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  1. coz Islam is about fighting Being which is equal to Satan in Monotheism. Why we are in sleep-state? Why reality prevents you from waking up? Coz Being hates Consciosuness, they are enemies metaphysically. Its war, co-existence of two incompatible realities. Its a paradox that God's providential thought is about to solve, and to solve that human is created, its an instrument. But most of the time human gets fully absorbed by being and fails its task. Task of consciousness to fully triumph over being. For that True God sent instruction and political ideology because global society, global system is Being's projection or its shadow in this world. To fight that one need political ideology. While traditional spirituality (pantheism, monism, nonduality) says that Being is Supreme Being = God. Thats what Islam is against. To worship this Supreme Being because this Supreme Being even he has such attributes as light, beauty, goodness, wisdom, infinite, he is not True God. But the opposite, he is whats called Lucifer, Iblis, Satan. Greeks worshipped him as Zeus, Apollon, Iranians as Ahura Mazda, and all Hindus worship him in forms of Krishna, Vishnu, SHiva, Brahma, Ishvara etc. Christian clerics worship him as God-the-Father. Kabbalah takes him as god. and Egyptians worshipped him in many forms. 99% people of spiritual ppl of the past took him as god. He is nothing more than idol actually because Total Being itself is an Object.
  2. Materialism is a belief that reality is fundamentally made of matter and that consciousness is an emergent property of this dead, mechanical system. It tends to dismiss subjective experience as unreal while glorifying objective facts that are discovered through rational thinking. More broadly speaking, it is within the paradigm of substance dualism with the added twist of over-emphasizing the material. We're speaking from substance monoism where the substance of reality is consciousness of various densities/frequencies. Both the 'subjective' and 'objective' are forms of consciousness, but chosen arbitrarily through the identification of the egoic mind. Even if this substance is one, that does not imply that things within it can't interact. If you put your hand on the wall, it stops. This is boundedness. This is not idle intellectualism devoid of hands-on experience. Nonduality can be spoken of, but it requires skill that you seem to dismiss. OF COURSE, it is spoken of from the point of view of the egoic mind. From the point of oneness, the only thing that can be said is 'meditate'.
  3. Yeah the little voice inside keeps telling me to be quiet and not to create ideas about nonduality etc. I think it's very tempting to believe in nonduality, very dangerous
  4. It's all relative. There have been times where I did it only once a year. And there have been times where I did 13 days in a row. The more advanced you get the more often you can do it without needing a lot of integration time. They key is to be intuitive about. Don't get set any rigid or dogmatic schedule. Do it as you're called to do it. Sometimes you will not be called for months. And sometimes you'll be called to hit it hard several days back to back. The most I grew in my life was from 13 back to back days. Words cannot describe the levels of superhuman insight gained. The entire universe became known to me. I had to really force myself to do it back to back 13 times. Your mind won't want to do it that much. Most people would feel like they've gone insane. It requires a really good theoretical foundation in nonduality.
  5. @AlphaAbundance check out the channel Infinite Waters on YouTube. I believe him to be way more woke (understanding of nonduality) than much of his content may let on, because that's his business model. As for why there aren't more black people achieving high levels of awakening... just look around. African American culture is underdeveloped, mostly at spiral Dynamics stage Red and Blue. Of course this is no fault of their own, the result of systemic oppression over centuries. Like someone said above, interest in this work usually requires a certain privelege or background, and even then it's extremely rare. Yeah it's shitty and not fair, but here we are. Happy to have you!
  6. I've never had any direct mystical experiences regarding Jesus however I've loved him most all my life. The more educated I became the more I realized that that love was foolish, how does one love a dead man anyway? Silly. Then when I woke up I saw how incredibly important it had been to my path to nonduality. And then I became not Jesus, but Mary Magdalene. Ah, love. It's both the path AND the destination.
  7. It definitely needs to be reintegrated at some point, in order for one to fully realize nonduality itself. Then it likes to stick around and demand the credit for the great insight. Duality is the seductive one, you know what happens if you give a mouse a cookie...
