Moving To Pure Not Knowing - The Reshaping of My Entire Perspective Epistemology

[kieranperez]

Initial Note: I'm putting this in the Self-Actualization sub-forum because this isn't just related to enlightenment (of course it's not separate at all either).

This post piggyback's off of a few Actualized.org episodes that talk about what I'm going to talk about here and a few other sources I don't have time to go out and cite here - I also want to credit Peter Ralston who has been an amazing indirect (yet to go to one of his workshops) resource for me in emphasizing and moving towards deep Not-Knowing and really helping to direct experiential investigation into the nature of my assumptions, beliefs, perceptions, etc.: 

• How Authority Works
• Understanding Relativism
• Mankind Is The Bullshitting Animal
• What Is Actuality?
• All Criticism Is Untenable 
• Understanding Default Positions
• Mechanics of Belief
• True vs False Skepticism
• Understanding How Paradigms Work

Anyways... Onwards we go...

So I've been noticing a massive reorientation in my own experience as I've, indirectly, been having more and more assumptions start to melt away. This is not to say I realize what's actually true but am actually left with more and more openness and not knowing. 

For example, the other week I was driving after a long 12-13 hour shift at this summer job I'm doing and suddenly I really got that I literally assume in my own experience that there is an "other". I'm pretty sure I had just finished listening to @Leo Gura in the car and I got that I actually assume there's a place called Las Vegas where there's a man named Leo that actually exists. Not as a theory or as "understanding" and that I can see how and make sense of all this. No. I realized I have been assuming that there are other people. That I have parents. That there are other places. I had to pull over because I was so mind-fucked. Again, I want to be honest and clear. I didn't have some realization in the nature of an "other" or existence or the Absolute nature of Existence. However, the assumption melted away. Then I realized as I was sitting there I "felt" in my own experience that I actually assume I exist. I closed my eyes felt my hand and really tried to feel it. I noticed as I closed my eyes that what arises were mental images of a hand being felt. I "penetrated deeper into my experience" and realized 'if I can go beyond these mental constructs... what am I actually left with?' It suddenly hit me just how much I conceptualize my entire reality through my own perceptions and that, despite it being a useful tool for functioning and trying to survive in the world (I'll get to that in a sec), I still assume it has any existence in it of itself Absolutely. Then I realized that I actually assume that I'm in a world... Safe to say this was quite a night.

Prior to this though I had an acid trip I a month and a half ago. In that very trip I had what I called "cosmic shadow work" done, not to sound so dramatic. I realized that all perspectives collapse into the One perspective, me. My own subjective experience. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 99999th person perspective can only exist (as an illusion) so long as I cognize it - which is to say, I create it. I realized that day that anything that I perceive "out there" is being generated. To notice anything and have any sort of cognition on any occurrence has to be generated by me. I realized that anything I perceive when I listen to Leo, or I get outraged at "somebody else" for, I criticize non-dual keyboard warriors on the forum, any time I perceive any "other", all that I perceive in them is being created by me. I'm the source of it. In the relative domain, all there is at the end of the day is my own subjective experience. 

I suddenly realized that everything I really want to know about life, myself, enlightenment, etc. at the end comes down to me. It became utterly clear how ridiculous it is to literally go up to an enlightened person and try and ask for answers to any of my questions. At the end of the day, no other can really help me. This is not to say that even though "other people" can't be of some guidance. However, at the end of the day, I am the one it comes down to as that's always been the case. 

Despite this being very uncomfortably open ended, I find myself having a greater sense of trust in relation with my own direct experience. I find myself less lenient on the hearsay of others, including Leo. Questions are more open now as is my own experience, not that it's ever really been "closed". When I walk around and I'm feeling relaxed (quite rare) I feel this silence amidst any sort of noise. It's like the Truth is right here and I can really sense it - yet I can't sense it. Pardon the limits of language. That's the best way I can put it. I can feel Emptiness a lot in my day now and it's becoming like an ever more magnetic pull. 

If you have any comments, tips, advice, or feel like leaving any productive (and I don't mean positive) feedback I would sure love it. 

Note: I am NOT interested in non-dual keyboard warriors and whatever non-dual regurgitation may come as replies to this post. You know who you are. I am being honest in what I don't know and what I do know. Arrogant remarks of "this is just your ego" and "just love yourself" and "realize you're God" will be ignored.

