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I think this research shows that 27% Americans assume that they are "spiritual but not religious", and 48% Americans assume that they are "spiritual and religious" this doesn't mean that they are doing something for spiritual transformation and 'they are on the path'.

I have realized that those who speak of coming out from the dark night of the soul as soemthing transformed for the better were likely lying. I think they didn’t really grasp the lesson from it. That everything is meaningless and void. Accounts of positive transformations from it are just ego defense to not have to deal with the reality of our existence. No matter what we do or what we decide it is all meaningless and void. It’s paralyzing and soul sapping to realize that, so we make up metaphors of it being a cocoon to make it seem like some transformation rather than the reality of existence .

Angulimal means a man who wears a garland of human fingers. Angulimal had taken a vow that he would kill one thousand people; from each single person he would take one finger so that he could remember how many he had killed and he will make a garland of all those fingers. In his garland of fingers he had nine hundred and ninety-nine fingers -- only one was missing. And that one was missing because his road was closed; nobody was coming that way. But Gautam Buddha entered that closed road. The king had put guards on the road to prevent people, particularly strangers who didn't know that a dangerous man lived behind the hills. The guards told Gautam Buddha, "That is not the road to be used. You will have to take a little longer route, but it is better to go a little longer than to go into the mouth of death itself. This is the place where Angulimal lives. Even the king has not the guts to go on this road. That man is simply mad. "His mother used to go to him. She was the only person who used to go, once in a while, to see him, but even she stopped. The last time she went there he told her, `Now only one finger is missing, and just because you happen to be my mother... I want to warn you that if you come another time you will not go back. I need one finger desperately. Up to now I have not killed you because other people were available, but now nobody passes on this road except you. So I want to make you aware that next time if you come it will be your responsibility, not mine.' Since that time his mother has not come." The guards said to Buddha, "Don't unnecessarily take the risk." And do you know what Buddha said to them? Buddha said, "If I don't go then who will go? Only two things are possible: either I will change him, and I cannot miss this challenge; or I will provide him with one finger so that his desire is fulfilled. Anyway I am going to die one day. Giving my head to Angulimal will be at least of some use; otherwise one day I will die and you will put me on the funeral pyre. I think that it is better to fulfill somebody's desire and give him peace of mind. Either he will kill me or I will kill him, but this encounter is going to happen; you just lead the way." The people who used to follow Gautam Buddha, his close companions who were always in competition to be closer to him, started slowing down. Soon there were miles between Gautam Buddha and his disciples. They all wanted to see what happened, but they didn't want to be too close. Angulimal was sitting on his rock watching. He could not believe his eyes. A very beautiful man of such immense charisma was coming towards him. Who could this man be? He had never heard of Gautam Buddha, but even this hard heart of Angulimal started feeling a certain softness towards the man. He was looking so beautiful, coming towards him. It was early morning... a cool breeze, and the sun was rising... and the birds were singing and the flowers had opened; and Buddha was coming closer and closer. Finally Angulimal, with his naked sword in his hand, shouted, "Stop!" Gautam Buddha was just a few feet away, and Angulimal said, "Don't take another step because then the responsibility will not be mine. Perhaps you don't know who I am!" Buddha said, "Do you know who you are?" Angulimal said, "This is not the point. Neither is it the place nor the time to discuss such things. Your life is in danger!" Buddha said, "I think otherwise -- your life is in danger." That man said, "I used to think I was mad -- you are simply mad. And you go on moving closer. Then don't say that I killed an innocent man. You look so innocent and so beautiful that I want you to go back. I will find somebody else. I can wait; there is no hurry. If I can manage nine hundred and ninety-nine... it is only a question of one more, but don't force me to kill YOU." Buddha said, "You are absolutely blind. You can't see a simple thing: I am not moving towards you, you are moving towards me." Angulimal said, "This is sheer craziness! Anybody can see that you are moving and I am standing on my rock. I have not moved a single inch." Buddha said, "Nonsense! The truth is, since the day I became enlightened I have not moved a single inch. I am centered, utterly centered, no movement. And your mind is continuously moving round and round in circles... and you have the guts to tell to me to stop. You stop! I have stopped long ago." Angulimal said, "It seems you are impossible, you are incurable. You are bound to be killed. I will feel sorry, but what can I do? I have never seen such a mad man." Buddha came very close, and Angulimal's hands were trembling. The man was so beautiful, so innocent, so childlike. He had already fallen in love. He had killed so many people... He had never felt this weakness; he had never known what love is. For the first time he was full of love. So there was a contradiction: the hand was holding the sword to kill the person, and his heart was saying, "Put the sword back in the sheath." Buddha said, "I am ready, but why is your hand shaking? -- you are such a great warrior, even kings are afraid of you, and I am just a poor beggar. Except the begging bowl, I don't have anything. You can kill me, and I will feel immensely satisfied that at least my death fulfills somebody's desire; my life has been useful, my death has also been useful. But before you cut my head I have a small desire, and Ithink you will grant me a small desire before killing me." Before death even the hardest enemy is willing to fulfill any desire. Angulimal said, "What do you want?" Buddha said, "I want you just to cut from the tree a branch which is full of flowers. I will never see these flowers again; I want to see those flowers closely, feel their fragrance and their beauty in this morning sun, their glory." So Angulimal cut with his sword a whole branch full of flowers. And before he could give it to Buddha, Buddha said, "This was only half the desire; the other half is, please put the branch back on the tree." Angulimal said, "I was thinking from the very beginning that you are crazy. Now this is the craziest desire. How can I put this branch back?" Buddha said, "If you cannot create, you have no right to destroy. If you cannot give life, you don't have the right to give death to any living thing." A moment of silence and a moment of transformation... the sword fell down from his hands. Angulimal fell down at the feet of Gautam Buddha, and he said, "I don't know who you are, but whoever you are, take me to the same space in which you are; initiate me." By that time the followers of Gautam Buddha had come closer and closer. Seeing that now Gautam Buddha was standing in front of Angulimal, there was no problem, no fear, although he needed only one finger. They were all around and when he fell at Buddha's feet they immediately came close. Somebody raised the question, "Don't initiate this man, he is a murderer. And he is not an ordinary murderer; he has murdered nine hundred and ninety-nine people, all innocent, all strangers. They have not done any wrong to him. He had not even seen them before!" Buddha said again, "If I don't initiate him, who will initiate him? And I love the man, I love his courage. And I can see tremendous possibility in him: a single man fighting against the whole world. I want this kind of people, who can stand against the whole world. Up to now he was standing against the world with a sword; now he will stand against the world with a consciousness which is far sharper than any sword. I told you that murder was going to happen, but it was not certain who was going to be murdered -- either I was going to be murdered, or Angulimal. Now you can see Angulimal is murdered. And who I am to judge?" He initiated Angulimal. The question is not whether anybody is worthy or not. The question is whether you have the consciousness, the abundance of love -- then forgiveness will come out of it spontaneously.

The first step would be to drop labels Although certain people are diagnosed as neurotic, most commonly they're displaying the same symptoms that the rest of the population are experiencing but perhaps to a more acute (or sometimes just more apparent) degree. If even someone who is considered to be mentally healthy were to observe their mind with great humility, there would be the observation of a near constant neurosis - even if subtle, there is a constant wanting to escape the moment, to gain, to manipulate, to project meaning or labels. This is the function of the linear egoic mind. The demonization of these qualities of the mind lead to compounded neurosis, and the labelled 'neurotic' now enters another battle, resisting his thoughts, feelings and behaviors in an effort to solve the problem. Of course we all know what happens when we resist something. It's important to recognize that the mind or ego as we're describing it is the result of millions of years of development through the animal kingdom, and it is the vehicle by which we have reached our current stage of evolution. It's only by this mechanism that we now have the capacity to transcend it and raise our consciousness. It is not useful to dwell in guilt and anxiety about our minds as if something has gone terribly wrong. When a shift in attitude is made to respect and observe the phenomena as simply natural and perfect phenomena of life itself (or divinity), the attachment to what is occurring starts to soften. In and of itself these thoughts and impulses are not the cause of suffering. The mind can run rampant like the wildest monkey and if held within a certain inner context, the experience of it doesn't cause discomfort. It is in the importance we place upon the phenomena that creates inner fixation, inner attachment and heaviness. They are not just thoughts, they are my thoughts. They are my behaviors and they are my neurosis. If one can surrender the sense of 'me-ness' applied to the phenomena occurring, then a great deal of pressure is released and the thoughts and feelings are simply observed as interesting and peculiar occurrences within spaciousness, and it is revealed that even though all this apparent madness within the mind was always going on, there was always a great deal of peace and silence in which all this was arising. This was previously being ignored due to the hypnotic fixation of 'me'. Eventually one starts to shift their sense of identity to the spaciousness rather than the phenomena which arises within it. As fixation and sense of self starts to be removed from the phenomena, the pressures behind the neurosis start to relinquish and the unwanted behaviors disappear by themselves automatically and effortlessly. --- The source of the feelings, thoughts and behaviors themselves are the suppressed and unwanted feelings and energies that we have stuffed down throughout our lives because we don't know what to do with them. Through various practices like vipassana, letting go, mindfulness or many healing modalities, as these energies start to become relinquished then the behaviors that spawn from them also disappear. Many, including myself, can attest to this firsthand. So my twofold suggestion would be to 1. Make a decision to stop demonizing the ego and start to observe it with a detached loving coolness. It is just intrinsic phenomena which doesn't actually need your constant attention. It is like fish jumping out of the water. With practice, the experience of the light/spaciousness/peace in which all this occurring starts to shine through. 2. Allow the relinquishing of the energies behind the compulsive behaviors by dropping resistance to them as they arise. You can do this by ignoring the thoughts and instead placing your awareness gently on the energy feeling behind the thoughts and simply allowing it to be as it is. You will notice that as resistance is dropped, the energy starts to dissipate. This practice, done repeatedly and with consistency on any given subject or feeling will eventually integrate it completely and create the relevant transformation in behavior. Eg. if fear is relinquished, then natural spontaneous peace takes its place.

