I am enlightened. Sincere seekers: ask me anything

[graded24]

@winterknight I dont know if you have noticed the patterns in my questions, but i am trying to get a hold of a self-inquiry method/question that works for me and that i can carry into my work-life.    My concerns are very practical. Ramana's 'who am i' doesnt quite work, at least the way i have understood and tried it. I think you were right about Rupert Spira's method of asking 'who is aware'.  Sometimes it can work but mostly it is just the ego answering 'i am aware'. 
 

AS i have been looking into pre-cooked self-inquiry questions to find out which one's best for me, something else happened on the side, which inadvertently might have shown me the way. Before i describe that, let me just repeat what something i have mentioned before.  Every once in a while I get  'wtf is all this?!' moments where everything i am usually sure about falls away. "who are all these people?! Why is time running?! Where is all this?!" etc. It all looks made up. But i dont know what to do with this, and then come back to normal life with this uncertainty about everything pushed back to background.  Let me call these moments simple wtf-moments for reference. 

A few days ago as I was doing self-inquiry going to sleep, I was led into the following line of questioning: In wtf-moments i know for certain that i am actually not sure about anything perceptions and especially thoughts tell me. But i am still certain about one thing, the IS-ness of present moment. Another way of putting it, there is absolutely certainty that there is awareness, and it is aware of itself. Now, if I am not really certain about anything in life, how come thoughts seem to be certain about everything about everything?  The example of naming a bird 'bird' and thinking you know it comes to mind. The same phenomena is happening with everything. I really dont know anything(as so explicitly revealed by wtf-moments), but thoughts pretend to do. And ultimately, i know that i dont know what this "I" is, but i happily accept thoughts by this I or about this I. 

So since then, with the conviction of not knowing anything of wtf-moments, when i get a bunch of thoughts, i compared their level of certainty to IS-ness of the current moment. And i quickly discover thoughts dont stand a chance. I stay with what i know for sure, that IS-ness is.. Or sometimes, that I am, whatever this is. This is like extending wtf-moments to more of life and discarding things i am not absolutely certain about. 

This has been working. Thoughts get cleared out wholesale. Or even when they are there, i dont believe them as much. After it started working, i occurred to me that i might have landed back on self-inquiry in my own way. I am essentially doing 'who these thoughts arise to' but perhaps in a different way, with the aid of wtf-moments. To describe how this process feels, the analogy that ramana gave looks applicable: that when the sun rises, you dont need candles anymore. The absolute certainty of IS-ness seems to be the sun. In comparison to it, everything looks flimsy and can be discarded. 

 

Am I on the right path or is it another trap?

[winterknight]

24 minutes ago, tenta said:

If suffering is an illusion, that must mean consciousness is also an illusion, right?

What we normally think of as consciousness is, yes.

24 minutes ago, Yousef said:

What is happiness? 

The simple experience of your Self.

Or were you looking for another answer?

22 minutes ago, Pookie said:

@winterknight I hope this doesn't sound crazy, but I've been experiencing what I can only describe as paranormal phenomena. I seriously don't know what else to call it. It feels like I am stuck in time loops, time paradoxes, glimpses of astral projection, sometimes even clairvoyance and finally just being able to feel people's energy. I want to understand more about these things happening. Any ideas? 

Are these under the influence of psychedelics? I always recommend psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy to every seeker, and to you it's no different. Whatever these phenomena are, the real point for a spiritual seeker is what meaning  they have for you -- and therapy will help you discover that.

Other than that, I don't know much about these things, sorry...

6 minutes ago, graded24 said:

@winterknight I dont know if you have noticed the patterns in my questions, but i am trying to get a hold of a self-inquiry method/question that works for me and that i can carry into my work-life.    My concerns are very practical. Ramana's 'who am i' doesnt quite work, at least the way i have understood and tried it. I think you were right about Rupert Spira's method of asking 'who is aware'.  Sometimes it can work but mostly it is just the ego answering 'i am aware'. 
 

