Enlightenment Through Knowledge and Radical Openmindness

[Hugo Ferraro]

Greetings. I´ll be really glad if we could discuss this topic and maybe bring light to each other´s existence 

I´m, in a sense, new to the Non-dual paradigm. Until not so long ago, maybe a year and a half, I was a hardcore atheist, skeptic and materialist person. That type of new-age atheist that would spend a whole day watching Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins evoking the "wisdom" of Rationality to dismantle "non-sense" beliefs, like Cristianity.

Well, I´ve been "cooking" self actualization in my life for three years now. Looking retrospectively, my work was never too deep, since it was limited to only some insights of psychology and simple changes of behaviour of the body to it´s egoic material life (money and sex). Of course, by watching Actualized.org, during this years, I´ve worked, without even noticing, some good spiritual concepts. Also, I developed a strong connection with Leo´s language. I´m so familiar with his way of explaining things and watching him, that I developed a deep undertanding and respect for his words. Like a respectful teacher, even while I´ve  mantained myself skeptic and kept thinking for myself.

Finally, with the help of weed(And my psychology resist to give this information, since it has this stigma to weed), I´ve developed a openmindness hability of taking what he was/is saying as true, then I go to apply it to my reality, embodying it, and checking it´s "truthness". Either way, I struggled. I couldn´t understand, or even imagine, the magnitude of what was/is happening to me, right before my eyes: The clear paradox of existence, the monstruosity of reality as a actual substance, and not as a imaginary thing or a dumb material stage, the depth of Consciousness and the transcendental nature of thoughts and emotions, which seems to me now as a "permeating everything" phenomena.

It was such a profound experience to discover all of this: I was high and watching one of his videos, when suddenly... I got it. All of reality was clear. The mind was no more for a brief period of time, and I could see what became obvious. It was a life changing experience. And this happened to me while I was high, in front of a computer and watching this bald talking head kkkkk(k=laughing in my country), and not on a temple, meditating in a super "adequate" position. You may say it was faith, indeed: Everybody has the power of applying faith in what information another body is offering, without getting into the neurosis of thinking that reality will be lost to his perspective/paradigm and drown into "senseless madness". You can always comeback, with the Ego Homeostasis System, to what I consider, at that determined point, as being the highest lucidity point You´ve ever had, which is obviously dynamical; is always changing. I learn, then I understand, then I apply, then I check it´s lucidity, and if it feels higher, I, carefully, try to radically interpret the world from that perspective/paradigm in my daily life, mantaining myself as mindfull as I can. That has been my way of growing consciousness for the last few weeks/months, since I´ve had this "awakening" not so long ago.

I must add the information that my body is not trained to meditate, and that´s one of the "cons" of this method, since you can become addicted to learning spirituality and you won´t be able to develop the hability of discovering things and expand your consciousness without having a pre-determined direction in your mind. That is, you can become dependent of a Guru. However, now I understand meditation, yoga, etc. What is their direction and I can train it with much more effectiveness. Please, if you identifyied your own progress towards awakening in the mechanism that I exposed, tell me your story. And even if you hasn´t identifyied with anything, please, give me your feedback. I´m a open being, whatever you tell me, I´ll read and try to understand with my whole effort. Thank you for reading this text  

[NoSelfSelf]

Non duality is not a paradigm it "happens" when is realization of illusion vs reality..

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, NoSelfSelf said:

Non duality is not a paradigm it "happens" when is realization of illusion vs reality..

But happening isn´t a aspect of consciousness? Everything I described manifested within what I can perceive. Can you tell me more, please? I didn´t understand what you mean, maybe.

[Forestluv]

@Hugo Ferraro

That’s a great introspective description of your process of self exploration, direct experience and integration. Thanks for sharing it with us ? 

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, Serotoninluv said:

@Hugo Ferraro

That’s a great introspective description of your process of self exploration, direct experience and integration. Thanks for sharing it with us ? 

