All The Traps I Know

[Shin]

- The ego needs to be dissolved

Calling it ego in the first place is in itself a trap, because it's how it's maintained and recreated every single second.
The ego isn't a real entity, it is an illusion created and sustained by all your beliefs and concepts.

- A lot of spiritual practice is required

At the beginning, when you can't see the "ego" for what it is, and can't be mindful all the time, meditation and self-inquiry are extremely important.
Without them you would never transcend your mind and finally face your fears.
It is your fears that doesn't let you just be in the present moment, it is your fear of being alone with them that makes you do all those activities in your life to avoid the confrontation.
Until you can face your fears, and actually do it, you'll never be in a place to just being able of just "being", because your mind will associate this with boredom or sadness.
When you actually faced your fears, by transcending your mind and do real shit in the world, then it will be easy, to just sit somewhere, and "being" what you really, deeply are, which is a meditation and a self-inquiry at the same time.

 

- You need to be gifted or lucky

No, enlightenment is extremely simple, yet extremely hard since you have to face all your fears, even your fear of death (especially your fear of death).

Anyone can do it.

Now why so few people actually have realized it ?
Because of cultural and religions dogmas about reality.

So in a sense, yes, if you're introvert, you have more alone time by default to reflect on those issues, so the starting phase is easier to go through,
And of course, you have less social influence, since you socialize less, but these are just perks that introvert have, and I'm pretty sure extrovert have others.

 

- I can't be enlightened until I am able to be thoughtless

Wrong, thoughts will always be there, yes you can enter those states if you meditate a lot everyday, but this isn't necessary.
In fact, thoughts are usefull, because you can train your mindfulness on them, and if you do it everytime, every day, every seconds, it is one of the most powerful tool to increase your consciousness.
All your problems in life are thoughts, so being the knower behind them and realizing they are just thoughts, will drastically lessen all your negative emotions (which also are just thoughts in an another forms), since you won't believe what they tells you anymore.

 

- It takes time to be enlightened

No it doesn't, at least not how you think about it.

It needs time in the sense that untill you are able to distance yourself from your thoughts and emotion and are able to just be without any distraction, it is very unlikely that you will realize your true self.
Even then, it is still a possibility, it is just more prone to happen the more conscious you are.

When you are conscious, it can happen anytime.
The entry point is in the present moment, and this isn't somewhere in the future, it is right now.

 

Edited July 21, 2017 by Shin

[Joseph Maynor]

@Shin Really all that is happening is our awareness is increasing, nothing more.  Everything else is just monkey-chatter.  We are not even in control of this increasing awareness.  We're just aware of it happening.  The Self is unfogging it's own mirror.  It's the ego that interprets this as progress.  There really is no value in reality.  Reality just is.  Enlightened life is no more objectively good than unenlightened life.  It's only the ego's preference for peace, bliss, that gives the nod to enlightenment.  The ego kills itself in this quest though because in the pursuit of peace and bliss, the Truth ends up chopping the feet out from under it.  So, we are tricking the ego to kill itself basically.  But even that cannot be seen as objectively good, because reality just is.  There are no objective values in reality, that would be egoic, a human perspective super-imposed upon reality.  Maybe this is why you hear the cliche that it is better to transcend a strong ego than a weak ego.  But the trippier thing is that pursuit of peace and bliss is egoic, but the end of that egoic quest leads to annihilation of the ego -- yet we cannot even say that that is objectively good!  This is very tricky stuff.  Sneaky, egoic drives are behind enlightenment initially -- the ego gets on board, but it's a death-wish ultimately.  Why would the ego be dumb enough to plot its own demise?  Well, think of hard drug use, it's the same concept -- the ego being stupid and thinking too myopically.  The ego sucks at thinking long-term -- that's its weakness.  Enlightenment is a way of exploiting that weakness.  It's like luring a mouse onto one of those snap-traps with an enticing piece of cheese.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Joseph Maynor