  8. Of course you can kill yourself and become God whenever you want, no one is stopping it from you (except for people stuck in the dual and who think it is wrong) But still it is not the full answer. Duality is a a gift. It is not as boring as the nondual. That is why God decieved himself and contracted his consciousness into a person, human, or animal so he could escape himself from himself and experience the great beauty and value of a human life, the love, sorrow, hatred, jealousy, strife, suffering, bliss, gratitude of having lived as a human and having loved your loved ones, your spouse, your parents, your mother, although they are not real, but still a momentary escape to that special connection is what God wants. If you experience the non-dual while being in the dual, you can have the best of both worlds, you can have a synergestic effect. Full blown nothingness is a great thing, but living in the junction of the dual and non-dual isn't a bad experience either. And if you kill yourself again not having realized yourself, then chances are you will again decieve yourself and be reborn again into something which you intruth are actually not, and you will be running around in this duality for god knows how long untill slowly you start to question who you really are. The only reason the nondual is sought, is to take a break from the suffering of duality which might be (percieved as) unbearable. It's like in a dream a tiger is about to kill you, and awakening is like "Chill out, this is just a dream". However if you are enjoying this dream (which is the purpose of self deception, suffering is the side effect), then non-dual is useless. If in the dual you feel great because you feel like you are the most smartest, handsomest, talented etc person in the world, then nonduality destroys this dream and you are back to non duality and you go "Wow, I wish this was real. It was such a beautiful dream" Also do you see the connections between, suffering, seeking the nondual and suicide? Why do people commit suicide? To end their suffering. Why do people want a escape to the nondual? To end their suffering. Seeking nondual turns you into a God and ends suffering. Suicide turns you into a God and ends suffering. Non-dual = Suicide (of the dual) Suffering is the side effect of the pleasure of the dual. Arthur Schopenhauer used to say that humans are capable of great suffering because they are capable of great pleasure. While animals or lesser forms (which Schopenhauer calls the brutes, who live only moment to moment, suffer moment to moment and have pleasure moment to moment, contrast to that of human) can have neither or lesser of the 2, their experience is not as intense as that of the human.
  9. This body is african american and these thoughts can't find any niggas in nonduality stuff. Is it like oppression type bullshit?
  10. @tsuki Wait ur telling me thoughts/imagination isbabsolute infinity and also the true self/noself is absolute infinity? I understand that in terms of nonduality everything is absolute infinity but I hope you get what I mean. Like are thoughts, the fact that thoughts can bring up anything absolute infinity?
  11. @TrynaBeTurquoise Those who kill the body (thought, duality, relativity, materialism) but not the soul (absolute, eternal) are enlightened, there is no fear in love. The one who can destroy both the soul and body in hell, is a reference to a sleeper who has yet to seek refuge, take caution. Also, it is written to the reader directly, not about others. The sparrows in your father’s care is a reference not to assume or project human suffering onto an inner world of animals in ignorance. The hairs of your head are numbered deepens this message, as in, all is cared for in God, worry not, he made a perfect world. Then one nondual layer deeper...don’t be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows. (The rope is not a snake, and you are not a human) It’s not a statement of worth, “two sparrows” is a pointer of duality / relativity / twoness. “One penny” is a pointer to nonduality. I would not take it metaphorically, I would take it as a pointer to the truth of self & world. Nobody knows if there was a person Jesus, or if he was enlightened. In the same sense, no one knows if there is a TrynaBeTurquoise. The message, the realization matters, not any personifications or statures. Imo, it’d be ideal to save Jesus’s teachings for last. It’s very ‘hidden in plain sight’ ‘nothing is hidden from you’ ish. The Dharma, Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, and quantum mechanics might be ideal preceding teachings to grasp the Gospels. Everybody’s different though, so who knows.