Thank you for your kind comment . There´s any move you suggest I could make in the path for Enlightenment?

[NoSelfSelf]

@Hugo Ferraro it doesnt happen anywhere its uncovered when you realize that your mind makes stories all the time about yourself and reality and its not real you have to see that reality and mind created reality is 2 different things...

[Aaron p]

2 hours ago, Hugo Ferraro said:

Greetings. I´ll be really glad if we could discuss this topic and maybe bring light to each other´s existence 

I´m, in a sense, new to the Non-dual paradigm. Until not so long ago, maybe a year and a half, I was a hardcore atheist, skeptic and materialist person. That type of new-age atheist that would spend a whole day watching Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins evoking the "wisdom" of Rationality to dismantle "non-sense" beliefs, like Cristianity.

Well, I´ve been "cooking" self actualization in my life for three years now. Looking retrospectively, my work was never too deep, since it was limited to only some insights of psychology and simple changes of behaviour of the body to it´s egoic material life (money and sex). Of course, by watching Actualized.org, during this years, I´ve worked, without even noticing, some good spiritual concepts. Also, I developed a strong connection with Leo´s language. I´m so familiar with his way of explaining things and watching him, that I developed a deep undertanding and respect for his words. Like a respectful teacher, even while I´ve  mantained myself skeptic and kept thinking for myself.

Finally, with the help of weed(And my psychology resist to give this information, since it has this stigma to weed), I´ve developed a openmindness hability of taking what he was/is saying as true, then I go to apply it to my reality, embodying it, and checking it´s "truthness". Either way, I struggled. I couldn´t understand, or even imagine, the magnitude of what was/is happening to me, right before my eyes: The clear paradox of existence, the monstruosity of reality as a actual substance, and not as a imaginary thing or a dumb material stage, the depth of Consciousness and the transcendental nature of thoughts and emotions, which seems to me now as a "permeating everything" phenomena.

It was such a profound experience to discover all of this: I was high and watching one of his videos, when suddenly... I got it. All of reality was clear. The mind was no more for a brief period of time, and I could see what became obvious. It was a life changing experience. And this happened to me while I was high, in front of a computer and watching this bald talking head kkkkk(k=laughing in my country), and not on a temple, meditating in a super "adequate" position. You may say it was faith, indeed: Everybody has the power of applying faith in what information another body is offering, without getting into the neurosis of thinking that reality will be lost to his perspective/paradigm and drown into "senseless madness". You can always comeback, with the Ego Homeostasis System, to what I consider, at that determined point, as being the highest lucidity point You´ve ever had, which is obviously dynamical; is always changing. I learn, then I understand, then I apply, then I check it´s lucidity, and if it feels higher, I, carefully, try to radically interpret the world from that perspective/paradigm in my daily life, mantaining myself as mindfull as I can. That has been my way of growing consciousness for the last few weeks/months, since I´ve had this "awakening" not so long ago.

I must add the information that my body is not trained to meditate, and that´s one of the "cons" of this method, since you can become addicted to learning spirituality and you won´t be able to develop the hability of discovering things and expand your consciousness without having a pre-determined direction in your mind. That is, you can become dependent of a Guru. However, now I understand meditation, yoga, etc. What is their direction and I can train it with much more effectiveness. Please, if you identifyied your own progress towards awakening in the mechanism that I exposed, tell me your story. And even if you hasn´t identifyied with anything, please, give me your feedback. I´m a open being, whatever you tell me, I´ll read and try to understand with my whole effort. Thank you for reading this text  

@Hugo Ferraro so your going after awakening. Good, me 2. But yo, check it out...don't be dooped by knowledge. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, instead eat directly from the tree of life. What do I mean by this...you talked about how your "growing to understand Leo's language and teachings." Good man, but it's super easy to get distracted by knowledge. Your focus should only EVER be on "WHO AM I". Anything and everything else is bullcrap to be quickly forgotten.