AS i have been looking into pre-cooked self-inquiry questions to find out which one's best for me, something else happened on the side, which inadvertently might have shown me the way. Before i describe that, let me just repeat what something i have mentioned before.  Every once in a while I get  'wtf is all this?!' moments where everything i am usually sure about falls away. "who are all these people?! Why is time running?! Where is all this?!" etc. It all looks made up. But i dont know what to do with this, and then come back to normal life with this uncertainty about everything pushed back to background.  Let me call these moments simple wtf-moments for reference. 

A few days ago as I was doing self-inquiry going to sleep, I was led into the following line of questioning: In wtf-moments i know for certain that i am actually not sure about anything perceptions and especially thoughts tell me. But i am still certain about one thing, the IS-ness of present moment. Another way of putting it, there is absolutely certainty that there is awareness, and it is aware of itself. Now, if I am not really certain about anything in life, how come thoughts seem to be certain about everything about everything?  The example of naming a bird 'bird' and thinking you know it comes to mind. The same phenomena is happening with everything. I really dont know anything(as so explicitly revealed by wtf-moments), but thoughts pretend to do. And ultimately, i know that i dont know what this "I" is, but i happily accept thoughts by this I or about this I. 

So since then, with the conviction of not knowing anything of wtf-moments, when i get a bunch of thoughts, i compared their level of certainty to IS-ness of the current moment. And i quickly discover thoughts dont stand a chance. I stay with what i know for sure, that IS-ness is.. Or sometimes, that I am, whatever this is. This is like extending wtf-moments to more of life and discarding things i am not absolutely certain about. 

This has been working. Thoughts get cleared out wholesale. Or even when they are there, i dont believe them as much. After it started working, i occurred to me that i might have landed back on self-inquiry in my own way. I am essentially doing 'who these thoughts arise to' but perhaps in a different way, with the aid of wtf-moments. To describe how this process feels, the analogy that ramana gave looks applicable: that when the sun rises, you dont need candles anymore. The absolute certainty of IS-ness seems to be the sun. In comparison to it, everything looks flimsy and can be discarded. 

 

Am I on the right path or is it another trap?

Sounds like you're on the right track! Keep going.

Edited November 24, 2018 by winterknight

[winterknight]

2 minutes ago, Pookie said:

@winterknight So i looked at the different types of therapies you listed, and I think the one that will fit me best for now given my schedule is Psycho-dynamic therapy. I will speak to a counselor whom I've encountered already in my past when I was doing therapy. My problem at the time was that I didn't stick to it, but now I will heed your advice. I already called the institute to schedule an official counselor (I hope it is this same person), and I was told I would need to call on Monday to have this happen. Thank you for your advice. I do hope I can get more meaning from these phenomena that happen to me from this specific counselor as she has told me once that she had an astral projection experience, so maybe she can help me find meaning in my own experiences. 

Glad to hear it. Good luck on the beginning of your adventure...

[Manjushri]

16 hours ago, winterknight said:

's ok. Could be better than nothing, depending on the therapist. Psychodynamic therapy at least should be pretty common, and many therapists have sliding scales (meaning cheaper if you earn less). And if there are psychoanalytic institutes nearby, you can call them and ask for low-fee @winterknight possibilities

@winterknight The problem is that the psychoanalitic therapy here is limited to closed circles of the burgeois... Since you first need to finish college,then you need to go through therapy yourself first, which costs a lot, and pay for the course too, and go through training which costs as well, to become one. Nobody who is not burgeois would do it, because it's too much of an investment to have a not so big hourly rate compared to the investment - but the hourly rate is huge for our standards if you understand. So I'm a bit skeptical.

[Manjushri]

@Pookie please don't tell that to psychiatrists hahaha! they're close-minded. and no talking about suicide/homicide with a therapist!

[winterknight]

5 minutes ago, Gligorije said:

@winterknight The problem is that the psychoanalitic therapy here is limited to closed circles of the burgeois... Since you first need to finish college,then you need to go through therapy yourself first, which costs a lot, and pay for the course too, and go through training which costs as well, to become one. Nobody who is not burgeois would do it, because it's too much of an investment to have a not so big hourly rate compared to the investment - but the hourly rate is huge for our standards if you understand. So I'm a bit skeptical.