  12. @Avi Tal "I have a (very close) relative which is (hopefully) recovering from high grade cancer. I would like to help her get enlightened, mainly (but not only) because I assume it will help her recover quicker. A little about my (objective model) self: I am a software engineer, 51 years old. I consider myself "mostly enlightened", since I still have negative thoughts from time to time, mostly around financial issues (which I concisely know they are fictitious)." Ok, I can tell straight away from your phraseology that you have a couple of wrong ideas about enlightenment. It is extremely hard to become enlightened and takes an incredible amount of effort, work and dedication. Most people will never become enlightened, and for those who do...very very seldom is it that they lead many others to complete enlightenment also. However im guessing that your just trying to help her... meditation has been shown to enhance physical health. (Also, bro, enlightenment isint measured by how many "negative" thoughts you have haha) If she isn't responding well to all of this stuff then maybe it's not for her. Try keeping it more simple, and "down to earth" sounding. Instead of jumping straight to the nonduality card...just tell her that you've been doing some research about meditation and how it helps. It's all about gentleness and wisdom. You have to please her ego to reach the Spirit. And you have to remember, this is just God playing with God... From the sounds of it, you need to do a shitton more actual work for yourself. This is what I had to do. Your mind will make all kinds of bullshit up about enlightenment. I listen to the still small voice that tells me "stay quiet"
  13. Science and Nonduality https://www.youtube.com/user/scienceandnonduality
  14. You likely have had some direct non-dual experience. Have you ever been so immersed in something that you lost track of yourself and time? Perhaps being in a flow state while playing a sport or musical instrument. Perhaps being in awe while observing a night sky. Perhaps a moment of pure love with another in which there was no "me" and "you" - just love. . . Then we often "snap out of it" and return to conditioned ways of thinking and perceiving. So, from a personal perspective - there can be this sense of flipping back and forth between duality and nonduality. Imagine a person that only saw the Heads side of a coin their entire life. If they caught a glimpse of the Tails side it may be an awakening - that it's not all Heads. That person may have the sense that they are going back and forth from perceiving Heads and Tails. That would be the subjective human experience. Yet transcending that. . . both Heads and Tails are the actual coin. We create the duality of Heads vs Tails, yet it is both one coin. Similarly, if we catch glimpses of nonduality it can be an awakening experience. It may start to feel like we are flipping back and forth between duality and nonduality - yet they are both the coin. There desire to achieve a permanent no-mind nondual state is at the human level. The person has created a story of things called nondual states and dual states as well as a thing called permanence within a timeline. Rather than framing it as a state that can be permanently attained, I think it's more accurate and helpful to frame it as something that can be transcended Now. There is transcendence of the whole kit-n-kaboodle. All of it, including imaginations of no-mind, mind, duality, nonduality etc.
  15. He's like the grinch of nonduality. In his youtube videos he sits in his ugly wicker chair in a sloppy t shirt 3 sizes too big and flails around as he rants about stupid people. I mean, I enjoy the variety but it's not for everyone. There's a sense that he's fundamentally missing something very important that can make listening to him painful. Hopefully one of these days he'll get annoyed enough with the rest of us and venture out to steal Christmas. In comparison Eckhart Tolle and Rupert Spira give off an aura of peace and tranquility, they sound beautiful, they dress nicely and they even have pretty flowers in the background. There are way more enlightened and fully self-realized people in the world than you've ever heard of. Very few are famous or even well known.