A certain degree of spiritual ideology is required...you need to have some sort of idea of "meditation" or "enlightenment" otherwise you would have no reason to continue. But do not ask questions like "how can I train will more effectively." Only ask "who is the one who desires to train more effectively?" "If the desire to have more effective techniques were to fade away, would my existence also fade away? [No] therefore is this desire me? [No] 

This is extremely difficult to see the first while...but the only teaching you need to remember is this: "No teaching, no teacher, no student. We are only here to find out who you are." That is awakening.

Took me 4 months to get that. It's 100% reliable to practise by. It's very literal, there is no teaching (that will be beneficial for you anyway.) Also, enlightenment is easy...it's just not easy right now. This sounds stupid, but it only becomes possible *as you do it.*

It's like those double doors in banks where. The second door only opens when the first door is closed (for safety reasons). But it would be impossible to just enter the bank directly, you must go in, wait for the outside door to close...and only after your halfway through it will the second door open. So, doing it will enable you to do it essentially

Edited December 12, 2018 by Aaron p

[Aaron p]

 @Aaron p @Hugo Ferraro a lot of these questions sound very mystical as if they have some deep meaning, resist the temptation to understand it in some spiritual-mystical way. For ages I got stuck *looking for a deep answer* when gurus told me to ask "who is the one who observes." Looking for something will never work, because looking for something carrys with it, some kind of idea about what your looking for. That sneaky idea will fuck you up. But yes I find grass helps me to.

Who is the one who wants to look?

Edited December 12, 2018 by Aaron p

[TheAvatarState]

@Hugo Ferraro Thank you for sharing your journey and insights! I'm also in my early journey myself, but I'd like to share my thoughts.

First of all, nonduality is not a belief/paradigm. Of course the ego can treat it as one, so watch out for that. But that's only your projection of what you think nonduality is at this stage in your life. A paradigm is a limiting belief system because it takes certain aspects of reality for granted, and usually makes a distinction between "subjective" and "objective." That is not nonduality. Nonduality is the ultimate Truth because it recognizes, cooked deep into the core, that all perspectives are partial. It's not a belief because you can become directly conscious and aware of this truth through a mystical experience. All spirituality points to this. And of course, the Truth cannot be written, spoken, or proven. It cannot be grasped with the human mind, it can only be experienced. And why would you expect anything less from the Absolute? Language, in essence, is made up of symbols that only mean something in relation to each other. Language breaks down at nonduality because it cannot point to itself. It is itself. Try to grasp the significance of this.

You're completely right that there's a strong faith component when starting out. It's necessary with any type of experimentation, scientific or spiritual, because you simply don't know unless you do the tests. There's no such thing as faith-free. However, you need to distinguish blind faith from pragmatic faith and finding the answers yourself. Notice that fundamentalist religion is blind faith, and true spirituality (what we're doing here) is pragmatic faith, where faith is a stepping stone to Truth.  

Also, I don't like to refer to my journey as one towards enlightenment. My journey doesn't end when I reach enlightenment. And more so than that, enlightenment is not a destination. It's right before your eyes, you're just not conscious of it yet. I'm aware that seeking enlightenment is a dangerous trap for the ego, because "seeking" entails an "I don't want to be here" component, or an escape, or a longing. THAT is ego. Be open to the possibility that your drive for enlightenment could be coming from the ego. Because if you truly understood enlightenment, you'd understand that it's right here. All spirituality is, is to work on becoming conscious of what's already here. Enlightenment itself is the end of suffering and longing; complete contentment and peace with what's here. So why do you think you need to search for it? Now I'm not saying this is the case for you, just warning you of a common trap. Good luck!

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, NoSelfSelf said:

@Hugo Ferraro it doesnt happen anywhere its uncovered when you realize that your mind makes stories all the time about yourself and reality and its not real you have to see that reality and mind created reality is 2 different things...