Huh? You mean nobody who isn't "bourgeois" would become a psychoanalyst? Is that what you mean? 

That is probably no more true of analysts than of other professionals -- higher education generally is correlated with socioeconomic status.

Either way it doesn't change the fact that it can be immensely life-transforming for seekers to be seen by an analyst. And that's the point.

Edited November 24, 2018 by winterknight

[Mu_]

I have a funny question within the realm of free will, will power, and the spontaneous arising of action.

 

Say you were to get angry and yell at me since I stepped on your toe unintentionally (but you didn't know this since you didn't see I was blind).  I then say to you hey that hurts my feelings can you stop yelling at me. 

1.  Would you?

2.  Could you of not gotten angry at me in the first place, by just not expressing what you felt (even though anger was arising in your body).

3.  What are you thoughts on the relationship to waking up and the character of the human being (ei, kindness, compassion, empathy, generosity, striving to improve the quality of life for all life) or are they separate things?  And what were Rimana's thoughts on these matters?

I ask this because many schools of enlightenment categorize these matters in different ways, some saying they are separate and others basically stating if the person is still an asshole they have no woken up.

[winterknight]

16 minutes ago, Mu_ said:

I have a funny question within the realm of free will, will power, and the spontaneous arising of action.

 

Say you were to get angry and yell at me since I stepped on your toe unintentionally (but you didn't know this since you didn't see I was blind).  I then say to you hey that hurts my feelings can you stop yelling at me. 

1.  Would you?

2.  Could you of not gotten angry at me in the first place, by just not expressing what you felt (even though anger was arising in your body).

3.  What are you thoughts on the relationship to waking up and the character of the human being (ei, kindness, compassion, empathy, generosity, striving to improve the quality of life for all life) or are they separate things?  And what were Rimana's thoughts on these matters?

I ask this because many schools of enlightenment categorize these matters in different ways, some saying they are separate and others basically stating if the person is still an asshole they have no woken up.

1. Probably

2. No. Anger is a feeling. Just because you don't express it doesn't mean it's not happening

3. They tend to go together, but not always. For the seeker, good qualities are ways to calm the mind, because bad qualities attract conflict, both internal and external.

For the enlightened, good qualities (TEND TO... not always) happen naturally because the identity-based neediness that motivates bad qualities no longer exists. But for the enlightened, really, neither good qualities nor bad exist.

Ramana's thoughts on the matter were similar AFAIK

[Mu_]

28 minutes ago, winterknight said:

1. Probably

2. No. Anger is a feeling. Just because you don't express it doesn't mean it's not happening

3. They tend to go together, but not always. For the seeker, good qualities are ways to calm the mind, because bad qualities attract conflict, both internal and external.

For the enlightened, good qualities (TEND TO... not always) happen naturally because the identity-based neediness that motivates bad qualities no longer exists. But for the enlightened, really, neither good qualities nor bad exist.

Ramana's thoughts on the matter were similar AFAIK

I didn't write #2 well.  Yes anger is there but how you respond is another.  Thats what i was getting at.  Do you have a choice at how you respond to your feelings, in this case yelling.  Or is it for you just what happens kinda thing?

This is a interesting thing to understand since many "enlightened" share different things. 

For example the Dalilama (although I'm not sure he's claimed enlightenment) states that one should choose to treat others in a kind manner, insinuating a element of free will in the moment to perhaps say yell because your angry or not.

And on the other hand some nondual teachers will say its not a matter of choice, the response just happens (some going stating that the response is in the best interest of the student/person since they are a perfect relfection/teacher for them) And some of these same people find themselves in precarious situations with their students despite saying they are enlightened or have dealt with their ego.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Mu_

[winterknight]

2 hours ago, Mu_ said:

I didn't write #2 well.  Yes anger is there but how you respond is another.  Thats what i was getting at.  Do you have a choice at how you respond to your feelings, in this case yelling.  Or is it for you just what happens kinda thing?

This is a interesting thing to understand since many "enlightened" share different things. 

For example the Dalilama (although I'm not sure he's claimed enlightenment) states that one should choose to treat others in a kind manner, insinuating a element of free will in the moment to perhaps say yell because your angry or not.