A while back Leo shared on a blog post an excerpt from Derrida and Negative Theology titled "The Deconstruction of Buddhism". Unsurprisingly, it was written in some of the most difficult to decipher language that is available in English (as is often the case in deconstruction). Leo also said something to the effect that this was really all we needed to read/study for this path. I thought it would be useful to go through it and try to put it in my own words, and to share here (so that others can improve upon it and correct me if/when I was wrong about the intended meaning.... of course, where does the true meaning of any text lie? ), so that I and everyone else could benefit from an understanding of it and explanation of it in simpler wording. All of my interpretations / comments are in red, and the original text is in black. It should be pointed out that I am by no means an expert of deconstruction or buddhism, having only been introduced to deconstruction through leo's videos, watching youtube videos, and reading a bit about it online. Additionally I'm not a Buddhist nor an expert in buddhist teaching's or history. So really, all I had to go off of was the text itself, wiki articles relating to the text, definitions of some of the tougher words online, and several years of modest enlightenment work. I've no doubt this could be improved upon, so please feel free to do so / make corrections when something I've wrote is flat out wrong. The section on the "Two Truths" was a particularly challenging read for me. The text: What is interesting about Buddhism, from a deconstructive point of view,is that it is both onto-theological (therefore what-needs-to-be-deconstructed) and deconstructive (providing a different example of how-to-deconstruct). What is interesting about Derrida's type of deconstruction, from a Buddhist point of view, is that it is logocentric. What Derrida says about philosophy, that it "always re-appropriates for itself the discourse that delimits it", is equally true of Buddhism. Like all religions, Buddhism includes a strong onto-theological element, yet it also contains the resources that have repeatedly deconstructed this tendency. Thanks to sensitivities that Derrida's texts have helped to develop, it is possible to understand the Buddhist tradition as a history of this struggle between deconstructive delimitation and metaphysical re-appropriation, between a message that undermines all security by undermining the sense-of-self that seeks security, and a countervailing tendency to dogmatize and institutionalize that challenge. According to this version of deconstruction, however, Derrida's approach is still logocentric, for what needs to be deconstructed is not just language but the world we live in and the way we live in it, trapped within a cage of our own making -- "bound by our own rope," to use the Zen phrase. Buddhism both makes assertions about the nature of reality/being (particularly modern schools of Buddhism, as opposed to the original teachings of the Buddha), and teaches one how to break apart any beliefs, or assumed meanings. Buddhism walks a tight rope between challenging all dogma, and being itself, dogmatic. One must go beyond Derrida's deconstruction of language, and deconstruct the very reality in which one inhabits. The consequence of this struggle has been a self-consciousness about those aporias of negative theology that Derrida points out in "Denegations": hyperessentiality; the secret society's secret that there is no secret; "the homology of hierarchy which leads to that which situates itself beyond all position"; the promise, the order and the waiting. All these aspects are to be found in Buddhism, but, rather than being tendencies that need to be exposed, the history of Buddhist thought is the history of making these problems central and deconstructing them by revealing the logocentricity that motivates them. As we shall see, Buddhist philosophy has been preoccupied with refuting any tendency to postulate a transcendental-signified, including any "hyperessentialism." The Buddha himself emphasized that he had no secret, although that did not stop later generations from attributing one to him; insofar as the solution to Zen koans might be considered a secret, Zen teachers emphasize that that answer is always quite obvious; in fact, our inability to see the obvious is precisely the point. The sangha (community of monks and nuns) that the Buddha established has been called the world's first democracy; in contrast to the Hindu caste system, hierarchy was determined solely by when one joined. There is no "order" from any transcendental being that requires one to practice Buddhism; in contrast to Mosaic law, the Buddhist precepts (to avoid killing, stealing, etc.) are vows one makes to oneself to try to live in a certain way. The "promise" of Buddhism is quite pragmatic; in his talk to the Kalamas (praised as the first "charter of free inquiry") the Buddha emphasized that they should not accept any religious doctrine until they had tried it out for themselves and seen how it changed their lives. Finally, "waiting" (more generally, any expectations) has been repeatedly identified as the most problematic tendency in meditative practice. The practice of using language to deconstruct one's beliefs leads to irresolvable contradictions and paradoxes. Buddhism teaches that the fact that these problems are represented in language is what leads to this confusion (since any language assumes duality, which leads us away from Truth). Buddhist philosophy asserts that Truth is not hidden, and is in fact glaringly obvious. Additionally, Buddhism offers no objective moral code, enforced by a God. Any buddhist "commandments" are purely pragmatic and are suggested for one to live a better life, and should not be blindly accepted but instead tested by the individual. Additionally, it is suggested that one drop all expectations of how Buddhism might improve one's life (for example, expectations of achieving states when meditating). Buddhism begins with the Buddha (literally,"the Awake"), c. 563-483 B.C. The usual problem of legendary origins is further complicated by the fact that the Buddha, like Socrates and Christ, wrote nothing; I don't know why, since as far as I know he had no objections against writing. (Given the difficulties of translation, the Buddha's attitude is noteworthy: When two disciples sought permission to translate his vernacular teachings into classical Sanskrit verse, he refused, saying that in each region the teachings should be presented in the local language.) Unlike the brief career of Christ, the Buddha lived for 45 years after his enlightenment, leaving behind extensive oral teachings later recorded in the Pali Canon, which is approximately eleven times the length of the Bible. One of the most striking things about this voluminous material is that it says so much about the path to nirvana and so little about nirvana itself. The Buddha's attitude seems to have been that it's not helpful to talk about it very much; so that If you want to know what nirvana is, you must experience it yourself. Except for some terms of praise, the few descriptions are negative: they say what nirvana is not. The writings of Buddhism were derived from oral teachings of the Buddha. Little is said about the end result of practicing the Buddhist teachings, and more is said about the process itself. More is said about what nirvana is not rather than what it is. The Pali Canon contains several different accounts of exactly what the Buddha realized in his paradigmatic enlightenment under the Bo tree. Perhaps most significant from a deconstructive approach is that none of these earliest accounts invokes an inexpressible "self-presence." According to the most common story, the Buddha realized the Three Knowledges: he was able to remember his past lifetimes as far back as he wanted, to see the karmic connections between those lifetimes, and to understand the Four Truths: how life is duhkha (the usual translation "suffering" is too limited; better is something like "dissatisfaction/frustration"), that the cause of duhkha is desire and ignorance, that there is an end to duhkha -- nirvana -- and an eightfold path leading to that end, which he himself had reached. "Ignorance was dispelled, knowledge arose." According to another account, the Buddha realized the truth of pratitya-samutpada, "dependent origination," which was to become the most important doctrine of Buddhism; according to a third, he realized that there is no persisting self, and that the impersonal physical and mental processes whose interaction creates the illusion of self are impermanent and cause suffering. This paragraph lists some of the realizations and insights the Buddha had. These include the ability to remember all "past lifetimes", to see the causal connections between them, and the Four Truths: life is dissatisfaction/frustration (duhkha), the cause of duhkha is desire and ignorance (illusion), and that there is a path to end duhkha and reach nirvana. All things with form are entirely interdependent on each other, nothing arises in existence on its own without the existence of all else (not meaning physical objects, but experiences, perceptions, and feelings, etc). Only Nirvana is independent, as it is "formless". There is no persisting self, only mental and physical process which create the illusion of self, and thus duhkha. In contrast to the other main Indian tradition, the Upanishadic, which emphasizes the identity of self, substance, and transcendental Absolute, the Buddha emphasized that there is no self, that everything without exception arises and passes away according to conditions, and hence there is no personal or impersonal Absolute. The Buddha's mostly impromptu talks were in response to questions, but there were some questions he would not answer, because they "are not conducive to enlightenment." These included whether or not the world had an origin or will have an end, whether or not it is finite, whether or not a Buddha exists after death, and whether or not the life-principle (jiva) is identical with the body. Buddhism postulates no "golden age" of plenitude before a fall into the suffering of history and self- consciousness, and therefore harbors no dream of returning to any such pure origin. There is no attempt to explain (and without a God there is no need to explain) suffering as a result of original sin; nor is there any Last Judgment. Buddhism contrasts with other Indian philosophies that assert a transcendental Absolute, or Universal Impersonal Self (my own personal spiel: "No Self" and "Universal Impersonal Self" are two pointers to the same non-thing. They are both the "groundless ground" of existence and "groundless ground" of the supposed "self"). Most of the Buddha's talks were dialogues, answering others questions, and he often did not answer those questions not pertaining to enlightenment. The Buddha emphasized that he who understands pratitya-samutpada understands the dharma [his teaching], and vice-versa."Dependent-origination" explains our experience by locating all phenomena within a set of twelve factors, each conditioned by and conditioning all the others. The twelve links of this chain (which integrates shorter chains that the Buddha elaborated on different occasions) are traditionally explained as follows: The presupposition of the whole process is (1) ignorance. Our basic problem is ignore-ance, because something about experience is overlooked in the rush to gratify desires. Due to this ignorance, (2) volitional tendencies from a person's previous lifetime survive physical death and tend to cause a new birth. The original Sanskrit term samskarah is especially difficult to translate; literally something like "preparation, get up," it refers to acts of will associated with particular states of mind. The continuation of these volitional tendencies explains how rebirth is possible without a permanent soul or persisting self: they survive physical death to affect the new (3) consciousness that arises when they influence a fertilized egg to cause conception. But there is no substance here: both volitional tendencies and the resulting rebirth-consciousness are impermanent, conditioned by earlier factors and conditioning later ones, in an apparently ceaseless cycle. Conception causes (4) mind-body,the fetus, to grow, which develops (5) the six sense-organs, including the mental organ of mind understood as that which perceives mental objects. The sense-organs allow (6) contact between each organ and its respective sense-object, giving rise to (7) sensation which leads to (8) craving for that sensation. Craving causes (9) grasping or attachment to life in general. Such clinging is traditionally classified into four types: clinging to pleasure, to views, to morality and external observances, and to belief in a soul or self. This classification is striking because it denies any difference in kind between physical sense grasping and mental attachment; it is the same problematic tendency that manifests in all four. Grasping leads to (10) becoming, the tendency after physical death to be reborn, causing (11) another birth and therefore (12) old age and death and the suffering associated with them. And so the cycle continues. Conceptual framework of pratitya-samutpada, the interdependence of all "things" on each other (not "things" in the materialistic sense of the word but in the experiential sense). See the Twelve Nidanas wiki article for more information. Basically, my understanding is that we, in ignorance, assume things to be true about reality, and this gives rise to cycle of birth and rebirth, and with it suffering. These twelve links are usually understood to describe three lifetimes: the first two factors give causes from the past that have led to our present existence; the next five are their effects in the present; the following three are causes in the present life that will lead to another birth; the last two are their effects in a future life. However, these three "lifetimes" have also been taken metaphorically, as referring to the various factors conditioning every moment of our existence. In neither case is ignorance a "first cause" that began the whole process in some distant past. Although ignorance is presented as if it were a precondition, the important point is that there is no first-cause. All the twelve factors are interdependent, each conditioning all the others, and there is no reference in Buddhism to some past time before this cycle was operating. In response to the problem of how rebirth can occur without a permanent soul or self that is reborn, rebirth is explained as a series of impersonal processes, which occur without any self that is doing or experiencing them. In one Pali sutra, a monk asks the Buddha to whom belong, and for whom occur, the phenomena described in pratitya- samutpada. The Buddha rejects that question as misguided; from each factor as its preconditions arises another factor; that is all. Duhkha occurs without there being anyone who causes or experiences the duhkha. The Twelve Nidanas are split into those that have led to our present experience, our present experience itself, and our present experiences effect on future lives. All Twelve Nidanas are interdependent of each other, there is no literal "first cause" in the distant past that gave rise to the process. Additionally, all of these processes are impersonal, occurring without a self. There is only duhkha, and not an experiencer of duhkha (the experiencer of duhkha is an experience in and of itself). When the Buddha died he did not appoint a successor: "let the dharma be your guide." Predictably, and "according to a law that can be formalized," that dharma was soon canonized from a guide (a raft that can be used to cross the river of suffering, but not afterwards to be carried around on our backs, to use the Buddha's own analogy) into an onto-theology. Within a few generations, the Buddha's clearly non-metaphysical approach yielded to the desire to abstract an abhidharma or "higher dharma" from his extensive and repetitious talks. Since the sense-of-self is due to interaction among the various factors constituting pratitya-samutpada, the abhidharmikas concluded that reality is plural: what exists are these various elements, which they enumerated and classified. This process of extricating a core-teaching transformed the Buddhist path of liberation into an atomism nonetheless onto-theological: in place of the one substance of Vedanta, Buddhism was now understood to assert that there are in effect innumerable substances. The teachings of the Buddha were distorted after his death, and instead of being only a practical guide to the end of suffering, became a theology making assertions as to the metaphysical nature of reality. The reaction to this philosophical development and other tendencies was the development of Mahayana, a revolution as important to Buddhism as the Protestant Reformation for Christianity, although curiously split into apparently incompatible directions: in popular religious terms, the paradigmatic but very human Buddha (when asked whether he was a man or a god, he answered: "I am a man who has awakened.") was elevated into a metaphysical principle, in fact the ground of the universe, and granted a pantheon of bodhisattvas who help others attain salvation. Philosophically, however, there was a thorough-going self-deconstruction of the Buddhist teachings that has continued to reverberate through all subsequent Buddhist thought, so radical and influential it has never been completely re-appropriated. The locus classicus of this Madhyamika school is in the Mulamadhyamikakarika (hereafter "MMK") of Nagarjuna, who is believed to have lived in the first century A.D. The MMK offers a systematic analysis of all the important philosophical issues of its time, not to solve these problems but to demonstrate that any possible philosophical solution is self-contradictory or otherwise unjustifiable. This is not done to prepare the ground for Nagarjuna's own solution: "If I were to advance any thesis whatsoever, that in itself would be a fault; but I advance no thesis and so cannot be faulted." [Vigrahavyavartani, verse 29] The best way to bring out the similarities and differences between Nagarjuna and Derrida is to consider separately what the MMK says about sunyata, nirvana and the two-truths doctrine. More about the history of Buddhism after the Buddha's death. The Buddha was elevated into something of a God, despite asserting that he was just "a man who has awakened". The Madhyamika school of Buddhism's text Mulamadhyamikakarika (MMK) was written in the 1st century AD, and asserted that any philosophical solution is self-contradictory or unjustifiable (thus returning to the original teachings). Sunyata The spiritual conquerors have proclaimed sunyata to be the exhaustion of all theories and views; those for whom sunyata is itself a theory they declared to be incurable. The feeble-minded are destroyed by the misunderstood doctrine of sunyata, as by a snake ineptly seized or some secret knowledge wrongly applied. We interpret pratitya-samutpada as sunyata. Sunyata is a guiding, not a cognitive, notion, presupposing the everyday. [MMK, XII:8, XXIV:11,18] The first verse of the MMK proclaims its thoroughgoing critique of being: "No things whatsoever exist, at any time or place, having risen by themselves, from another, from both or without cause." Paralleling the post-structuralist radicalization of structuralist claims about language, Nagarjuna's argument merely brings out more fully the implications of pratitya-samutpada, showing that dependent-origination should rather be understood as "non-dependent non-origination." Pratitya-samutpada does not teach a causal relation between entities, because the fact that these twelve factors are mutually dependent means that they are not really entities; none could occur without the conditioning of all the other factors. In other words, none of the twelve phenomena -- which are said to encompass everything -- self-exists because each is infected with the traces of all the others: none is "self-present" for they are all sunya. Or, better: that none is self- present is the meaning of sunya. Again, the important terms sunya and its substantive sunyata are very difficult to translate. They derive from the root su which means "to be swollen," both like a hollow balloon and like a pregnant woman; therefore the usual English translation "empty" and "emptiness" must be supplemented with the notion of "pregnant with possibilities." (Sprung's translation uses the cumbersome "absence of being in things.") Rather than sunyata being solely a negative concept, however, Nagarjuna emphasizes that it is only because everything is sunya that any change, including spiritual transformation, is possible. Sunyata is roughly translated as emptiness, which is itself "full with possiblities". MMK asserts that Sunyata is pratitya-samutpada, or that formlessness is form, everything is nothing, etc. All of the Twelve Nidanas are merely conceptual constructs, having no real existence on their own, they are inherently empty. They do not have any self-existence, independent of all else. Ultimately, all theories are untrue. Both to say a thing "exists" and to say a thing "does not exist", misses the mark. The point of sunyata is to deconstruct the self-existence/self- presence of things. Nagarjuna was concerned not only about the supposedly self-sufficient atomic elements of the Abhidharma analysis, but also about the repressed,unconscious metaphysics of "commonsense," according to which the world is a collection of existing things (including us) that originate and eventually disappear. The corresponding danger was that sunyata would itself become re-appropriated into a metaphysics, so Nagarjuna was careful to warn that sunyata was a heuristic, not a cognitive notion. Although the concept of sunyata is so central to Madhyamika analysis that the school became known as sunyavada ("the way of sunya"), there is no such "thing" as sunyata. Here the obvious parallel with Derrida's differance runs deep. Sunyata, like differance, is permanently "under erasure," deployed for tactical reasons but denied any semantic or conceptual stability. It "presupposes the everyday" because it is parasitic on the notion of things, which it refutes. "If there were something not sunya there would be something sunya; but there is nothing not sunya, so how can anything be sunya?" (MMK XII:7) Likewise, to make the application of sunyata into a method would miss the point of Nagarjuna's deconstruction as much as Derrida's. Derrida is concerned that we not replace the specific, detailed activity of deconstructive reading with some generalized idea about that activity that presumes to comprehend all its different types of application. For Nagarjuna, however, sunyata aims at "the exhaustion of all theories and views" because he has another ambition, as we shall see; the purpose of sunyata is to help us "let-go" of our concepts, in which case we must let-go of the concept of sunyata as well. Sunyata ought not be adopted as a model of reality, rather it is offered as a practical approach for individuals to discover or learn things themselves, or rather to unlearn all things and let go of all concepts (including sunyata itself). Sunyata is used in concession to the notion of existence of "things" to encourage one to go beyond things and concepts into no-mind, or non-conceptual awareness (rather than just answering all questions with silence). For both, differance/sunyata is a "non-site" or "non-philosophical site" from which to question philosophy itself. But, as Derrida emphasizes, the history of philosophy is the metaphysical re- incorporation of such non-sites. Nagarjuna warned, as strongly as he could, that sunyata was a snake which, if grasped at the wrong end, could be fatal; yet that is precisely what happened -- repeatedly -- in later Buddhism. If "those for whom sunyata is itself a theory" are "incurable", the question why so many people seem to be incurable must be addressed. The other important philosophical school of Mahayana Buddhism was Yogacara, which became known as the "Mind-only" (Vijnanavada) school. I shall not review the controversies about whether or not Yogacara is an idealism (therefore a reversion to logocentrism) and how compatible it is with Madhyamika, except to emphasize that its methodology was different: rather than offering a logical analysis of philosophical categories, it attempted to work out the implications of certain meditative experiences. But later Chinese permutations of Yogacara did effect such a philosophical "transcendentalization" of "Mind" and "Buddhanature", which had occurred even earlier on the popular level. Thus what happened in Buddhism parallels what occurred in other traditions such as Yoga and Vedanta in India, Taoism in China: contrary to what we might expect, in each case the theistic and devotional tendency evolved relatively late, for the most part after the philosophical developments that are of greater intellectual interest. Perhaps this is a warning to those such as Kant who believe in philosophical progress. Is eternal vigilance the price of freedom from onto-theology, as Derrida implies? Later schools of Buddhism often fell trap to adopting sunyata as a Universal Truth. Another philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism was Yogacara, which focused more on meditative experiences than philosophy. It is interpreted by some as philosophical idealism (and thus, is another assertion of the metaphysical nature of reality which is conceptual and thus, ultimately flawed). Buddhism, like many other early philosophical teachings, became distorted as dogmatic religion. Saussure taught that meaning in a linguistic system is a function not of any straightforward relationship between signifier and signified, but of a complex set of differences. Barthes pointed out that the text is a tissue of quotations, not a line of words releasing the single "theological" meaning of an author-god but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings blend and/or clash. Derrida shows that the meaning of such a line of words can never be completely fulfilled, hence the text never attains self-presence; the continual circulation of signifiers signifies that meaning has no firm foundation or epistemological ground. What would we end up with if we extrapolated these claims about textuality to the whole universe? Nagarjuna's logical and epistemological analysis did not appeal to the Chinese, who preferred a more metaphysical (and therefore onto-theological) way to express the interconditionality of all phenomena: the metaphor of Indra's net described in the Avatamsaka Sutra and developed in the Hua-yen school of Mahayana. Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net that has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself in infinite in all dimensions, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.... It symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mutual inter-causality. Every "individual" is at the same time the effect of the whole and the cause of the whole, and the totality is a vast, infinite body of members each sustaining and defining all the others. "The cosmos is, in short, a self- creating, self-maintaining, and self-defining organism." This world is non-teleological: "There is no theory of a beginning time, no concept of a creator, no question of the purpose of it all. The universe is taken as a given". Such a universe has no hierarchy: "There is no center, or, perhaps if there is one, it is everywhere." Deconstruction teaches a definition cannot stand on its own, it can only be (partially) understood in relation to all other definitions, which ultimately leads to circularity. There is no ultimate ground on which to base all meaning. Applied to reality as a whole (as done in the metaphor of Indra's Net), all individual supposed "entities" are themselves completely dependent on all else, and vice versa. There is not one separate ultimate entity which created all else for some purpose, rather everything is the creation of itself, and within each individual is the whole itself. Any distinction of "this" being "not that", is ultimately untrue/ illusory. (This of course is a theory/concept and therefore does not go in accordance with sunyata). If "even today the notion of a center lacking any structure represents the unthinkable itself" [8] (Writing and Difference, 279), is Indra's Net an "unthinkable structure"? Nagarjuna would not accept such an onto- theological trope, for obvious reasons, but the metaphor is not without value. Of Grammatology criticizes the system of s'entendre-parler [hearing/understanding-oneself speak] which has "produced the idea of the world, the idea of world-origin, arising from the difference between the worldly and the non-worldly, the outside and the inside, ideality and non-ideality, universal and non-universal,transcendental and empirical, etc." [8] In Indra's Net those categories and binary oppositions do not apply. That this "textuality" extends beyond language means that right now you are reading more than the insights of Nagarjuna and Derrida, and more than the effects of Professor Coward's invitation to contribute this paper: for in this page is the entire universe. The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh makes the point better than I can: "If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow, and without trees we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either... If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, nothing can grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too... You cannot point out one thing that is not here -- time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper... As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it." Again, the whole is contained within each supposed individual part. Nothing exists on its own, and you can't separate one thing from the rest of existence. To emphasize Nagarjuna's point, the metaphor of Indra's Net does not actually refer to our interdependence, for that would presuppose the existence of separate things which are related together. Rather, just as every sign is a sign of a sign, so everywhere there are only traces and those traces are traces of traces. Absolute infinity. If such is the case here and now, there is nothing that needs to be attained or could be lost; in that sense it is a past that has always been present. Then what is our problem? Why do we suffer? Buddhism provides no "first cause" to explain duhkha, but accounts for our dissatisfaction by referring it back to the delusive sense-of-self which is a manifestation of this web yet feels separate from it. The difficulty is that to the extent I feel separate I am insecure, for the ineluctable trace of nothingness in my fictitious (because not self-existing/self-present) sense- of-self is experienced as a sense-of-lack; in reaction, the sense- of-self becomes preoccupied with trying to become self-existing/ self-present, in one or another symbolic fashion. The tragic irony is that the ways we attempt to do this cannot succeed, for the delusive sense-of- self can never expel the trace of lack that constitutes it; while in the most important sense we are already self-existing, insofar as the infinite set of differential traces that constitutes each of us is the whole Net. "The self-existence of a Buddha is the self-existence of this very cosmos. The Buddha is without a self- existent nature; the cosmos too is without a self-existent nature." (MMK XXII:16) I think this touches on the enduring attraction of logocentrism and onto-theology, not just in the West but everywhere: Being means security, the grounding of the self, whether it is experiencing God immediately or intellectually sublimated into a metaphysical arche. We want to meet God face-to-face, or see our essential Buddha- nature, but trace/sunyata means we never catch it. The sense-of-self wants to gain nirvana/enlightenment, but trace/sunyata means it can never attain it. The problem, again, is our desire for self-presence, and emphasis here is as much on the self- as on the -presence. Then the solution somehow has to do with not-catching, with no longer needing to bring these fleeting traces to self-presence. It is the difference between a bad-infinity and a good-infinity: a shift in perspective that changes everything. Subhuti: How is perfect wisdom [prajnaparamita] marked? The Lord: It has non-attachment for its mark....To the extent that beings take hold of things and settle down in them, to that extent there is defilement. But