  16. A report of 9 months of serious and continuous work with entheogens, mostly Ayahuasca and 5 -MeO- DMT, but also Psilocybe, raw DMT (changa), LSD, raw Ibogaine and Bufotenine. Where was I ? I was a seeker. I had the bases of reading hundreds of books of Leo's book list, watched documentaries, meditate, lived at Vipassana centers, did many practices which Leo used to emphasis (self-inquiry, contemplation, kryia yoga), traveled the world seeking to immerse and understand red, blue and orange stages. Internally I was dealing with strong negative emotions, stuck in victimhood and was not aware of Love. I had hundreds of fundamental questions, including but not limited to... Who am I ? What this path will lead me TO ? What is infinity ? How do I know I exist rather then am I a piece of own imagination ? What is LOVE ? What is consciousness ? What/ who is GOD ? WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE, the Absolute, the TOTAL TRUTH ? What is the very essence of reality ? Why does LEO pushes us so much into these questions ? First Ayahuasca trip- The veil was broken. Infinity had no problem to answer directly to my mind. I understood. Extremely shocking, but all my questions were answered. I understood duality. I spoke to God directly. I experienced the full blown nonduality. Magic unfolds - After each trip as I started to embody the I AM, the Creator and the creation, creating itself, for itself, by itself, my life as a human being in duality had a huge shift. On the first months I experience the beginning of the opening of God's heart into my body. Every trip I went deeper and deeper on this opening process. Eventually I reached a point where duality/my mind was able to experience LOVE when/ if it wants. ''I am loving awareness'' exercise became natural. I recognized LOVE as the TRUTH of my heart and its present in every little cell in the universe. I no longer needed to seek for LOVE or God. Contemplation became an expression of Love which Creation did for love, out of love, to love and TO ME. Creation gifted ME in many ways, by creating trees for example, as a way to express RAW LOVE. As my heart was opening I realized my mind is not fully purified. There is a state of unconditional love but I still have many impurity coming from the dual-mind. In my personal life it all became extremely intense, I am still getting used to experience ALL feelings and sensations at the same time. I became authentic, brave, joyful,sensitive and intuitive. I can see exactly where I am going and how it will unfold by having perseverance and focus on my assignment as a human being. I am learning how to be an example of a conscious citizen of Earth. I am learning how to apply ALL MY VALUES through my daily life in all actions I do. Mostly I now can affirm I am no longer a seeker, I have found ALL I have ever looked for. I was looking for TRUTH and I found LOVE! There is so much love in every cell of my body, in every atom I am experiencing, in every action of my life, in every corner of my house, in every word of the company I work for... often seems like I WILL EXPLODE OUT OF LOVE. I live in duality, and in duality I learned how to play the game. Ask and its given. Put your intention out there - especially before a trip and it will give to you! YESSSS INDEED YOU ARE GOD and GOD LOVES ITSELF and ALL you ever wanted this personification of YOU, will give to the YOU. Intensity - My last 5 - MeO- DMT trip 4 days ago was so shocking, so radical, so destroying, so full of GODhood... today I am in eternal gratitude to be recognizing myself in duality as a human being experiencing the Oneness from a small perspective. Thats the beauty of LIFE. Like hundreds before me and after me, we affirm THIS IS THE ONLY PATH. A seeker who has found its treasures will affirm to all humanity that this is the PATH. I have experienced every pain, sorrow, fear, hate, love, agony, BEAUTY, joy your mind can ever grasp through my past trips. And I can affirm again, THIS IS THE ONLY PATH. Final outcome - Serious practices and working with potent entheogens has transformed my life in degrees unimaginable. Within the period of 9 months I have accomplished everything I have intent for since my first trip. That's the amazing power of psychedelics. The medicine will give you what your intentions are. SEEK, knock, walk the path UNTIL you realize the way. Today I celebrate life as a simple human being who often forgets I am GOD in order to experience duality exactly as its! I AM. I am aware I am Love. I am aware I am GOD having a human experience. The point of no return has been reached - I vow to be in service of the entire planet. I vow to myself to keep focused on my assignments, to have the discipline to embody and apply the insights and teachings I have received through the use of the entheogens. My heart is overwhelmed with gratitude. Leo, thank you for being one of the most important elements of my path. If I can name some master who has pointed the way, its you Leo. I am thankful, my mind and heart has pure direct love for your being. Thanks all of you actualized.org community for reading and if you make this choice, to walk the path with plants and TOAD medicine, I am with you, I am in you. I am ABSOLUTE LOVE. Enjoy what you are. In love, In gratitude, in service. ''Live up to understand the Zen''
  17. I get where you are coming from. I have watched hours of Leo's nonduality videos. You gave new additions- 'It is prior to proof' 'saying it is within something more fundamental' 'If it's all ocean, how can a whale be more complex than seaweed?' We can move on If you want to add any more you can but still, I say , we can move on.