And on the other hand some nondual teachers will say its not a matter of choice, the response just happens (some going stating that the response is in the best interest of the student/person since they are a perfect relfection/teacher for them) And some of these same people find themselves in precarious situations with their students despite saying they are enlightened or have dealt with their ego.

Of course the answer depends on perspective. In some sense the response does "just happen" -- but that is not the opposite of having a choice.

The very process of thinking about whether to do something is also something that "just happens," and is itself part of the causal chain that results in whatever action is taken.

As long as you consider yourself the doer you should consider what to do and what not to do. To reduce it down to whether or not to express anger is simplistic. It is never that binary an option. And it mostly not about judging actions as right or wrong but about understanding and acknowledging the different voices inside.

It is first off important to see that you are feeling anger -- for some people, that is easier said than done. Many people push it out of their awareness, unconsciously (this is why therapy can be so important). Once you recognize that you have anger, it may be important to respect and honor it in some way. This process of acknowledging emotions, listening to them, and considering how best to express them -- either to others or just to yourself -- will itself result in a better action.

When, though, through self-inquiry and/or surrender you have discovered (not just intellectually -- but in your direct experience) that you are not the doer, these questions don't apply.

Now there is of course an in-between point -- if you’ve gotten to the stage where you are engaged in intense self-inquiry and/or surrender, and are highly motivated towards liberation, then the very question of whether you should just "let it happen" or "choose to restrain yourself and act kindly" or whatever will itself be the topic of self-inquiry and/or surrender. Who asks the question?

Edited November 25, 2018 by winterknight

[Leo Gura]

With the opening of the 6th chakra (3rd eye) paranormal abilities can be unlocked. But this varies greatly from person to person. Some people will not unlock any paranormal abilities while others may unlock some significant ones.

Personally I think it depends a lot on your brain chemistry, genetics, etc.

This is all normal and can be part of process. Don't try to go chasing for paranormal abilities, but if they come to you naturally don't reject them either. You'll have to learn how to handle them responsibly. That in itself can be a long journey. You might want to read some books specifically about that.

There are many different kinds of paranormal abilities and not everyone will access all of them. Most people will access none at all.

[Consilience]

What is intuition from the perspective of enlightenment? 

[winterknight]

6 minutes ago, Consilience said:

What is intuition from the perspective of enlightenment? 

We all have an intuition that there has to be Something More than this limited world and limited life.

If you listen to it, that's the intuition that matters most -- and that turns you towards the search for spiritual truth.

Other than that, you need to use your intuition to listen to yourself... and use that to pursue inner calm and to direct the movements of your search.

[Consilience]

@winterknight Thank you

[captainamerica]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

With the opening of the 6th chakra (3rd eye) paranormal abilities can be unlocked. But this varies greatly from person to person. Some people will not unlock any paranormal abilities while others may unlock some significant ones.

Personally I think it depends a lot on your brain chemistry, genetics, etc.

This is all normal and can be part of process. Don't try to go chasing for paranormal abilities, but if they come to you naturally don't reject them either. You'll have to learn how to handle them responsibly. That in itself can be a long journey. You might want to read some books specifically about that.

There are many different kinds of paranormal abilities and not everyone will access all of them. Most people will access none at all.

@Leo Gura

Can you please tell me which books should I read about it?

I have already read most of the books related to it on your book list and will read the remaining ones soon. Are there any other book(s) that you can recommend?

Asking this because I do have 1 paranormal ability (ESP, in the future, and I have verified it many times) and also my third eye pulsates a LOT every day.Also a very highly developed yogi/master told me recently that I can acquire a 2-3 more given my spiritual development and should use those for humanitarian works without charging any money,which I intend to do in my free time.

Edited November 25, 2018 by captainamerica

[Leo Gura]

@captainamerica Search Amazon for books on ESP, clairvoyance, and so forth. Lots of New Age books been written about that. You can also search "siddhis".