no one is thereby defiled. And to the extent that one does not take hold of things and does not settle down in them, to that extent can one conceive of the absence of I-making and mine-making. In that sense can one form the concept of the purification of beings, i.e., to the extent that they do not take hold of things and do not settle down in them, to that extent there is purification. But no one is therein purified. When a Bodhisattva courses thus, he courses in perfect wisdom. [10] Everything is as it is and there is nothing to do. Then why suffering? The problem is in trying to hold up the delusive sense of self (as an entity separate from the all-that-is), which is ultimately impossible as the self's existence is a distortion of ultimate Truth. Instead we must drop desires and expectations, and the sense of self-hood and existence. With that comes absolute freedom, and no sense of lack or suffering (for there is nothing to be gained or lost, only pure being remains). The most famous line in the Diamond Sutra encapsulates this as an injunction:"Let the mind come forth without fixing it anywhere." Nagarjuna sees the consequences of all this:"When there is clinging perception (upadane), the perceiver generates being. When there is no clinging perception, he will be freed and there will be no being." (MMK XXVI:7) As long as I am motivated by lack, I will seek to real-ize myself by fixating on ("settling down in") something that dissolves in my grasp, for everything is an elusive trace of traces. Lack is "the hunger for/of self" which seeks fulfillment in "the absolute phantasm" of "absolute self-having." We must allow things to be as they are, arising and passing in awareness, rather than clinging to good things or resisting bad things. With this effort comes the sense of self, and the suffering that accompanies it. Dropping all effort results in freedom. What might a Buddhist teacher, concerned to help his students realize this freedom, say about Derrida's deconstruction? That Derrida's freedom is too much a textual freedom, that it is overly preoccupied with language because it seeks liberation through and in language -- in other words, that it is logocentric. The danger is not only that we will try to find a "fully meaningful" symbol to settle down with, but that we will live too much symbolically, inscribed within an endless recirculation of concepts even if we do not grasp at the ones that are supposed to bring Being into our grasp. This becomes a source of duhkha because we still retain a ground: in language as a whole. It is the difference between a restricted and a general economy. One must go beyond deconstruction of just language, beliefs, concepts, and deconstruct reality and being as a whole, by transcending language, beliefs, and concepts themselves. The two truths The teaching of the Buddhas is wholly based on there being two truths: that of a personal everyday world and a higher truth which surpasses it. Those who do not clearly know the true distinction between the two truths cannot clearly know the hidden depths of the Buddha's teaching. Unless the transactional realm is accepted as a base, the surpassing sense cannot be pointed out; if the surpassing sense is not comprehended nirvana cannot be attained. [MMK XXIV:8-10]. "First enlightenment, then the laundry". Contained within the Absolute is all of our every-day, relative points of view. At the end of "The Ends of Man," Derrida declares the importance of a double strategy: on the one hand, to "attempt an exit and a deconstruction without changing terrain," which uses the instruments of language against language; at the risk of ceaselessly consolidating at a deeper level that which one allegedly deconstructs. On the other hand, to "decide to change terrain, in a discontinuous and irruptive fashion, by brutally placing oneself outside, and by affirming an absolute break and difference"; at the risk, again, of inhabiting more naively than before that which one claims to have deserted, for "language ceaselessly reinstates the new terrain on the oldest ground." [12] Derrida speaks repeatedly about "the necessity of lodging oneself within traditional conceptuality in order to destroy it," for "we cannot give up this metaphysical complicity without also giving up the critique we are directing against this complicity." [13] The resources to make one's critique of metaphysics must be borrowed from that which one wants to undo. Notice, however, that both strategies are threatened by the same fate: the metaphysical dilemma is between reinscribing the new on the old terrain or having one's new terrain be reinscribed on the old, a negligible difference. The danger is being trapped somewhere within language; the possibility is "the joyous affirmation of the play of the world and of the innocence of becoming, the affirmation of a world of signs without fault, without truth, and without origin which is offered to an active interpretation" [14] -- a Nietzsche-like but only textual liberation from Being. The difference is between being stuck somewhere within language and being free within language. Lyotard defines postmodernism as suspicion of all meta-narratives, yet it is when we think we are escaping meta-narratives that we are most susceptible to them. This is the basic problem not only with "discontinuous and irruptive" works such as Anti-Oedipus but also with such "non-metaphysical" theories such as empiricism, pragmatism and, even more fundamentally, the unconscious metaphysics that passes as "commonsense." [15]Nagarjuna's analyses address the main philosophical theories of his day, but his real target is that automatized, sedimented metaphysics disguised as the world we live in. If philosophy were merely the sport of philosophers, one could ignore it, but we have no choice in the matter. "It was a Greek who said, 'If one has to philosophize, one has to philosophize; if one does not have to philosophize, one still has to philosophize (to say it and think it). One always has to philosophize.'" The fundamental categories of "everydayness" are self-existing/self-present things -- including us -- that are born, change, and eventually pass away; in order to explain the relations among these things, space, time and causality are also necessary. And the vehicle of this commonsense metaphysics, creating and sustaining it, is language, which presents us with a set of nouns (self-subsistent things) that have temporal and causal predicates (arise, change and disappear). But, given that we find ourselves inscribed within language -- that "language has started without us, in us and before us" ("Denegations") -- how shall we proceed? Thus the double strategy of Buddhism, the "two truths." On the one hand, language must be used to expose the traps of language: in addition to Nagarjuna's deconstruction of self-existent things, there are, for example, all the binary dualisms (purity vs. impurity, life vs. death, being vs. nothingness, success vs. failure, men vs. women, self vs. other) whereby we "tie ourselves without a rope" as we vainly try to valorize one half and reject the other. The danger with this strategy is that, as long as my sense-of-lack motivates me to seek Being in some sublimated form, I shall escape from one trap merely to fall into another. So the other strategy is a more disruptive one: a "higher" or "surpassing truth" which points beyond language and therefore beyond truth, raising the question of "the truth of truth" and the very possibility of truth in philosophy. In "Of an Apocalyptic Tone Recently Adopted in Philosophy" Derrida analyzes Kant's critique of certain "self-styled mystagogues" and questions Kant's attempt to distinguish what they do from what he does. If such mystagogery is due to a deterioration in the true essence of philosophy, then the problem is that philosophy lost its first signification very early, since Kant must distinguish between Plato the "good" Academician and Plato the presumed author of the letters, "the father of the delirium, of all exaltation in philosophy." It is another instance where a pure origin turns out to be already infected with the supplement that supposedly corrupts it. But Derrida is more interested in the truce Kant proposes between the two parties: a concordat acknowledging that the difference between them is their different manner of presenting the same moral law. Philosophy didactically leads the moral law in us back to distinct concepts according to logic, whereas the other procedure is to personify this moral law in an esthetic manner. Derrida wonders whether this really exorcises the "apocalyptic tone" that Kant found objectionable in the "mystagogues," or rather reveals it within Kant's own discourse: Can't we say then that all the receiving parties of such a concordat are the subjects of eschatological discourses?... if Kant denounces those who proclaim that philosophy is at an end for two thousand years, he has himself, in marking a limit, indeed the end of a certain type of metaphysics, freed another wave of eschatological discourses in philosophy. His progressivism, his belief in the future of a certain philosophy, indeed of another metaphysics, is not contradictory to this proclamation of ends and of the end. And I shall now start again from this fact: from then on ... the West has been dominated by a powerful program that was also an untransgressible contract among discourses of the end. The theme of history's end and of philosophy's death represent only the most comprehensive, massive, and assembled forms of this. Derrida acknowledges the differences between Hegelian, Marxist and Nietzschean eschatology: But aren't these differences measured as gaps or deviations in relation to the fundamental tonality of this Stimmung audible across so many thematic variations? Haven't all the differences taken the form of a going-one-better in eschatological eloquence, each newcomer, more lucid than the other, more vigilant and more prodigal too than the other, coming to add more to it: I tell you this in truth; this is not only the end of this here but also and first of that there, the end of history, the end of the class struggle, the end of philosophy... And whoever would come to refine, to tell the extreme of the extreme, namely the end of the end, the end of ends, that the end has always already begun, that we must still distinguish between closure and end, that person would, whether wanting to or not, participate in the concert. For that is also the end of the metalanguage concerning eschatological language. And so we can ask ourselves if eschatology is a tone, or even the voice itself. Isn't the voice always that of the last man? We do not need to ask where Derrida himself fits into all this. The tone Derrida identifies within all Western philosophical discourse is even more audible from outside, especially from the Indian (including Buddhist) tradition which, in contrast, consists of a set of more-or-less distinct schools that developed side-by-side, as commentators added their notes to sub-commentaries to commentaries on sacred texts. From the Western perspective, the Asian respect for tradition (e.g., Confucian gerontocracy) may look and often is stultifying, but from the other side the Western need to revolutionize tradition is the tradition. Despite recent critiques of Oedipus and patriarchy, there is still the same tendency to kill the father; and, as Derrida implies, to kill the myth of Oedipus is to re-enact the myth. I think Derrida's phrase puts a finger on it: whence this need to be "the last man"? The one who stands on everyone else's shoulders, on whose shoulders no one stands, with whom history stops, through whom signifiers do not recirculate because his/hers grasp the Truth? Why is it that philosophers can accept their own physical death more readily than the refutation of their ideas? The issue, as we are beginning to understand, is that there are many ways to seek Being. Whoever takes on the apocalpytic tone comes to signify, if not tell, you something. What? The truth, of course, and to signify to you that it reveals the truth to you; the tone is the revelator of some unveiling in process... Truth itself is the end, the destination, and that truth unveils itself is the advent of the end. Truth is the end and the instance of the Last Judgment. And that is why there would not be any truth of the apocalypse that is not the truth of truth. Nietzsche and Heidegger point out that nihilism is the essence of metaphysics because metaphysics seeks to ground itself in being and therefore is preoccupied with nonbeing; the truth, for them, is that there is no such ground. The problem with this realization is that even such apparently modest truth claims are just as much an attempt to ground oneself in Being, and therefore are disrupted by the inability of language to attain any self-presence in the sublimated form of self-contained meaning. Even as "the secret is that there is no secret," so for Buddhism the "higher truth" (and now we shall make it the lower truth) is that there is no truth (and now we can appreciate why it is necessary to accept the "transactional realm" in order to point to the surpassing truth: that is, why Nagarjuna insists there are two truths). There is no problem with "your lunch is in the refrigerator," but there is a problem insofar as philosophy is our attempt to grasp the concepts that grasp Being. If the truth is that conceptual place where we may rest, the search for truth is also the search for that which will fill up our lack, and philosophy is the conceptual attempt to find God in the net of our concepts. Then philosophy can never escape its apocalyptic tone insofar as its destiny is to seek truth. If it were possible for our sense-of-lack to be resolved, for our bad-infinity to be transformed into a good- infinity, then truth too would be transformed: from nothing (our lack allows us no rest) into everything. According to a famous Zen story, the Buddha sat before a large audience who expected him to speak, but he said nothing, twirling a flower between his fingers. No one "understood" except Mahakasyapa, who "cracked a smile" -- whereupon the Buddha acknowledged his realization. "Shall we continue, in the best apocalyptic tradition, to denounce the false apocalypses? " [59]. The fact -- the truth -- is that all philosophy, including Derrida's and including mine, cannot escape this apocalyptic "tone" insofar as it is motivated by sublimated lack. And not just philosophy. Derrida wonders if the apocalyptic tone is "a transcendental condition of all discourse, of all experience itself, of every mark or of every trace." And not only a tone: insofar as we hope to overcome our lack, we are thrust into the future, toward that awaited moment when self-presence will be gained; as Derrida implies, belief in progress, in the future itself, is a version of it. There is another way to make this point about truth, which has implications for the future of the conversation between Western philosophy and Buddhism. According to the established myth, Western philosophy begins with the Greek discovery of reason, with the emancipation of thought from myth and religion, in an awakening that (according to Plato and Aristotle) observes the world with wonder and curiosity. In India, however, philosophy is said to begin with duhkha: the fact of our suffering motivates the search for a way to end it. But this is also the origin of religion, which is why there is no sharp distinction between the two in India; the path to liberation encompasses both. From the Indian perspective, then, the originary Greek distinction between philosophy and religion is suspect; and if there is something unnatural about their bifurcation, we should expect to detect "traces" of each in the other. If their common ground is the need to end duhkha and overcome lack, we shouldn't be surprised by a religious tone, an apocalyptic urgency at the very heart of philosophy itself. No wonder, then, that a secularized rationalism will have to keep revolutionizing itself, killing its fathers: only in that way can it avoid the fact that philosophy cannot grant what is sought. Furthermore: what does this tone infecting its innermost core imply about reason? I am wondering about this: Was the discovery of reason more a matter of creating a place of self-grounding as thinking? Cogito ergo sum. Or rather trying to make thinking into such a "space" of self-grounding, given Derrida's and Buddhism's point about the impossibility of self-presence? If the larger meaning of deconstruction is that language/reason is deconstructing itself as our place of self-grounding, the full consequences of deconstruction remain to be seen. This puts us on delicate ground, since we don't want to "lose our reason" in the way that, for example, Nietzsche did. But Buddhism offers other ways to do so. Derrida concludes by announcing "an apocalypse without apocalypse, an apocalypse without vision, without truth, without revelation, of dispatches (for the 'come' is plural in itself, in oneself), of addresses without message and without destination, without sender or decidable addressee, without last judgement, without any other eschatology than the tone of the 'Come' itself, its very difference, an apocalypse beyond good and evil." A Buddhist apocalypse, congenial to any jewel in Indra's Net that isn't trying to fixate itself. "Here the catastrophe would perhaps be of the apocalypse itself, its pli and its end, a closure without end, an end without end." The sense-of-self can never fill up its sense-of-lack, but it can realize that what it seeks it has never lacked. "And what if this outside of the apocalypse was within the apocalypse? What if it was the apocalypse itself, what precisely breaks-in in the 'Come'?" Perhaps this is what we have always sought: not to become real but to realize that we don't need to become real. In the end, is there any difference between them? This section is particularly difficult to decipher… My understanding is as follows: A "realization of the absolute" implies a sense of self which was transcended. You can't transcend the self without the supposed self to transcend. The ultimate destination is the path itself. There is no escaping philosophy when making any assertion. There is no way to discuss a thing without language, which is itself not the thing. One must however not be trapped within language, but understand its limitations, while still being free to use it. Ultimately, the closest one can be to expressing truth is silence. The highest truth is that there is no truth. However, even this itself is a truth statement. So how can we even talk about this ultimate truth? It necessitates relative truths, or statements about the truth, which themselves can be deconstructed and shown to be inherently flawed. There can be no philosophy which will discredit all other philosophies and stand alone as the one true philosophy. The effort to rationally explain Being is a never ending process, each rationalization requiring further rationalizing to justify itself. Ultimately all reason and philosophy is based on a flawed premise, that there is something to explain in the first place. Nirvana There is no specifiable difference whatsoever between nirvana and the everyday world; there is no specifiable difference whatever between the everyday world and nirvana. The ontic range of nirvana is the ontic range of the everyday world. There is not even the subtlest difference between the two. That which, taken as causal or dependent, is the process of being born and passing on, is, taken non-causally and beyond all dependence, declared to be nirvana. Ultimate serenity is the coming to rest of all ways of taking things, the repose of named things; no truth has been taught by a Buddha for anyone, anywhere. [MMK, XXV:19, 20, 9, 24] The climactic chapter of the MMK addresses the nature of nirvana in order to prove that there is no transcendental-signified: since nothing is self-existent, nirvana too is sunya. The everyday world, which is the process of things being born, changing, and passing away, is for that reason a world of suffering, samsara. Yet there is no specifiable difference between this world and nirvana. There is, however, a difference of perspective, or rather a difference in the way they are "taken", which has not yet been brought out fully in our discussions of pratitya-samutpada and Indra's Net. The irony of Nagarjuna's approach to pratitya-samutpada is that its use of causation refutes causation: having deconstructed the self-existence or being of things (including us) into their conditions and interdependence, causality itself then disappears, because without anything to cause/be effected, the world will not be experienced in terms of cause and effect. Once causality has been used to refute the apparent self-existence of objective things, the lack of things to relate-together refutes causality. If things originate (change, cease to exist, etc.), there are no self-existing things; but if there are no things, then there is nothing to originate and therefore no origination. That which we are seeking (nirvana, completion, fulfillment) has no qualitative differences from our current circumstances and conditions. Our external world will not transform. The only difference will be in our way of looking at it, or rather our ceasing of looking at it in a certain way, with our interpretations and overlaid concepts. For example, after enlightenment, a "tree" remains as it is, however all of our notions of "tree" are dropped, and any attributes we assign to the tree are seen to be just that, attributes we assign to the tree, rather than being intrinsic to the tree itself (including the attribute that it is separate from us). All preconceived notions of nirvana or heaven are manmade fairy tales. There is nothing to be gained in the external world from realizing out true nature, rather there is only something to be lost (duhkha). It is because we see the world as a collection of discrete things that we superimpose causal relationships, to "glue" these things together. Therefore the victory of causality is Pyrrhic, for if there is only causality, there is no causality. This self-refutation has religious consequences: Cause-and-effect is essential to our project of attempting to secure ourselves "within" the world; its evaporation leaves behind it not chance (its dualistic opposite) but a sense of mystery, of being part of something that we can never grasp, since we are a manifestation of it. When there is no need to defend a fragile sense-of-self, such mystery is not threatening and rather than attempt to banish it one is able to yield to it. When we ask what is the cause of a thing (assuming such a thing as "cause" exists), to be intellectually accurate we must say because everything else is the way it is. Then why is everything else the way it is? Because of the thing who's cause we are investigating in the first place? If all things have a cause, this leads to an infinite regress of causes, which itself begs the question, what caused that? When all concepts are transcended, we are left with absolute mystery. This is scary to a self-existing entity, but when that itself is transcended we are free from worry or sense of threat. In Derridean terms, the important thing about causality is that it is the equivalent of textual differance in the world of things. If differance is the ineluctability of textual causal relationships, causality is the differance of the "objective" world. Nagarjuna's use of interdependence to refute the self-existence of things is equivalent to what Derrida does for textual meaning, as we have seen. But Nagarjuna's second and reverse move is one that Derrida doesn't make: the absence of any self-existing objects refutes causality/differance. The aporias of causality are well known; Nagarjuna's version points to the contradiction necessary for a cause-and-effect relationship: the effect can be neither the same as the cause nor different from it. If the effect is the same as the cause, nothing has been caused; if it is different, then any cause should be able to cause any effect. In deconstruction, when a text's meaning is interpreted, it immediately necessitates the consideration of all other textual meanings. This parallels with Nagarjuna's assertions on the interdependence of all things. Nagarjuna goes one step further and negates the existence of all objects for which any causal relation or dependency could apply to. Therefore pratitya-samutpada is not a doctrine of "dependent origination" but an account of "non- dependent non-origination." It describes, not the interaction of realities, but the sequence and juxtaposition of "appearances" -- or what could be called appearances if there were some non-appearance to be contrasted with. Origination, duration and cessation are "like an illusion, a dream, or an imaginary city in the sky." (MMK VII:34) What is perhaps the most famous of all Mahayana scriptures, the Diamond Sutra, concludes with the statement that "all phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow, like dew and lightning." As soon as we abolish the "real" world, "appearance" becomes the only reality, and we discover a world scattered in pieces, covered with explosions; a world freed from the ties of gravity (i.e., from relationship with a foundation); a world made of moving and light surfaces where the incessant shifting of masks is named laughter, dance, game. For both Nietzsche and Buddhism, our way of trying to solve a problem turns out to be what maintains the problem. We try to "peel away" the apparent world to get at the real one, but that dualism between them is our problematic delusion, which leaves, as the only remaining candidate for real world, the apparent one -- a world whose actual nature has not been noticed because we have been so concerned to transcend it. This allows us to see more clearly how "everydayness" and "commonsense" are not alternatives to metaphysical speculation but a disguised -- because automatized and unconscious -- version of it. As Berkeley pointed out, no one has ever experienced matter; from the other side, it is "commonsense" that is idealistic in postulating minds-inside-bodies; as Nagarjuna would emphasize, the refutation of either does not imply the truth of the other. One such "appearance" -- no more or less so than anything else -- is what is called "a Buddha." Derrida points to the "hyperessentiality," the being (or nonbeing -- an hypostatized sunyata can work as well) beyond Being whose trace lingers in most negative theologies, infecting them with a more subtle transcendental-signified. Nagarjuna is also sensitive to this issue. Like other negative theologies, Nagarjuna begins by dedicating the MMK to the Buddha, but then he devotes the most important chapter to proving that there can be no such thing as a Buddha, just as there is no other self-present transcendental-signified. The serenity (or "beatitude": sivah) we seek is the coming-to-rest of all ways of taking things, the repose of named things (sarvopalambhopasamaprapanc- opasamah). His commentator Candrakirti (7th C.) glosses this verse: "the very coming to rest, the non-functioning, of perceptions as signs of all named things, is itself nirvana... When verbal assertions cease, named things are in repose; and the ceasing to function of discursive thought is ultimate serenity." [20] Contrast this to Derrida's problematization of the difference between signifier and signified: "from the moment that one questions the possibility of such a transcendental signified, and that one realizes that every signified is in the position of a signifier, the distinction between signified and signifier becomes problematical at its root." [21] For Derrida, what is problematic is the relationship between name and concept; so it is not surprising that he concludes with an endless recirculation of concepts. But notice what is signifier and what is signified, for Candrakirti: the non-functioning of perceptions as signs for named things is nirvana. The problem is not merely that language acts as a filter, obscuring the nature of things. Rather, names are used to objectify perceptions into the "self-existing" things we perceive as books, tables, trees, you and me. In other words, the "objective" world of material things, which interact causally "in" space and time, is metaphysical through-and-through. It is this metaphysics that most needs to be deconstructed, according to Buddhism, because this is the metaphysics, disguising itself as commonsense reality, which makes me suffer -- especially insofar as I understand myself to be such a self-existing being "in" time that will nonetheless die. [Our fundamental duhkha may be expressed as this contradiction: on the one hand, we feel that we are or should be self-existent, a self-sufficient self-consciousness,on the other hand, we know that we were born, are growing old, and will die.] The important thing in Buddhism is that the coming-to-rest of our using names to take perceptions as self-existing objects actually deconstructs the "objective" everyday world. Since that world is as differential, as full of traces, as the textual discourse Derrida works on, the Buddhist response is to use those differences/deferrals to deconstruct that objectified world, including ourselves, since we sub-jects are the first to be ob-jectified. If there are only traces of traces, what happens if we stop trying to arrest those elusive traces into a self-presence? If we do not take perceptions as signs of named things, the most fundamental and problematic dualism of all -- that between my fragile sense of being and the nothingness that threatens it -- is conflated; if we do not need to fixate ourselves, we unfind ourselves "in" the dream-like world that the Diamond Sutra describes, and plunge into the horizontality of moving and light surfaces where there are no objects, only an incessant shifting of masks; where there is no security and also no need for security, because everything that can be lost has been, including oneself. There are only appearances, without an actual objective reality underlying the appearances. Our language and thinking is what gives rise to the feeling and belief that there are separate, self-existing entities (including ourselves) making up reality (because any and all language implies duality). This gives rise to duhkha, for if we are separate then we have something to defend, and to fear for. When we cease making declarations, and statements about things, (or at least taking these statements to be true, accurate representations of reality, and giving them importance), and instead rest in silence and let go of effort, clinging, and resistance, and allow things to arise and pass as they are, free from interpretation… it is in that non effort that we find complete freedom and peace. In order for this to occur, however, another strategy is necessary: a discontinuous, irruptive one that does not constitute a discontinuous, irruptive one that does not constitute a different philosophical approach but a non-philosophical one because it lets-go of thoughts. I refer, of course, to the various meditative practices that are so important in Buddhism. Are such practices the "other" of philosophy, feared and ridiculed because they challenge the only ground philosophy knows? When we are not so quick to grasp at thoughts (truth as grasping the concepts that grasp Being), there is the possibility of another praxis besides conceptualization, a more unmediated way of approaching that issue. I do not see how, within language, it can be proven or disproven that we remain inscribed within the circulations of its signifiers. Derrida shows only that language cannot grant access to any self-present meaning; his methodology cannot settle the question whether our relationship to language and the so-called objective world is susceptible to a radical transformation. The other possibility is that what all philosophy seeks, insofar as it cannot escape its apocalyptic tone, may be accessible in a different fashion. The fact that other, non-conceptual forms of mental discipline and concentration have been so important, not only in Buddhism but in many other non-Western and Western traditions, suggests that we need to find out what they may contribute to these issues. Rather than trying to "figure out" how to live the good life and find ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction, the ultimate practice is "letting go" of thoughts, a non-practice. David Hawkins put it well: "Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it"… The fruits of this practice are the end of suffering, and an imperturbable, unshakable inner-peace. Nirvana.

