Enlightenment: Just another game?

[hundreth]

This is just me contemplating out loud. It's something I've been wrestling with. 

We like to think about Enlightenment as waking up from the Matrix. It's a kind of lucid dreaming. You can just stop playing the game at any moment, sit down, and be aware of the Truth. Alright, sounds good - but is it??

If you were playing Super Mario Bros. and he just stopped to sit down and meditate - it would be a pretty sh!t game. Is lucid dreaming even better than being lost in the dream? It's really a double edged sword. If you're having a great dream, and you know it's "just a dream" it doesn't have the same emotional energy. On the other side, if you're having a bad dream the fear subsides. 

If you were to create the ultimate game experience, ideally the players would get lost in the game and forget it was a game. It seems our experience was designed for this. Now you can choose to play the game in such a way where the objective of the game is to constantly be aware it's just a game. It's certainly not a "wrong" way to play the game. It's not a "right" way to play the game either. It's just another sub-game. Playing the game this way simply centers you and shields you from the extreme highs and lows of the experience. You're not really going anywhere. 

If you play the game by being lost in it, at one point you will suddenly wake up and be like "whoa, what a fucking trip. alright, i want to go back in and do it again except different this time." If you play the game from this lucid enlightened perspective, you will suddenly wake up, embody the Truth you already knew, and throw yourself back in to experience the truth being hidden all over again. This is the hide and seek. 

So in the end, my question is: Why do you choose to work towards enlightenment? Where do you believe you are heading? Are we taking this pursuit too seriously?

[Joseph Maynor]

The path has a worth to it even if it leaves you with nothing and none of your prior dreams intact.  It's like a huge purge of stuff that you never would want to purge.  The emptying of the cup.

Video on point to watch:

 

Edited September 13, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Shin]

I'm just tired to suffer.

I also don't like other people to suffer.

That's pretty much it.

[hundreth]

2 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

The path has a worth to it even if it leaves you with nothing and none of your prior dreams intact.

Sure, but every path has a worth. Equal worth in fact. So why did you choose this specific path and why do you pursue it so diligently?

[Joseph Maynor]

2 hours ago, hundreth said:

Sure, but every path has a worth. Equal worth in fact. So why did you choose this specific path and why do you pursue it so diligently?

You know what's funny is I pursued it because I thought I was pursuing my Life Purpose of being a Personal Development teacher.  Now I don't even want to be a Personal Development teacher.  It turned me into a monk basically.  It took away my Life Purpose.  It took away my desire to change the world with my teachings.  I realize now that the only Personal Development that matters is very mundane work on my own life.   And when I say mundane I actually mean mundane.  Things like my basic life requirements, no frills.  It made me realize that focus 'out there' is a distraction away from focus 'in here'.   I'm still interested in Personal Development, but applying it to get the basics of my own life handled.  It made me want to spend most of my time being keenly mindful.  Because I realize now that the end of suffering comes from being keenly mindful all the time.  Mindful that all there is is me.  Suffering is caused only by forgetting that.  The more mindfulness you have, the more illusions you can spot.  The more illusions you can spot, the less suffering you'll have.  So, it's really the practicing of mindfulness which is more important than changing the world with my teachings.  But again, this is just swinging the pendulum from 'out there' to 'in here'.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[hundreth]

13 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Because I realize now that the end of suffering comes from being keenly mindful all the time.  Mindful that all there is is me.  Suffering is caused only by forgetting that.  The more mindfulness you have, the more illusion you can spot.

 

16 minutes ago, Shin said:

I'm just tired to suffer.

I also don't like other people to suffer.

That's pretty much it.

 

This seems to be the best explanation I could come up with too. The cessation of suffering, as much as you can. The question for me is, does Enlightenment simply center you or does it swing you completely to the opposite side of suffering? It seems to be more of a calm, centered energy. Though we like to believe there is an extreme bliss state awaiting for us on the other side. I'm not saying this isn't the case, but I'm afraid it could be a trap. Could holding out for this bliss state be the attachment which keeps us suffering? 

[SoonHei]

23 minutes ago, Mikael89 said:

I think even materialists could be right and we wrong.

IT IS ALL RELATIVE!

 

you know what that means? it means, just that. it is all relative

click the TRUTH link in my signature to see what is being talked about

relatively speaking, we live in a seemingly physical universe

also relatively speaking, we live on a flat earth

5000 years ago, there was no round earth

truth is always relative

but TRUTH is only ONE

[Shin]

19 minutes ago, hundreth said:

 

 

This seems to be the best explanation I could come up with too. The cessation of suffering, as much as you can. The question for me is, does Enlightenment simply center you or does it swing you completely to the opposite side of suffering? It seems to be more of a calm, centered energy. Though we like to believe there is an extreme bliss state awaiting for us on the other side. I'm not saying this isn't the case, but I'm afraid it could be a trap. Could holding out for this bliss state be the attachment which keeps us suffering? 

There is different side of the truth that you can discover.

The one that appears the most common is self-realization, which looks like a lucid dream (but ofc different), so you can be extremely sad or in physical pain, but it's not really a problem cause you don't identify as those emotions/body sensations.

If you had a lucid dream where you constantly get killed, you kinda intuit how it could be (a little bit).

Then you have enlightenment or god realization where you have a ridiculous amount of bliss and love because you realize everything that you experience is you.

There is other stages prior to self realization, and there are other after god realization.

It would be nice if Leo make an episode on the non dual map, cause it can be pretty hard to find on the internet.

I found one someday, but I didn't save it ?

Edited September 13, 2018 by Shin

[SoonHei]

17 minutes ago, Shin said:

It would be nice if Leo make an episode on the non dual map, cause it can be pretty hard to find on the internet.

I found one someday, but I didn't save it

yes i agree!

 

@Leo Gura thanks 

[Leo Gura]

Enough with these stupid anti-enlightenment threads.

You think you are being smart and clever by doubting enlightenment but in reality your ego is just being a devilish jackass.

[hundreth]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Enough with these stupid anti-enlightenment threads.

You think you are being smart and clever by doubting enlightenment but in reality your ego is just being a devilish jackass.

This isn't an anti-enlightenment thread. It's a sincere inquiry. Later on in the conversation we came to the cessation of suffering, and then a level deeper about whether there's an ultimate bliss state or not.

Not sure how that's being anti-enlightenment.