Knowing Metaphysical Truths is Irrelevant/Tangential to the Path to Enlightenment.

[lhamilt18]

I just wanted to make this post to point out something that I've become aware of recently. 

It is actually not required to inquire into questions such as "what is reality composed of" or "what is the origin of reality/conciousness" on the path towards enlightenment/liberation from the "game" of life. In fact these questions usually are distractions for seekers.

The reason they are distractions is because 99% of us simply do not know the answer. It's one thing if you become concious of these things during a deep psychedelic trip, fine that's now true for you. But unless you've had an experience like this, any talk about such questions are belief based and ultimately speculation. 

The reason I'm sharing this is because after watching a few of Leo's videos on absoulte infinity, what is conciousness etc. I found myself believing him, which as we know is counterproductive in enlightenment work. My point here is that if I'm absolutely honest with myself, the question of what is happening in reality ultimately is irrelevant and I truly don't know the answer. And you shouldn't become frustrated because you don't know. In fact, admitting that you don't know is far more significant than coming to know something.

It's also apparent to me, that the activity of becoming concious of metaphysical truths during deep psychedelic trips is again--tangential to becoming concious of your own nature and liberating yourself from the cycle of suffering which goes on in most people's lives. I've had glimpses of enlightenment without psychedelics, and I have heard accounts from others about their liberations during which no facts about what absolute reality is composed of were revealed to them. 

There's a parable that Buddah says about man who is wounded with a poisoned arrow.

"It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow... until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him."

The wounded man asking for information about the archer who shot the arrow is akin to asking about metaphysics truths when the answers to such questions are largely irrelevant to our liberation from suffering.

 

Edited August 8, 2018 by lhamilt18

[Leo Gura]

Not quite. To become conscious of:

• What am I?
• What is another?
• What is love?
• What is God?
• What is existence?
• What is reality?
• What is consciousness?
• What is language?
• What is a distinction?
• What is intelligence?
• What is ego?
• What is suffering?
• What is happiness?
• What is a thought?
• What is emotion?

This is the essence of enlightenment work. And all of those are metaphysical questions. And they certainly CAN be answered (not necessarily verbally or intellectually).

The biggest problem for most people is that they don't take such questions seriously. They are not genuinely curious about them. They do not seriously wonder. Which is why I shoot videos like What Is Consciousness, Understanding Absolute Infinity, What Is Intelligence, etc. Those videos are my attempts to get people to start wondering about these questions.

Enlightenment is purely a metaphysical pursuit. Just not in an intellectual or belief-based way. True metaphysical understanding comes through expanded consciousness, mindfulness, holistic thinking, and hyper-intuition.

That Buddha quote is being misapplied here. When we talk about metaphysics, we are not talking about petty questions like whether the bow string is made of of fiber or bamboo thread. Just the opposite. To wonder about any of the questions I listed above is to leave aside all the petty human questions related to survival and to follow the path of the Buddha.

The Buddha was a metaphysician of the highest order.

Of course, it's very important that you avoid idle speculation on the above questions or grand theory-building. Your contemplation must be grounded in direct experience.

It does no good to sit around speculating about what God is. You must seek God directly in your experience.

And all of these questions become super-important inside psychedelic trips. They are like keys that unlock the various doors of divine wisdom.

The answers to the above questions are the MOST relevant to your liberation and happiness.

[lhamilt18]

@Leo Gura well I guess your point about the answers to these questions not being answerable verbally or intellectually most applies to the point I was trying to make. 

To me at least it seems that the ultimate answer is no answer, and that in the end there are no questions to be asked, since language always obscures and makes the complete incomplete; and that really there is only Being to be experienced, and nothing can be said about it 

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, lhamilt18 said:

in the end there are no questions to be asked, since language always obscures and makes the complete incomplete; and that really there is only Being to be experienced, and nothing can be said about it 

In the ultimate end, yes. But that's a long ways to go for most people. It is important not to be in too big of a rush to reach that ultimate place because there are lessons which will be missed along the way.

As an analogy, the ultimate end of going to school is that you will exit school. But it would be a big mistake to exist school in 3rd grade or to tell people "Stop going to school because the end-goal is no-school". You gotta exit it by passing through all the grades. Then you will be truly free.

Eventually you will transcend all questions and answers, and just be. But to get there, you will have to start asking some deep questions and seeking some deep answers.

[Forestluv]

30 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

And all of these questions become super-important inside psychedelic trips. They are like keys that unlock the various doors of divine wisdom.

Do you find it helpful to enter a trip with "an intention"? Perhaps requesting that one or more of those questions be addressed at a deeper level.

For me, it seems like the trip generally does what it does - regardless of any intention I may bring. Yet, I've met others that resonate with intention.

[Leo Gura]

@Serotoninluv Both ways work.

What I find works best for me is to do lots of questioning in my everyday life, long before the trip starts. Then when I trip I don't really demand any answers or even set much of an intention, the answers will just naturally flow to me because I have been so curiously asking questions for the last month or two.

Whatever you are genuinely curious about, you will likely get answered.

If you are not curious about anything, you will likely get no profound answers. Because hey, you don't give a shit, so why should the universe cast its pearls before such a swine?

In my experience the universe rewards pearl-connoisseurs.

A person who wants nothing from life will get his wish met.