@SuperLuigi As far as I remember depending on how old you are you can move up stages quite fast with meditation, in case you are in university and are under 25 you have good chances to move up one stage every two years when people meditate for one hour a day otherwise it takes 5 years in case you are older then 25. Wilber said in one of his audiobooks, that people do not grow anymore in these stages after they turn 25 naturally. Yet, when they turn 50 or are somewhere around 50ish years old. Then they start growing again naturally. Also, shadow work can help when people move up stages and there can be parts that are not fully integrated from previous stages or are some sort of residuals from the old stage, which can be called shadow elements. So, integrating anything that triggers you with any sort of shadow work ( I only tired one technique, which works for me) can help you to include behaviours, perceptions and emotions quite well, in a healthy way. IMO Take this "advice" with a grain of salt, I am not sure how Ken Wilbers Map and Spiral Dynamics are related or if they are the same. He references it in his audiobooks, yet by reading their descriptions they seem similar. Also, weightlifting is good for growing in these stages, so you could be growing quite fast. Still, meditation is most likely the pivotal point for growth. I can recommend the audiobooks Cosmic Consciousness for a big picture of Ken Wilbers work or for a more pratical approach ( still I do not like this audiobook ) Integral Meditation. I also enjoyed Integral Transformation, yet he mostly talks about shadow there. (All audiobooks are from Ken Wilber Also, people are not on one stage solely, they move through all the stages where they are at. Yet, people have a center of development where they gravitate towards, so you could be tapping into red on a few occasions. I notice it when I do sports or when people use their power or authority over others. Note: I am biased by only consuming things from one author, I did some free only test (which where only available in german for what ever reason) about spirial dynamics. By reading the descriptions on their site by hearing youtube video and audiobooks from Wilber the descriptions about the stages seem to be the same.