I cannot acess what you´re saying, yet maybe. But that´s a direction I´ll keep in mind. Thank you

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, Aaron p said:

@Hugo Ferraro so your going after awakening. Good, me 2. But yo, check it out...don't be dooped by knowledge. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, instead eat directly from the tree of life. What do I mean by this...you talked about how your "growing to understand Leo's language and teachings." Good man, but it's super easy to get distracted by knowledge. Your focus should only EVER be on "WHO AM I". Anything and everything else is bullcrap to be quickly forgotten.

A certain degree of spiritual ideology is required...you need to have some sort of idea of "meditation" or "enlightenment" otherwise you would have no reason to continue. But do not ask questions like "how can I train will more effectively." Only ask "who is the one who desires to train more effectively?" "If the desire to have more effective techniques were to fade away, would my existence also fade away? [No] therefore is this desire me? [No] 

This is extremely difficult to see the first while...but the only teaching you need to remember is this: "No teaching, no teacher, no student. We are only here to find out who you are." That is awakening.

Took me 4 months to get that. It's 100% reliable to practise by. It's very literal, there is no teaching (that will be beneficial for you anyway.) Also, enlightenment is easy...it's just not easy right now. This sounds stupid, but it only becomes possible *as you do it.*

It's like those double doors in banks where. The second door only opens when the first door is closed (for safety reasons). But it would be impossible to just enter the bank directly, you must go in, wait for the outside door to close...and only after your halfway through it will the second door open. So, doing it will enable you to do it essentially

Thank you so much for the advice. I´ve realized it´s importance. I gotta work some deep self-inquiry.

Took you 4 months to become conscious of No Self? 

I loved this bank analogy.

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, Aaron p said:

 @Aaron p @Hugo Ferraro a lot of these questions sound very mystical as if they have some deep meaning, resist the temptation to understand it in some spiritual-mystical way. For ages I got stuck *looking for a deep answer* when gurus told me to ask "who is the one who observes." Looking for something will never work, because looking for something carrys with it, some kind of idea about what your looking for. That sneaky idea will fuck you up. But yes I find grass helps me to.

Who is the one who wants to look?

Thank you very much, I realized I was getting a little bit lost in this understanding temptation, really. 

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, TheAvatarState said:

@Hugo Ferraro Thank you for sharing your journey and insights! I'm also in my early journey myself, but I'd like to share my thoughts.

First of all, nonduality is not a belief/paradigm. Of course the ego can treat it as one, so watch out for that. But that's only your projection of what you think nonduality is at this stage in your life. A paradigm is a limiting belief system because it takes certain aspects of reality for granted, and usually makes a distinction between "subjective" and "objective." That is not nonduality. Nonduality is the ultimate Truth because it recognizes, cooked deep into the core, that all perspectives are partial. It's not a belief because you can become directly conscious and aware of this truth through a mystical experience. All spirituality points to this. And of course, the Truth cannot be written, spoken, or proven. It cannot be grasped with the human mind, it can only be experienced. And why would you expect anything less from the Absolute? Language, in essence, is made up of symbols that only mean something in relation to each other. Language breaks down at nonduality because it cannot point to itself. It is itself. Try to grasp the significance of this.

You're completely right that there's a strong faith component when starting out. It's necessary with any type of experimentation, scientific or spiritual, because you simply don't know unless you do the tests. There's no such thing as faith-free. However, you need to distinguish blind faith from pragmatic faith and finding the answers yourself. Notice that fundamentalist religion is blind faith, and true spirituality (what we're doing here) is pragmatic faith, where faith is a stepping stone to Truth.  