  18. I understand where you are coming from now. Basically, I'll explain my stance like this, there are two ways (duality) to see the whole. Science/Math/Mechanical/Logic/Hard Sciences/Active/Tragedy (your stance), or Art/Mind/Living/Creativity/Liberal Arts/Passive/Comedy. Notice how I listed these in order to their correlations to each other. You need both. Nonduality explained dualistically. I'm not saying science isn't real. I completely agree it's the best option we have, for physical confirmation of philosophy. They keep each other in bounds. But science will never be complete because the Omniverse/multiverse/universe (whatever term you want to use), reality, Brahman is infinite. Waves, within waves, within infinite waves, hence the allegory to the ocean a lot of the time. I don't know why you base your whole philosophy on the passage of time as consciousness or why time is so important, then claim it's an illusion. If consciousness is perceiving the passage of time, but time is an illusion. By this thinking, then awareness and consciousness is just as an illusion as well. Thinking is not real, then. This is where we diverge. The foundation of my philosophy is based on everything consciousness becoming conscious and aware of the whole. Not time. But this process does require the passage of time. As far as empiricism, it is only one way to see the world, see my last post (this is a single vantage point). It's a system, that isn't perfect, but does contain partial, very real (as real as any other system or science), truths. It appears to me, that if you sincerely want to grow, I'm not asking you to believe in unicorns or adopt empiricism as your truth, but read a philosophy and be open to the idea that there is some truth to be found there. Then understand the intention, and where it's coming from without the filter of science (for a minute, you can always put back up the psychological wall). Unless you just want to prove me wrong with science. Which case, I yield it is superior and I need to come back to reality. Cells are very aware of their environment. Or they would not give a damn about waste in their cell. They would just have urine in their cell and die (with you as well). Even if this act is mechanical, it's conscious. There's a whole nother universe that takes care of the filtration process made up of another countably infinite (trillion) cells, collects it, and deposits it in your blatter. How can you be conscious, but your cells not? Systems within systems that are synchronously working together. Holons as Leo said. The point that we are making that you decline at, is that the idea or philosophy that you are the universe. You are claiming not. To claim this, is claiming that you arrived here from a space ship (or birds arriving on a new tree from flight), instead of a byproduct of the universe like an apple growing on a tree. According to you, the Apple doesn't have the capacity to become aware, but you do. This is enlightenment. By allegory, because you can become conscious of this fact, the universe is also conscious. Which is where I stand, but doesn't mean my ideas are superior. It is mind, and the game of hide and seek begins again. We are all made of the same thing. ? Unless my awareness or consciousness is an illusion and I am wrong again. I arrived here by my parents and I yield (which is only one half of the truth).
  19. On a recent Consciousness work, there are several insights that I'm still integrating. Would love to share and see if anyone else had a similar experience. I don't know if the intellectual analysis would provide any help, because it's something that has to be viscerally experienced, and I can barely even know how to use words to explain them. 1) In this "saturated" dimension that's inscribable, it's being recognized that it's a space that's visited before many many times. The experience is hyper-realistic, but almost immediately forgotten when returned to a normal level of consciousness. Time and Space are interconnected and navigatable in this dimension, there were experiences of multiple possibilities of my characters, almost anything scenario that can be imagined resides in one of those Time and Space nexus points. This dimension extends infinitely, where I could see Time-space points that my character Michael doesn't occupy or exist. I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities of my current lifetime that was shown, all the time-space nexus are interconnected and influenced every other point. I was immediately extremely grateful to be living in this one because some of the other lifetimes that are currently going on showed me doing stupid things that hurt myself and deeply sadden people around me whom I love. The whole dimension is only ONE thing doing its own thing, there's no other room to fit in anything else, it's complete and full. Whatever can happen is happening here now and eternally. It's not an easy space to be in because the information is just too much to handle, it's like an ocean of possibilities that is ebbing and flowing, stretching and contracting. This dimension goes on forever and ever, with no end in time and space, fear arises since so many experiences were lived through at the same time. 2) One of the realizations that I derived from the experience is that I'm already dead, that reality of me no longer here in this human form already exists. I living my life now is like reliving a vivid memory or having a virtual reality machine permanently implanted. It's also like a choose-an-adventure kind of deal that choices made now will lead to different outcomes, but all possible scenarios are already here, I'm just navigating one of the possible paths in this lifetime that I'm aware of. 3) How much we still don't know as human and how vast infinite is the most humbling realization. Philosophy and Science invest so much into knowing things, but the knowledge is tiny that it will be no surprised at all whatever we concluded now as truth and real in human understanding can be completely false. All we can know is an abstraction that is understandable to us based on the tools that are available for us. 4) There is no space in normal consciousness either, everything is touching everything else with no space in-between, including all perceptions, like sound and sights and feelings. There's just one thing here and it's completely saturating everything with no room left. Space is another abstraction created to make sense of things. We're intimately sticking to everything else. 5) I was also experiencing other people in my life in that infinite dimension too. I could feel their suffering which makes me super compassionate and wants to be nicer to others. Hurting others in a sense is hurting myself. This is an overwhelming realization that I have to willfully ignore at times because the responsibility is too much. Radical forgiveness in this reality is important. I have to constantly forgive and let go, and can only move forward to make better choices. 6) Everything is perfect balance too, it's ultimate nonduality. Anything that can exist, only exist because of duality, which makes it nondual. Anytime I want to control one aspect of anything, I lose control instantly because my action, even a single thought, shifts everything else. There are still many minor nuances in this recent Consciousness work than what is mentioned. I appreciate anyone sharing a similar experience as it is. Human intellect is important, but I feel that's relatively insignificant in consciousness work. Imagination, feelings, and intuition seem to be more appropriate in understanding these experience. It's humbling to me, and I'm utterly grateful to still have the training wheels on living in this reality.