Don't only rely on one source, otherwise it will really become a cult. Actualized.org is useful to understand reality and spirituality as a sort of deconstruction or cleaning up everything until nothing remains so you can have clean view, but you also need to combine this radical non-dual approach to spirituality with other things: religions, scriptures, psychology, art, science etc. etc etc Because if you only have nothingness then you will turn ideas that people share on this forum into dogmas. Because you need ground anyway, and its important to update ground all the time. Don't follow into reductionism trap, coz model is required to navigate, you just need to update your model, never settle for anything even if you are super-enlightened. And nonduality is quite useless without traditional spirituality, modern teachings are useless without ancient teachings. Because these all are signs, maps, some better some worse. And always think for yourself, deconstruct all of that and then intuitively integrate each in one another, nothing can really be thrown away, its all has reason for existence, even if seems like archaic non-sense to you. And do this not for entertainment but well to survive spiritually, and to live like you were designed to live, and to find what you lost, and for that you need to understand what our life is about, and what is the true way, what is the narrow gate? To do that one need to think like child (have no prejudices and have 'magical' or symbolic thinking) patient, humble and mindful to his ideas, thoughts, experiences, even his 'truth-realisations', feelings, emotions, and even mindful to his mindfulness, and of course follow your silent soul within heart, its like compass without form, words, voice, it can somehow show you the way if you are mindful enough to follow it. Life is a puzzle and we are here to undertake journey, we don't really know what we are seeking, and dedicate yourself fully to the path, make it your life and mind that spiritual path is not just techniques, it is life, it is quest of life, its not just to be better person, it is really a game, a quest, a transformation from Pinocchio into a real boy, Jesus said only few will find the narrow path. While most on the path will be deceived by themselves, by their own experiences, by their own happiness.

