Can You Explain This View Of Reality?

[Samuel]

My friend is fascinating. He does not follow any self help, or enlightened gurus... Yet, after I told him about consciousness work and consistently conceptually mindfucked him with No Self, Enlightenment, Non-Duality, Absolute Infinity he slowly started to shift his paradigm and move to a more Non Dual way of thinking/conceptualizing. He is at the point, where he BELIEVES that enlightenment is true and a non-dual perspective is the right perspective, yet the thing is, he doesn't care to do any of the hard work to become enlightened. He does not meditate, or read any books to advance his overall intellectual knowledge on the subject. He simply lives life like everyone else does. He has a girlfriend, who he is very happy with, and he has a passion, which is music, he smokes weed, drinks, eats junk etc.

I just had a deep conversation about this with him and I curiously asked WHY it is that he cannot put in the work to become more conscious. He told me that the truth was, that he simply doesn't feel that he needs to know the Truth. He said he is completely content with the suffering that he has to go through while living in a conceptual reality. Now he also admitted, that he has never had any direct experience with the true nature of anything, other than on LSD (maybe.)

He said he ultimately trusts life. He believes that whatever is true and meant to be, will come to him, and if he is meant to do enlightenment work, it will eventually come to him. For now though, he finds no need in inquiring rigorously about the Truth. He likes his conceptual reality. Still, he talks and understands many of the concepts of enlightenment on an intellectual level and agrees on pretty much everything that I communicate to him about this work.

I want to know, is there anything wrong with this approach to life? I'm asking this simply because I feel that I am largely stuck in this same stage of development. I conceptually understand and believe a whole lot of what is being discussed here, but I sure as hell don't live it through my bones. I still go out every now and then and drink/smoke/put on roles filling my void. I'm still clinging onto myself, not wanting to accept the nothingness that I am. I guess the only difference between us is, that I put in the work to make this stuff a reality, not just more beliefs and concepts. What does it mean when he says, that he is fine with all the suffering that comes with living in a concept based reality? is there something wrong with this attitude? Does my friend have potential with this work?

Edited July 30, 2017 by Samuel

[Loreena]

I think your friend wants to live in an acceptance based paradigm. He wants to accept life the way it is with its suffering and problems. But his unconscious or low conscious habits like junk food, drugs will not help him on the way. Maybe he doesn't wish to sacrifice all of this for Self actualization. He wants to be content with it. But that's an unhealthy self destructive attitude, it's like they're okay with whatever consequences, generally bad, then a sign of covert self destructive attitude. Almost like an obese man would say he is completely fine with whatever he eats, he likes it, knowing fully well the consequences of it, is like a symptom of giving into addiction and not wanting to acknowledge it because it hurts and creates conflict, so just accept reality and reduce conflict because that is so easy to do. That is making it too simplistic but everyone knows that ultimately cannot be the justification, if all of humanity just survived by saying everything is fine as it is, there wouldn't be any progress, no discoveries, nothing done to improve conditions, everyone just being too content for their own good. But reality as we know is very paradoxical. 

So when we know we can do something to improve ourselves and our conditions, we must. However when it looks impossible to change a situation, that's where a acceptance is needed because too much resistance would create frustration and conflict. 

It's like a dance between resistance and acceptance. 

[Ananta]

51 minutes ago, Samuel said:

What does it mean when he says, that he is fine with all the suffering that comes with living in a concept based reality?

He's probably not suffering much or its tolerable to him. Another words, there's no motivation to do the work.

Lets face it, it's an enormous commitment, takes effort and some just aren't interested. He's no different then most of population.

[Shanmugam]

@Samuel  There is nothing wrong in the way of life your friend is living.. In General, If  path of enlightenment is advertised to someone, the person might pursue it just for the appeal to ego.. Because ego likes the idea of becoming enlightened.. Also, pursuit of enlightenment can never be forced on anybody as well.

The need for getting rid of suffering will automatically come to anyone, when he discovers that nothing in the objective world will give him lasting fulfillment. There is no hurry..

Dreaming or living in the illusion is not bad, it has its own thrill and its own appeal. If he gets fed up with it one day, he will naturally stumble upon a spiritual path some way.

[Leo Gura]

@Samuel It means he's so ignorant he doesn't even have a clue how ignorant he is.

Beliefs don't mean jack.

He's only happy because stuff is going his way -- for now. When his girlfriend leaves him, and his music doesn't pan out, and his health deteriorates, and his weed gets taken away by our Keebler Elf Attorney General, let's see how happy he'll be.

[str4]

I'm in the same position as your friend right now in a way that I understand much of this intellectually, but still, of course, I suffer every day because I am not enlightened, nor have I had any awakening experiences either. I have many low conscious tendencies also, I like to party sometimes, drink booze, eat junk food etc. I like to think that I'm not as low conscious as many other people are because I try to spend my time doing creative stuff instead of watching TV, but who knows, maybe I am just a low conscious monkey trying to rationalize his low consciousness to himself.

However, I do not wish to stay in this state. I wish to get rid of my suffering. 

I think the obstacle to this path with many people is the massive amount of work it requires. And not only work but you literally have to remove all of your underlying beliefs to see what lies behind them.

Removing your core beliefs is nasty business. It's like you're slowly killing yourself. And maybe you are if you identify yourself to be your ego.

[pluto]

If anything that attitude is more sane then the rest of society. I have a friend like that and i allow him to be as he wishes, i don't judge him because ultimately those who have the most fun win at the same time learning from his enjoyment and simplicity and as i apply it overtime i gained wisdom eventually i re-share back with him.

 

Edited July 30, 2017 by pluto

[Nahm]

@Samuel You simply made a wrong turn. You are certainly not nothing. 

[Nahm]

When you can leave mindfucking him, and be speaking to him from Love, from the Truth, then you are creating the moment with him. That will be undeniable.