Also, I don't like to refer to my journey as one towards enlightenment. My journey doesn't end when I reach enlightenment. And more so than that, enlightenment is not a destination. It's right before your eyes, you're just not conscious of it yet. I'm aware that seeking enlightenment is a dangerous trap for the ego, because "seeking" entails an "I don't want to be here" component, or an escape, or a longing. THAT is ego. Be open to the possibility that your drive for enlightenment could be coming from the ego. Because if you truly understood enlightenment, you'd understand that it's right here. All spirituality is, is to work on becoming conscious of what's already here. Enlightenment itself is the end of suffering and longing; complete contentment and peace with what's here. So why do you think you need to search for it? Now I'm not saying this is the case for you, just warning you of a common trap. Good luck!

Thank you. Maybe I´m deluded by the ego and trying to simulate a full Enlightenment in the mind. I really appreciate all of the feedback. I´m really commited to accepting truth, as it is happening.

[Forestluv]

6 hours ago, Hugo Ferraro said:

Thank you for your kind comment . There´s any move you suggest I could make in the path for Enlightenment?

A few moves ? 

Be genuine, open and curious. Let go of attachment to any thing. Put in consistent effort even when it’s uncomfortable, yet don’t grasp to anything, for you will eventually release all that you hold to. 

Rest in the stillness, yet do not become complacent nor try to avoid disturbances. 

Experience being human. Express silliness and laughter. Shed a tear when someone says “I love you”.

Walk through nature with a child’s mind. Be amazed by flowers, bees and birdsongs. Sit and gaze at a river as it flows to nowhere.

Be here now and observe what is actual prior to thoughts and interpretation.

[purerogue]

Seriously, whats with this knowledge demonizing, yes, you have to go in with open, quiet mind, but it does not mean that you can't use logic after experience to understand it better, or that you should read nothing, as if there is nothing learn , there is , information from  masters who can give you good tips on how to get there faster, what you can do , what to be careful with , what to expect, etc. 

Can you understand truths just from reading , no , only to small degree, but it has nothing to do with knowledge being bad in general.

Edited December 13, 2018 by purerogue

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, Serotoninluv said:

A few moves ? 

Be genuine, open and curious. Let go of attachment to any thing. Put in consistent effort even when it’s uncomfortable, yet don’t grasp to anything, for you will eventually release all that you hold to. 

Rest in the stillness, yet do not become complacent nor try to avoid disturbances. 

Experience being human. Express silliness and laughter. Shed a tear when someone says “I love you”.

Walk through nature with a child’s mind. Be amazed by flowers, bees and birdsongs. Sit and gaze at a river as it flows to nowhere.

Be here now and observe what is actual prior to thoughts and interpretation.

I´ll keep all of that in mind. Thank you for the suggestions 

[Hugo Ferraro]

Just now, purerogue said:

Seriously, whats with this knowledge demonizing, yes, you have to go in with open, quiet mind, but it does not mean that you can't use logic after experience to understand it better, or that you should read nothing, as if there is nothing learn , there is , information from  masters who can give you good tips on how to get there faster, what you can do , what to be careful with , what to expect, etc. 

Can you understand truths just from reading , no , only to small degree, but it has nothing to do with knowledge being bad in general.

I agree. But I´ve recognize a trap I was almost falling into. There´s limits on how much Enlightenment understanding is effective to be aware of these same understandings in your reality. I´ve understood some concepts like No Self, for example, which is quite an advance concept to trully visualize. But, even though I can visualize it, I can´t make this notion/visualization "merge" with my actuality/awareness. Always when I try to "merge" it, I find myself, at some point, in the middle of a war between the ego and the awareness. The awareness points toward the realization of No Self, while the Ego gets excited about it and start seeking it too. However, the ego is always manifesting in a distractive nature, especially in these situations of strong self inquiry: Awareness feels like it´s starting to get a glimpse of No Self, so the Ego tries to see it through, then, awareness is no more. It´s frustrating, because it really feels like this notion it´s almost being acessed by awareness. That´s why I should make some foundational changes in my persuit toward truth. I need to understand and review why are the Ego getting attached to the idea of enlightenment. Maybe is simply curiosity. Maybe the ego are deluded with enlightenment. Not understanding that it must die for No Self to be realized by awareness.