Suicide comes up a lot here, and understandably so, our lives are often difficult and unnatural as well (no living community, we even work more than we did back in our hunter-gatherer days, we live in cities/small boxes) etc. And suicide is even the goal you could say, but not of the body, but of our attachment to ourselves as a separate body. So here's why the body/physical universe from my understanding has a purpose: - It exists. - You cannot kill the mental body (www.evidenceforthesoul.weebly.com) - In a physical body you can experience the collective human path of transformation/awakening, live a unique enlightened physical life and help and love others. - If you kill the physical body, you will be faced with the still unresolved subconscious: like the potential you still have for bad dreams: So you will then be faced with yourself, a mind reality composed of the mental tendencies of bodily/mental identification of attachment and fear. So if you cannot let go of yourself, you will probably reincarnate anyways. Not as a judgment or punishment, but out of your choice to resist the fullness of God/Self, and you'll come into another body to complete your growth process. (I once asked before I went to sleep about why I shouldn't kill myself with the intent to learn more on this: I had a realistic nightmare of being in a cathedral. Yet I knew it was also a mental realm, so I could use my power to alter the dream. Though I didn't like it there all together, the cathedral reminded me of the fear of God I think, and the raw stone of the raw reality. Then I saw a guy, and I got scared, I thought maybe he would kill or hurt me. So I tried to burn/freeze him with my mind to scare him off/kill him. I got spooked by that realization of me being a killer and I tried to run, and the people came after me imagined. Then I chased women to have sex (though I never have to rape for it in my dreams), for pleasure and it was unsatisfactory because I was still not at ease/afraid.. When I asked this again later, I also had a dream of a grown man in a baby's body, but the man was looking unconscious and a bit dumb, bewildered, frozen in unconscious fear. Which explains why some children are born very bright, and some are not. and of course Buddhism/Hinduism also talk about reincarnating depending on your level of consciousness). One last thing, a teacher I trust based on direct experience as well, namely Bashar, also says that physical life has the purpose of shaping your spirit. You have the physical life experiences under your belt after the life, and that grows you into a unique being, 'like fire to solidify clay'. And so after the physical shaping you can live forth as an (evolved) human spirit. -- Here's a cool excerpt from an awakening and of really amazing life story: And I just heard: 'For this, you're born.' I think btw suicide is different if the body is like old and sick and stuff and you do it with consciousness, you can say your goodbyes and love properly too. After all, everything is Self created, there will never be an outside source judging you. Peace

