing with it. So, "reality and powerful enlightening activity do not depend on sudden enlightenment because enlightenment and delusion are not different" means that seeing everyday ordinary situations without relying on self-reifying distinctions and awakening to your innate enlightening function is a matter of it being thus a priori without first needing to see your nature. The point of this thread is the notion that nonorigination is not simply a reference to the realm beyond time. It is the unified operational ground of being, that is one's activity as the expression of enlightening being, selflessly so, adapting according to the time, from within the midst of, and by virtue of everyday ordinary situations. Potential is itself inherent in the karmically evolutionary process we refer to as "delusion." Delusion is the created aspect of reality, just as enlightening potential is the uncreated aspect of reality. Therefore, enlightenment and delusion are not different. Those who see reality, see potential, whereas those who see delusion see things. Seeing reality and adapting potential to karmic evolution is just a manner of speaking. For those who see reality, karma and potential are already causeless nondifferentiated unity without beginning. One sees delusion with the physical eyes, but one acts by sensing reality and adapting to its potential by having awakened to one's Dharma-eye. I said enlightenment and delusion are the same. I didn't say sudden enlightenment and delusion are the same. I said that reality (Suchness) and powerful enlightening activity do not depend on sudden enlightenment (the experience of seeing your nature in terms of the Absolute). ed note: add last sentence to penultimate paragraph; add first sentence to last paragraph

I can't believe I lost Cynthia Bourgeault's new book Eye of the Heart. I had read only half of it in which she already shared where the Kingdom of Heaven is using Gurdjieff's Hydrogen scale and the Ray of creation. She said the kingdom is found at world 24. Take what I say with a grain of salt because I've slept since I read this a couple of months ago ,,,, I found it though. To translate, this would be the inner world of a person who has integrated and individuated along with whats reffered to in the Work as purifying the emotional center. This is someone who doesn't judge and is conscious to the point where they're basically incapable of commiting violence. This is one of the best descriptions I've heard in regards to higher Consciousness. A fully Awakened person is incapable of violence! They're not complainers,,, They don't bitch or fly off the handle in a reactionary way if unpleasant events are encountered in their life situation. So encountering the kingdom of Heaven is an inside job. The kingdom is within. It's good to have a journal and express oneself. Even if it does amount to bitching about something. Maybe that's what it takes sometimes to process and let it go. Whatever it is. It's also a way of letting others into your inner world. As cringe worthy as that can be at times ultimately it means integration of your personal fragmentedness. Why is that good? Its the path to having your being. To fully be yourself, flaws included. To be completely at home in yourself. There's a tricky thing in regards to being fragmented. People who are fragmented most often don't fully realise their own fragmentedness. They don't see how it leaves them at the mercy of those who are eager to manipulate them. On the path to higher awareness, forgiveness through understanding is mandatory. More awareness will not be granted if you cannot forgive those who are asleep. I found a weighted blanket on the clearance isle this morning. I thought it might help me with insomnia. The thought of Temple Grandin came to mind with her design of the squeeze chute made for the humane handling of cattle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin

I like the distinction made by some in the Fourth way Work between acquired conscience and awakened conscience. Acquired conscience is equated with morality which changes over time and between different cultures. Awakened Conscience is claimed to be the same among all who possess it. One statement that frames this is that Awakened Conscience is the intelligence of the universe. Cultures are an enforcer of acquired conscience and is usually what we all are loaded full of in our childhood conditioning to different degrees. Maybe in the future when there are cultures with a center of gravity in tier two SD, this conditioning will be closer to awakened conscience. But now I’m speculating,,,,

Did you get awakened? ( just curios) How do you cultivate that kind of burning desire?

This guy embodies spiritual materialism. He has a big ego and portrays spirituality and sexuality in shallow perverted ways. I'm not saying he hasn't awakened to some degree but overall he isn't recognising just how delusional he still is. it's a spiritual kindergarten. It's a shame he uses word Yoga... and does this... he has no idea what Yoga is...

@GreenWoods When the Buddha taught that "all effort must be made by you", he wasn't referring to the conceptual awakening that people sometimes experience on psychedelics, or in other ways. He was talking about the deeper awakening, which is the opening of your spiritual eyes, and the lifelong journey of letting go of attachments, and manifesting the unconditional Love that is the essence of who we are. I'm reading "Being Ram Dass" at the moment. He conceptually awakened through extensive experience with psychedelics, but it wasn't until many years later that he woke spiritually when meeting his guru, Maharaj-ji, and even then he spent the rest of his life integrating the implications of that awakening. The Buddha had it right. Buddhas, drugs, or any other external processes can only show you the way. Ultimately the path of enlightenment must be walked by you.

Before meeting Ramana, Papaji practiced mantra recitation for 20 years. He had had spiritual experiences where Krishna would come to him and they would talk etc. He was one of those people that Ramana likened to very dry wood - very easy to start a fire with. Gurus can't awaken you if you're not ready to be awakened.

Happy/unhappy and developed/undeveloped are dualities, so these are viewed and understood completely different from the perspective of "enlightened people". However, awakened people function in the everyday life too. They work, have prefrences, engage in relationships and so on. They may even decide that they want to improve in certain areas in their lives. The big difference is that they don't do it because of neurotic and egoistic desires to 'get somewhere' or to 'get fulfilled'. They are already complete and whole (just like everybody else), so the decision is just a simple decision. It's much more free-flowing and no additional stories and certain attachments are involved.

People who have not faced deficits to survival because of awakening aren’t very awake in my opinion. It’s a common thing after full God-Realization for me to throw my phone across the room in an attempt to break it or flat out smash it to pieces. This is just one small example out of many things. If you’re actively trying to preserve your body, possessions, reputation, and pretty much anything else that makes up your ego, you’re still not awake to the fullest degrees. Last I saw Alan Watts drank himself to death. He never claimed to be awakened though from any of the talks I’ve heard. He always referred to himself as more of a spiritual commentator. I wouldn’t doubt that his spiritual understanding and experiences could have contributed to alcoholism or suicide though. I’ve certainly experienced many dark night of the soul problems that have been potentially worsened by awakening.

@Bacher Do you feel awakened after this experience? And if yes, how would you describe your awakening? It's more in your head/heart?

Both are responsible. And both are unconscious to different degrees. Still doesn’t mean the ‘victim’ deserves to be punished for their unconsciousness... they don’t even know they are unconscious. And both had lack of self love. Now the victim has more self love and has awakened more and can see their past unconsciousness.