[lhamilt18]

@Leo Gura I see. I'm in an interesting position then because my glimpse of liberation showed me basically that there are no questions to be asked. Since then I've been listening to Osho speak about enlightenment and his particular saying "life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived." Has resonated with me. Now when I wonder about such questions it seems more like an excercise than anything and that I am simply creating the problem which wasn't there in the first place in an attempt to solve it.

[Leo Gura]

@lhamilt18 Do it which ever way resonates for you. Some people are more heart-centered, some people are more intellectual. I am pretty intellectual so I love asking questions and exploring how the mind works. I can see that some people will not like that approach to spirituality.

[lhamilt18]

@Serotoninluv yeah my experience was quite jarring and unexpected. I was in the middle of a shift at work and all the sudden boom. There I was floating in the vast sea of existance just realizing "man.... There's not a damn thing that can be said about this" lol it was kind of uncomfortable but only lasted a few minutes which is why I refer to it as a glimpse. 

[Leo Gura]

@lhamilt18 It's true, being is unknowable.

[Forestluv]

22 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Serotoninluv 

What I find works best for me is to do lots of questioning in my everyday life, long before the trip starts. Then when I trip I don't really demand any answers or even set much of an intention, the answers will just naturally flow to me because I have been so curiously asking questions for the last month or two.

Prior to my last trip, I had been contemplating the concept of time and the nature of the present moment. I had no intention heading into the trip. It was like the teacher said "You want to know now? THIS is now". It got really uncomfortable to my person. I couldn't avoid, escape or distract from now. I couldn't make now stop. There became a balance between the anxiety of no control and surrender into what is now. It was as if years worth of surrendering to deepening layers were removed in an instant.  Afterwards, it became evident that conceptualizing and listening to spiritual talks is a cakewalk compared to that. 

[Leo Gura]

@Serotoninluv

Quote

"The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer." -- Terence McKenna

 

[Joseph Maynor]

A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING WORK IS MANDATORY FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

Conceptual Understanding helps Enlightenment.  If it didn't, we would all become Enlightened without examining our conceptual systems first.  No, Enlightenment requires an awareness of Conceptual Understanding so you can see the difference between thought and awareness keenly.  One must understand what paradigms they're clinging to in order to transcend them all for Enlightenment.  Even the Enlightenment-seeking guy or gal who goes off to live in a cave still requires Enlightenment tutelage from somebody or some source, and this constitutes the Conceptual Understanding that's needed in order to make a person ripe for BE-ing in the moment without pre-judgments or pre-expectations.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[lhamilt18]

@Joseph Maynor right, except I'm not talking about conceptual understanding. i'm simply talking about the desire to "know" answers to such questions as "what is the origin of the universe" or "what is reality composed of"

Edited August 8, 2018 by lhamilt18

[Leo Gura]

20 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Even the Enlightenment-seeking guy or gal who goes off to live in a cave still requires Enlightenment tutelage from somebody or some source

If this was strictly true, no human being could ever have become enlightened ever.

But your point is valid practically-speaking for the vast majority of seekers.

Hardcore seekers can accomplish enlightenment without any tutelage or theory. But if you are on this forum or watching my videos, that ain't you.

[lhamilt18]

I also still contend that the quote from Buddah I've provided above applies to what i'm saying here. asking about the material (or lack there of) of reality is akin to asking what the material of the archer's bow who shot you is made of, given you are in a state of suffering. its simply not necessary to know (albeit intellectually) answers to such questions because your given situation remains true regardless of the state of those absolute truths

[robdl]

2 hours ago, lhamilt18 said:

@Leo Gura well I guess your point about the answers to these questions not being answerable verbally or intellectually most applies to the point I was trying to make. 

To me at least it seems that the ultimate answer is no answer, and that in the end there are no questions to be asked, since language always obscures and makes the complete incomplete; and that really there is only Being to be experienced, and nothing can be said about it 

Questions perpetuate the “questioner.” Just like seeking for enlightenment perpetuates the “seeker.”   

Thought-self(ego) is self-sustained by creating questions then going about trying to answer them. It’s a trick/self-deception of ego to survive. Seeking for enlightenment is one and the same mechanism, too.

Edited August 9, 2018 by robdl

[Pernani]

8 minutes ago, robdl said:

Questions perpetuate the “questioner.” Just like seeking for enlightenment perpetuates the “seeker.”   

Thought-self(ego) is self-sustained by creating questions then going about trying to answer them. It’s a trick/self-deception of ego to survive. Seeking for enlightenment is one and the same mechanism, too.

Maybe life is paradoxical that way, maybe the ego can slowly kill itself, otherwise how could it happen ?

[robdl]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@lhamilt18 Do it which ever way resonates for you. Some people are more heart-centered, some people are more intellectual. I am pretty intellectual so I love asking questions and exploring how the mind works. I can see that some people will not like that approach to spirituality.

Thought-self is so sneaky, how do you know that thought-self/the questioner isn’t just trying to rationalize the use of thinking/questions (to self-perpetuate)?

[Faceless]

It’s quite amusing to observe how the self being a fragment of thought, wants to use thought, (which fuels and sustains the continuity of self), to end its own movement of self.

The way I see it, the self seeks security in thought by sustaining itself through thought by procrastination of action. 

Thought loves to procrastinate, yet self deceive itself into thinking it is progressing gradually. The self is trying to cultivate time in order to end time. Cultivation leads to procrastination when it comes to psychological freedom. 

Psychologically, time plays no part when it comes to Freedom. 

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by Faceless