@moon777light Way bak in the day in 2016 when I was starting with my healing transformation I tried this one. It was real cool. It started opening my subconscious mind after some time in front of the mirror. I recently herd Matt Kahn mention a similar practice where youd combien his I love you practice with the mirror. You basically just stare into your eyes in the mirror, with your hand on your heart, and telling to your heart "I love you." Over and over. This is very potent especially if youre starting in this and wanna see some results! :-)

@Leo Gura no Leo I think u didn't read the article properly. God is both you and something other than you that is related to you. To choose only one of this is to adopt rational understanding of god: it's either this or that, either A or B. But oneness is both A and B, it's one and also it has two within it and infinity within it. Article points to that there is no separation but yet there are relationships inside oneness. How do you explain this relativity of oneness? Full circle is to go back to duality but now it's transcendental duality within non-duality, it's no longer a separateness of you vs world but nondual relationship of you and the world or you and the god. It's like early childhood - you don't yet have sense of self, yet you relate to your parents, you relate to the other, you even try to satisfy the other. There is no you but there is other. Stage 2 of spiral dynamics. You are one with everything but yet there is other, the other is you but also you relate to it. Otherwise there is no dynamic aspect of god, only static, and for dynamics you need to have something to relate to another thing. And you can become aware of it,its third aspect of absolute truth, its not concepts. advaita Vedanta and Buddhism are not the highest forms of spirituality, but very limited because their purpose of achieving moksha is limited itself. To pray to yourself doesn't work at all, on the other hand praying and submission to supreme god works, and it alone can lead you to enlightenment. In my humble opinion, you neglect the phenomenas of faith, devotion, prayer and worshipping to supreme God as nonsensical, but yet they can extremely speed up your progress. And they are the highest and most natural form of spirituality humanity has ever found, higher than meditation and self inquiry, because you allow god to do it's evolutionary job of enlightening you and harmonising you with the reality while you just submit, surrender to him. Just like he transformed monkeys into humans without monkeys having self-awareness and doing anything particular for that transformation, he continues to transform us. You probably don't like such classical understanding of God and think about it as mere concepts and dogmas but maybe you will understand what I'm trying to say through your own experience later on your path.

Some quotes. "NOW THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA" "YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND" "Yoga is a jump into the unknown. It will not be right to say ”unknown”; rather, ”unknowable”." "Mind is activity" "THEN THE WITNESS IS ESTABLISHED IN ITSELF. IN THE OTHER STATES THERE IS IDENTIFICATION WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE MIND." "Don't identify with the self." "Total hopelessness means now there is no hope. And when there is no hope there cannot be hopelessness." "Knowledge is the most subtle food for ego: you feel you are something. You know; you become somebody." "Yoga says ¨ and let it penetrate you very deeply because it will be very meaningful ¨C yoga says that the more you are impatient, the more time will be needed for your transformation. The more in hurry, the more you will be delayed. Hurry itself creates such a confusion that delay will result." "If you are infinitely patient, this very moment transformation can happen. If you are ready to wait forever, you may not wait even for the next moment. This very moment the thing can happen, because it is not a question of time, it is a question of your quality of the mind." "You have to drop into it, not to reach anywhere. And the dropping is possible only if you are totally patient."

15 years of the: Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Research Project (MAPS project) shows that this medicine can actually can be used to treat anxiety.... that said, if you go into the experience with a lot of worry, that may lead to a concerning journey... if you can go in with pure positive intention/ or total acceptance of anything, then the research shows that you can actually re-wire your brain to be less anxious.... Leo advocates for doing this solo... but in your case, perhaps you may want to consider volunteering for their study and have help and guidance from a psychologist? or prepping yourself for positive transformation another way? I don't know and can't "advise" you either way, but it's cool to check out their research regardless: http://psychedelicscience.org/conference/clinical/johns-hopkins-psilocybin-research-project-studies-of-mystical-experience-adverse-effects-meditation-in-healthy-volunteers-and-palliative-effects-in-cancer-patients-implications-for-spirituality-and-therapeutics http://www.maps.org/news/media/260-lsd-psilocybin-for-anxiety

Deep, I am not a guru... I am just pointing out your tendency to advice everyone and tell them what they should do, when you yourself haven't seriously considered walking on the spiritual path. I repeat, you only know what you read in some books... And you just told me what I should do. I don't need somebody else's certificate for my transformation. Whether someone believes in what I say or not, whether someone disagrees with me or not doesn't really matter. I am only interested in communicating the truth and I will be harsh if I think that it is really needed. And I remind you what I said in another post: The first step in the spiritual path is realizing that you don't know. (remember, you might have read books and understood what is said there; that doesn't mean you know)... I was exactly like you when I was 10 years old. I had read everything about enlightenment that I can lay my hands on. I used to impress people by talking about ashtanga yoga and samadhi etc when I was only 10 years old... that was in 1993.And I was full of myself . But only in 2002, I realized that I knew nothing.. And only in 2014, there was actually a transformation. Your argument sounds like a blindman arguing about colors with someone who is not blind. Once, I was a blind man too.. You are not realizing that you are arguing with a mask or a persona that is reflected in your mind..

@Deep Very good.. .. thats actually a pretty good decision That is a bold claim.. Good luck with that! Actually, it is better if you stay away from this forum. Because, you are right, you will end up in more confusion and more mental masturbation, based on how this forum is trending. So, your decision is right here. Not really sure what kind of experience you are talking about. If you explain a little bit about your experience, I can say something..But I still remember what you said in one of your posts here: And this is what you said in one of the posts: 'I'm not really seeking enlightenment. I'm just messing around because I have a lot of free time'...If someone says he is not seeking enlightenment, it only means two things: 1)His seeking has ended (he is enlightened) 2) He still has no concrete idea or even interest to pursue a spiritual path. So which one of the above is your case? Not everything in your mind happens with your conscious awareness. If that was the case, then everyone can be enlightened so easily. The reason why I even brought it up is because, it is very important to pay attention to your thought process objectively, when it comes to walking on the spiritual path. Do you think you can really read my intentions by just reading my words? Do you think that the words I have typed here somehow conveys the way I experience the reality? If you yourself are not enlightened, do you really think that you have the measuring scale to determine if someone is enlightened? My posts are not coming from the desire to be right. It is very easy to interpret it that way. I was just having an email conversation with a seeker today. And he asked me a question regarding the purpose behind my critical posts about some gurus. I will just paste my reply here; It answers the question you have asked: this question has a wrong assumption that my life is still driven by a personal purpose or a self-agenda. But all I know is, I do whatever that is required this moment. So, when I look at what happened in the past 3 years, one thing led to another and I finally ended up criticizing him, writing a book and maintaining a blog. I never thought that all this would happen and I couldn't have done all this before the transformation. Just think about a simple human nature. You see a person in the street who seems to have lost his way. He wants to go to 5th street in your neighborhood but he seems to be having trouble. A natural response of any human being here (who knows that neighborhood very well) is to ask him where he wants to go and guide him. Let us say you tell him "you are in the wrong place, 5th street is not here, you have to walk in the opposite direction and cross two more streets'; And the person replies, 'I think you must be wrong then. Because a person who knows this neighborhood in and out told me that 5th street is somewhere here'... What will you do here? You seem to be the only person who can help him. And you can't just walk away without telling him that the other person was wrong. You don't have to. I never asked anyone to believe in what I say. I only suggest two things: 1)open-mindedness 2)Skepticism My suggestion was only this, and I am stating this for the third time: Don't come to any conclusions yet. Because the nature of a human life itself is such that his conclusions get proved to be wrong again and again; and this happens a million times in the spiritual path. So, I am just telling you to proceed with an attitude of 'I don't know'... I usually remember the posts of a few members in this forum. And I can pretty much see how their thought process towards the whole thing is going. I still suspect that whatever you are saying is just 'bookish'... But let me tell you one thing if you are not aware: Enlightenment is pretty much a death. It is a psychological death that you have to go through... The words like kundalini, Brahman, Atman, God etc can be deceiving to the human mind and give hopes to the ego as if there is going to be some kind of achievement. But enlightenment is really not an achievement. Spiritual path is a game of losing. It is actually the most ordinary thing in the world. Just as a reminder, let me also quote what I told you in the other thread you created long back: "Don't come to conclusions yet... There is a long way to go.. The only sin that you can commit on the spiritual path is to coming to conclusions.. I am using the word 'sin' just to make a point, by the way. Don't conclude anything.. This is a rule of thumb you need to remember when it comes to spiritual path. You will come across many contradictions and confusions as you proceed further. There will be hundreds of moments when you will be tempted to conclude you are enlightened; and there will be hundreds of moments when you will be tempted to conclude that enlightenment is bullshit... You need to keep going non-stop, with no conclusions at all! Truth, God, Brahman, Atman, Self, Absolute, Tao etc are just different words that mean the same... It is just your true nature hidden behind the veil of ignorance." Finally, let me give you my comments on what you said in that same thread.. First, let me quote what you said: First of all, ideas about enlightenment are just ideas. The real question to ask here is 'Why do you want enlightenment? What are you actually seeking?' Seeking is actually venturing into the unknown. You are not sure what the end goal is, but all you know is that you are still seeking. That is all a seeker can really say until he is enlightened. Everything else you say are just 'ideas' that you pick up from books and other people. Enlightenment is not about just controlling the mind... Enlightenment is in one way like a peak where everything converges. You can't just define it in a paragraph... But the monkey mind indeed gets dissolved; it doesn't mean that there is a 'you' who has controlled it.. In fact, everything that you said in your message is actually true about enlightenment in some sense... But the first step in the spiritual path is, realizing that you don't know...