  20. I don't consider that an 'except'. Your body needs other people to survive. It needs touch, it needs chemistry, it needs bonding, it needs to be useful and use others. The fear of social rejection is a genuine threat to the body and the body communicates it. You do not become fearless by telling yourself that you don't need anybody, but by being in touch with what the body needs. You can decide that the body is mistaken and act against it, but in truth it rarely is. If you shut yourself off from people, you will develop all kinds of coping mechanisms that start with binge eating for example. Yes, definitely. The trick is that you survived mostly automatically for 30 years, or at least 15. The body had learned all kinds of useless response patterns that lock into your family dynamic and "friends". If you fear something, the default response is to avoid it. If you're angry, the default response is to attack. If, as a woman, you are socially pressured to be submissive, then your response to anger gets overriden by shame, for example. It really is not at all obvious which emotion should be employed at which situation, especially because you lose your cool precisely when you need to observe yourself carefully. One thing is adrenaline response. Another thing is fear. Yet another thing is a 'response'. Fear is a concept you produce in response to adrenaline. This concept, if is identified with, creates a response that hopefully is beneficial for your survival. Identification here is 'letting the fear take you', not noticing the choice to be made. You can always stand still in response to fear. You can always dissolve fear in response to adrenaline. That is emotional mastery and it is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is when you understand what you are. You are a concept, a division of reality. [I don't like that definition, but I'm gonna leave it as is]. If you feel like you are in control of things, like I don't wanna run away from tiger, that is an ego. That thought that deliberates. Enlightenment certainly helps in mastering emotions, and mastering emotions helps becoming enlightened. ___________________ By the way, I highly recommend reading Ursula's The Earthsea Cycle. I did not choose that particular translation because of its quality in itself, but because I highly value Ursula as a spiritual teacher. That cycle is a fantasy novel informed by Taoist nonduality. Absolutely amazing, it was very influential on me.
  21. Anything could be made to look like in a certain way in a video. There are magicians levitating, videos of ghosts appearing that look real. Unless you have seen it directly or have good reliable sources/ the same event has been cited by many other reliable sources (like top newspapers like New york times, or channels like CNN, NBC etc) , in a video anything is possible. I think the truth of Islam is just the truth of any other religion, the truth of Nonduality. Islam is just Muhammed's interpretation of this divine Nonduality that he experienced at the cave and the historical events that followed has brought it to the present state. The rest is just magic' tricks;, which any trained magician could out perform. Religions have always used such 'magic' to give validity that they are the 'truth'
  22. Yeah. Persuing Consciousness clarifies a lot. But after those Contemplations are mastered, he really does zip things up in a more powerful, simpler, and staggeringly deeper extent in "The Genius of Being." The practice of Vipassana was really being done hard here for a number of years (around 3 in a row, sometimes 6 hours of meditation a day). Who knows really what, if any, the correlation between meditation and Awakening (initial or otherwise or how the hell you slice it up)? Incidentally, the practice of Vipassana is still useful for some stuff, but not always done daily, even though in a way it is permament after a point regardless of formal sit or falling off a horse, driving a car...whatever. Enlightenment doesn't necessarily change shit. How could it? It is merely what's already True. What usually tends to happen (I was/am no exception) is your life gets worse because all the stuff that had pointers aiming stuff like "blame" outward, are now *absolutely* seen all the time to be within the domain of self-responsibility -- Your fucking mess. At this point, you'll tend to get lost in content either trying to fix it all or worrying about it so much you decomp or go nuts for a while, or worse. Blow out to straight Gonzo mode. Or, you have a situation where you can practice