[winterknight]

1 hour ago, Mikael89 said:

What would happen if I would committ suicide? I wish you gurus would say that it's ok to committ suicide, I really do. Is not even death any kind of relief? I doubt it. Because imagine someone suffering greatly from massive injury and chronic pain or something. Would his/her suffering continue after suicide? I doubt it.

I bet even you are biased to be against it only because it creates suffering to people who knew the one who committed suicide.

You can PM the Truth to me if you want.

------------------

What do you think about this animation about nonduality? Is it accurate? When the dude is dragged fully inside the Absolute, is that enlightenment?: 

 

 

Suicide is cautioned against because if there is one birth, there is another -- there is reincarnation. Suicide doesn't mean you solve your problem. You simply get born again and have to face life's pain all over again, from the start. 

Better to commit the real suicide -- the one that kills the false self -- which can only happen through inquiry. Then you recognize divine immortality instead of being born again. Then you get all the benefits of life, and all the benefits of death.

The video is ok, not great. There's a little truth to it, but it's also misleading. It implies that first there was a person and then it was sucked in and totally disappears, when in fact the realization is that there was never a person. Also, the Self is not this homogenous ball.

But it's hard to represent the Truth in images.

49 minutes ago, Etherial Cat said:

@winterknight

Since your enlightenment, have you met IRL someone else who is also enlightened?  If so, how's the experience? If not, how do you think the experience would be?

Do the random (unconscious ) people you meet in daily life notice that you are different? If so, do they seek your company or presence, or find you weird and tend to avoid you?

Do you think a bodhisatva can sustain a relationship with someone who's not interested in enlightenment nor spiritual work, in the long run?

Is the Divine done playing with form, somewhere? Is there such a place where no more suffering nor pain exist but only grace and perfection?

From the standpoint of enlightenment, the real truth is that there are no other people. Or if there are, they are all enlightened.

But if you mean someone who has explicitly sought and seemed to have found and whose understanding is perfect, then no. I don't know what that would be like.

It's hard to say, really, about the rest. The problem I was always different... always a little strange. So hard to say how much spirituality changes that fact. I think people seek my presence a bit more, but it's also hard to say for sure.

Whether the bodhisattva can sustain a relationship with someone not interested in spiritual work doesn't really depend on their enlightenment but on their prior karma. That's what runs their bodies and minds.

Finally, in fact there cannot be said to be any form. But if there is, then just as there are worlds with pain and suffering, there are surely worlds without -- as there are hells, there are heavens.

Though even heaven is hell compared to the perfect realization of the Self.

Because the realized one sees the truth that what appears to be suffering and pain is actually nothing other than grace and perfection. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by winterknight

[tentacion]

Could you explain as simple as you can what God and the ego is? And how is the realization of the Self, like how does it look like? Or is it something within, realized within? Thanks.

[winterknight]

22 minutes ago, tentacion said:

Could you explain as simple as you can what God and the ego is? And how is the realization of the Self, like how does it look like? Or is it something within, realized within? Thanks.

God and the ego can mean many things in different contexts.

Simple, general definitions for the seeker are:

ego -- the sense that "I am a separate person who experiences the world and is in control of my behavior"

God -- the true permanent perfect underlying basis of all beyond creation and destruction, life and death, and all other dualities

Realization of the Self means seeing through the ego & recognizing one's real Self as God.

Yes, it is something realized within. Follow the path by educating yourself and getting honest about your desires, and then engaging in intense self-inquiry -- or else surrendering completely (usually harder than inquiry).

Surrender means that you accept whatever happens -- both in the outside world, and in terms of your thoughts and emotions. Let it go. Let it all go. Let decisions go. Let pain go. Let the need to change things go. Or if you feel that need, let that go. Whatever you do, think, or feel, let it go, let it go, let it go. Whatever pain you experience, let it go. Whatever desire you have, let it go.

If you feel like you cannot let it go, let that feeling go too. 

That is the continuous effort of surrender. This will turn into full surrender but you cannot control when that happens, and you must surrender your need to know and to control it, or even to have it at all.

Edited November 25, 2018 by winterknight

[seeking_brilliance]

@winterknight is there a difference between the brain of the human body and the mind of a human body? (if one were to pretend either of these things exist?)