@BestSelf I see that the issue of self-acceptance is a recurring theme with people here. I was and still am guilty of it myself at times. You can't really do anything other than practice self-acceptance. You have to learn to love your flaws and be grateful for being able to identify them. If you can transform them into assets, do that. If not, accept them and see if you can improve on them in any way. Either way, you have to change from the inside out. If you try to just fix the external circumstances (your inadequacies) through different techniques and gimmicks, the insecurities and negative self talk will still be there after that. I was self-conscious about my sternum for most of my life. I have a condition called pectus carinatum (pidgeon chest). In the past, I wanted to do surgery in order to get rid it, but I figured I shouldn't just choose the easy way out, and thus only use it as a last resort. I started going to the gym and now, 4-5 years later, I don't have any problem with it. Personal growth has transformed the way I look at it and that's why it doesn't bother me. In the past I thought that people would laugh at me, saying that I have man boobs and things like that, but at this point in my development I wouldn't give a rat's ass about their opinion. I wouldn't want negative people like that in my life anyway. A change in mindset I think is required in order to provide lasting change. Adopt an Amor Fati attitude, as in, "one shall not want anything to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism should be mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it." For all your inadequacies are necessary. You must love them because they show you how you ought to do in the future. Do not judge them for guiding you in the right direction. In the future you will look back at your flaws smiling because they made you a stronger and better person in the present moment, they made you more equipped to handle life. Watch Leo's video on the power of self-acceptance (you can find it on youtube). Do the exercise there multiple times and you should start to see some positive change in your mental attitude. Finally, please realize that all outstanding growth comes only from a place of acceptance. A fat person shouldn't accept itself only when it has finally gotten fit. That's not transformation coming from a place of love for the body. A fat person should see the situation as it is, accept it to it's full extent, and start to change because that will lead them to having an outstanding life, not because they hate their current self and the way their body looks. I trust that you can spot the difference. Good luck!

@okulele Changing your diet radically will never work. It will just cause a yo-yo effect of binging and punishing yourself into eating less the next day. You have to find a way you can eat the foods you enjoy, eat out with friends and be able to drink alcohol without it affecting your fitness goals. You haven't learned the fundamentals yet. Let me give you an example. I am currently on a cutting phase. I want to go down about 8 kg of fat, while putting on muscle. Today, my first meal will be a chocolate cake that my roommate just brought me. And now I might hear you say.... "But Dan, how can you slim down by eating cake?". I can, because I know what energy expenditure is, because I track my calories and macros, because I do intermittent fasting and that allows me to have big, satisfying meals while still getting shredded. You have to learn the basics of nutrition, otherwise you are just banging your head against the wall. You don't have to only eat salad and lean chicken breast to get the body of your dreams. Read Eric Helm's Muscle and Strength Pyramid's books. In the picture below you can see an 8 week transformation from 2 years ago. I lost 10kg of fat there. I was eating fatty burritos every night, having a chocolate every single day, going out for drinks with my friends and much more. Once you learn the fundamentals of nutrition, you don't have to limit yourself to anything. You can eat whatever you want. Quantity is the key thing you need to track. There is no ONE healthy food. Almost no certain food is bad in and of itself. If you eat 80% clean, you can throw some candy in there. It won't make any difference. Consistency beats perfection. If you really want to eliminate specific foods from your nutrition, do it one at a time. Any more than that and it will backfire. Also, find alternatives. If you drink too many energy drinks, switch to sparkling water and so on. You get the gist. Read the books, apply what's there, maybe hop on a Kinobody program (search for that on google) and "Voila!", you have your dream body. Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask. Good luck!

Regarding the idea that there's a lot of suffering vs a lot of non-suffering based on the pleasure-pain idea isn't entirely true. In the most central aspect, there is always absolute peace/joy/safety, no matter what arises, children and animals are closer to this, the natural state is true happiness it self. Then in the relative, there is pleasure and pain, which are truly are quite dismal. - Humans are just so ignorant of source that we think our the pleasure's/pain's are what it's about, completely overlooking our self created tornado of mind suffering, which is really the issue, and which is like a self-created dream, based on the fear of the imagined future. - And experiencing incarnation(s) of forgetting of Self serve a purpose, for the unique experience of being able to experience awakening out of suffering because it makes you grow as the particular linear being. Once you are finished with the human experience, it has grown you as a spirit, being wiser, greater, unique. Also, I've had 2 glimpses of animal consciousness and it truly great: natural, free, feeling at home. So don't worry about suffering, focus on your own transformation process, the universe is you, you are good.

Everyones journey is different but typically when someone dedicates themselves towards a releasing practice, a lot of dense or gross emotions/energy can be processed first as opposed to more subtle stuff. It can feel more physical and in the body. The process is the systematic undoing of the root of the ego. The emotional reservoirs which fuel unwanted feelings and behaviors can take some time to be fully released. They come under the appearance of challenges. I say appearance because while they may seem deep and enduring, often the depth of our problems are illusions of the ego which seeks to preserve itself. Use challenges as an opportunity to marshal your focus and reaffirm your intentions of transformation. Focus on your gains and keep at it. You will experience shifts that will inspire and motivate your journey.

Meditation: The First and Last Freedom by Osho Osho's words on the discipline of meditation. Meditation is an adventure, the greatest adventure the human mind can undertake. Meditation is just to be, not doing anything--no action, no thought, no emotion. You just are and it is a sheer delight. From where does this delight come when you are not doing anything? It comes from nowhere, or it comes from everywhere. It is uncaused, because existence is made of the stuff called joy! Meditation is not an Indian method; it is not simply a technique. You cannot learn it. It is a growth: a growth of your total living, out of your total living. Meditation is not something that can be added to you as you are. It cannot be added to you; it can only come to you through a basic transformation, a mutation. It is a flowering, a growth. Growth is always from the total' it is not an addition. Just like love, it cannot be added to you. It grows out of you, out of your totality. You must grow toward meditation. https://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/Meditation/Meditation_The_First_And_Last_Freedom.pdf (Download in pdf)

He is great for beginners and also very great for understanding mythological symbolism and archetypes - this is his true strength, but in terms of advice to life, on some point on the path you will realise that you should throw away ALL advices made by psychologists. They are useless coz psychologists have zero big pic understanding of human-being and reality so they don’t know how to really grow, they can only fix some tiny problems here and there, give you instant short-term relief pills but they can’t really change psychology of human-being. Only TRUE spiritual path can. Also, JBP relies too much on his intellect, typical obstacle, Jesus didn’t use his own brains when he gave people real deal wisdom on how to be transformed, he received all the wisdom from higher planes of consciousness. That something JBP should do too in order to understand depths of human-being and life. See this is typical problem of all great scientists and artists, JBP is ready to undertake spiritual transformation but he doesn’t do it because he can’t stop his thinking process because he thinks that true knowledge about human life can be found inside his own limited mind but it’s not the case.

Everyone: A few weeks ago I made a run of some pretty scathing and barbed posts. No excuse. I was lonely on the path and looking for fellowship. Regular old monkey stuff, but here there's no excuse for things like hurting feelings or worse yet scaring off or discouraging younger folks from the most rewarding but challenging persuit within or outside of life itself. Mr. Gura said, "The horrid times are the best of times [for development]." but we must strive to prevent our defilements from leaking out and damaging others (whether you believe in such things as others/defilements or not). What I'm learning is that honest irresponsibility is still irresponsible and it has kamma (if you believe there are such things as "actions" and such). If anything, the need for not only a few little insights, but also the notion that transformation is a valuable tier of growth has been reinforced. This forum has a nice bumper crop of "beginner's mind" and we all need more of that....especially myself. Thank you and no need to accept any apology, but I can only hope it is witnessed. I just want to contribute...and share...and learn, and it is my dream that some day, i might point in some direction that could provide some much needed peace for a bunch of impermanent sensations. Here's hoping you all find relief from the pain of falsely perceiving duality. ...or worse yet, oscillation. -

@Shanmugam Jesus was enlightened but his teachings are ultimately about salvation, while enlightened life is just one important aspect of the path towards salvation. Mind that salvation in Christianity and Islam is something different than moksha, it’s salvation from Judgement day. And I will stop here because it will take way too long to explain that and my English might not be good enough to write on such nuanced topics. But it’s all about never-ending process of evolution. And it’s all really simple but very nuanced. Check out Sri Aurobindo and his disciple Mira Alfassa. They wrote tones of very dense and nuanced works on Jesus and so called ‘supramental’ transformation/evolution of humanity, and they base everything on their direct experience. If we take sources in English, I think pretty much no one, except real deal saints of the past, has understood Jesus and the whole point of spirituality and where humanity is heading to, better than Aurobindo and Alfassa.

@Jack_Clark Take it easy, love yourself more than ever before, relax into the process and know that the less you fight with it and the more you follow your intuition and what your body desires the quicker the transformation will be possible. It is going to change you on the deepest level only to make you into a divine diamond. I wish you relaxation on your journey.

The reason I ask is that I did 150 mics of LSD recently. I booked an air bnb specifically for the trip. I went into it with pretty serious intentions for personal growth and transformation. That's why I do psychedelics. And I noticed at a few points throughout the trip, this fear came up. I remember trying to rationalize why I was there. "Oh yeah, I'm John. I'm here to explore non duality and personally develop". I kept reminding myself of stuff like that. It felt like if I didn't I would get lost. I was in an air bnb on my own. There was another apartment above me. What if I got lost and started laughing too loud that they heard? Or started playing music too loud? Or you know, something like that? Also there were certain trains of thought I found myself going down that potentially led to a negative place and in turn a negative trip. Should we be willing to explore them fully? Or should we manipulate the trip a bit more to make sure it is positive?

@Saumaya I have questioned until I break all questions down to the one question..who am I? My belief is that I am soul energy expressed in a human form in this dimension. I believe that I am a piece of God or a piece of the Universe, whatever anyone wants to call it...Source Energy. I also believe that we are all one, but on this plane, we are expressed to look like individual people in a human form. I don't believe i was born in the sense people think of birth and I don't believe I will die. I believe it can be summed up that I am purely a part of the universe expressed as slow moving energy that is currently embodied as a human being. Everything is about transformation, being birthed into this human life, dying from this human form. Its just simply a transformation back into universal energy, source energy or God in it's infinite formlessness. This is my ultimate belief.....but I am open obviously to other views or ideas as not many humans that have ever lived as one have had 100% knowing to the core of their being, the answers they were seeking..