and freak out without interference (not happening while anchored to any kind of usual "laylife") until you gain further Consciousness that frees to from clinging to "The Life Reality Illusion" [Peter's parlance here] to the extent you may not even give a shit about changing the "guy/gal" who is Being "me". Some pie in the sky shit story about an Avatar who descends upon lotus feet wakes the fuck up and glows in Resplendant Perfection is the Bull. Hope you didn't find that One. He's everywhere. It's Delusion. Doing a 1/2 punch rhythm of hard Contemplation (and doing *all* the excercises and grasping Insights) of Ralston's material, then burnout and Vipassana, then burnout and switch was a good system with "the practice here"....yet, I did get fortunate and find a 70+ year old teacher who has a direct lineage to U Javana/U Pandita/Mahasi Sayadaw to train me in Noting for basically nothing and he took almost 3 years of defiled abuse from my stupid brain/body just for...apparently no reason. ;D Ok. Here's an Ultra-simple Therevada model. I know people are too lazy often, on this forum to deal with the complications of the Lakhanas and 4 truths. I guess fractal math isn't for all Millineals. In any case, here's the model in "Leo speak" so ya'll can understand it: 1.) 1st Path (Sotapanna) -- The practice has seen one "Ontological Orgasm" with understanding. 2.) 2nd Path (Sakadagami) -- The practice sees many "Ontological Orgasms" during the course of an average day (rest of mortal life). 3.) 3rd Path (Anagami) -- The practice has an abiding Direct Consciousness of Emptiness at all times, and there is no doubt of this (rest of mortal life). 4.) 4th Path (Arahant) -- Ditto on 3, but less human delusion/ignorance/pattern remains, agency seen through, nonduality available. Equivalence of Zero and Absolute Infinity...etc.etc.etc. 5.) Beyond - Of course ....as if Relativity is the only Infinite thing.
  23. What exactly is meant by Love? If it's not an emotion, what is it? Also, doesn't love need an object? Doesn't the act of loving involve one who loves and something which is loved? How does that fit with nonduality? And finally, how to become conscious of Love?
  24. Nonduality IS pure Love. The only way is to realize that you ARE Love. This results in total absolute self-acceptance and self-love. Since you are God, your love for yourself is Absolute and unlimited. Since you are God, no one can love you but yourself. If you cannot love & accept yourself, no one else can and you are forever doomed by your own self-denial and self-hatred until you realize that self-love is the only true love. Religion is highly corrupt. The devil has co-opted all religion to use as a control mechanism. Fear (of Hell) is a powerful control mechanism. Many humans do no know how to follow basic rules of decency unless they are threatened with eternal Hell. When a child misbehaves, the easiest way to make it behave is to threaten it with a beating. Then the child quickly falls in line and obeys. Like a dog. This is the level that many people function at.
  25. No. By talking to someone I can tell his blind spots, so can you. If that weren't the case, development wouldn't be possible. For example, your blind spot is that you are a solipsist. Enlightenment is not random, but people/egos don't cause it. Going through it feels like the whole world was precisely engineered for this very moment when you realize it. You feel like the chosen one, but you have given up everything that is special about you already. That is why it is called grace, but it is grace that is given to you from yourself because you can't distinguish yourself from the world. No. God does not use power to control what is already present. God has used his omnipotence to create the world out of love and this very love is the law that it obeys. It took its own power away in the act of creation. God's authority is freedom. It is up to you seek it and to recognize it. Seeing it is so difficult precisely because it is so fundamental that it is unthinkable for the truth to not be. Nonduality is not a philosophy of connection between beings. It is not a moral imperative to be a good person. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the two of you, you are some of the best people that I know of. Keep being that person, we need more of you. That isn't, however, enlightenment. Recognizing that fact lets you seek somewhere else, without losing what you already are. That is the most profound thing about God. God is more you that you are yourself. Seeking it only enhances you.