[ajasatya]

@kieranperez I don't have much to say. When immersed in the pursuit of Truth, there's no authority other than direct experience. I've said it dozens of times on this forum. It can be a scary and liberating realization at the same time. 100% self responsibility is a HUUUUGE step. Go ahead.

[kieranperez]

7 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

100% self responsibility is a HUUUUGE step. Go ahead.

+1

yeah it’s a tough bullet to bite for sure. Integrity is huge when taking this. If you come from a background of always breaking your word consistently, your word and commitments have no power. You don’t take yourself seriously anymore. 

[Forestluv]

Nice. The first half of the post brings me to lucid states and the melting together of imagination, dream and reality. 

btw, you’ve expanded quite a bit the last few months. Nice work ?? 

[Leo Gura]

Excellent!!!

You're onto somethin' !

[kieranperez]

24 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

btw, you’ve expanded quite a bit the last few months.

What do you mean?

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Excellent!!!

You're onto somethin' !

Thanks man. People like you and Ralston have been truly instrumental in putting not-knowing into the right context. Not-Knowing is moving towards more freedom and more towards being able to stand and look with clarity where I already am rather than through taken for granted assumptions. You’re more in touch with your own direct consciousness and experience. It really puts the power back in my hands. The mystery of life is open for more questioning.

I remember I heard Ralston say once “something need not be existentially true in order to serve as a useful tool”. That struck me because I eventually tied how he commonly says everything we do and perceive as inventions to what you phrase as “reality is pure imagination” and my own direct conscious realization of how “other perspectives” are really my own creation. Nothing can exist that I don’t make up. “Other perspectives” are just distinctions I make up that occur in and through me. They don’t actually fundamentally exist. 

Edited July 8, 2019 by kieranperez

[Forestluv]

11 minutes ago, kieranperez said:

What do you mean?

Consciousness expansion

[kieranperez]

7 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Consciousness expansion

Thanks (: 

The funny part is I’m starting to sense the utter irony of such a phrase like “expansion of consciousness”. Relative states of consciousness are cool but the unchanging truth of what I can feel Consciousness is unchanging, empty, and totally silent. That which includes all relative states of consciousness. 

I feel I’m moving towards more towards freedom of that which has always been free.  

Edited July 8, 2019 by kieranperez

[Forestluv]

6 minutes ago, kieranperez said:

The funny part is I’m starting to sense the utter irony of such a phrase like “expansion of consciousness”. Relative states of consciousness are cool but the unchanging truth of what I can feel Consciousness is unchanging, empty, and totally silent. That which includes all relative states of consciousness. 

Yep. 

[Consilience]

This is a great post and awesome insights. 

Are you going to Ralston’s fall workshop? I feel like I have a memory of you saying you were but I can’t remember. 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Limbo said:

How is being 100% devoted to a guru any different to taking 100% of my own authority?

Think of it this way, why would God ask a human whether it is God?

You see how indirect that is?

If you are God, then realize that, be it, and forget about all the middlemen.

The notion of a guru cannot withstand total nondual consciousness. Gurus do not exist at that level of consciousness.

The only reason you care about gurus is because you aren't fully conscious that you are God.

You can't get more direct than YOU. Anything else is indirect and insufficient to access the highest levels. The highest levels are 100% direct.

[Truth Addict]

@Leo Gura

47 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Think of it this way, why would God ask a human whether it is God?

You see how indirect that is?

If you are God, then realize that, be it, and forget about all the middlemen.

The notion of a guru cannot withstand total nondual consciousness. Gurus do not exist at that level of consciousness.

The only reason you care about gurus is because you aren't fully conscious that you are God.

You can't get more direct than YOU. Anything else is indirect and insufficient to access the highest levels. The highest levels are 100% direct.

That's dualistic thinking.

@Limbo No difference at all. You are the gurus.

The question is: what do you truly want?

The answer is: HAPPINESS.

[Paulus Amadeus]

12 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

@Leo Gura

That's dualistic thinking.

@Limbo No difference at all. You are the gurus.

The question is: what do you truly want?

The answer is: HAPPINESS.

This is also dualistic thinking. 

 

Dualistic thinking vs non-dualistic thinking is.... Dualistic thinking

 

ANNNNNDDDDDDD CHECKMATEEEEEEE

[Leo Gura]

35 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

No difference at all. You are the gurus.

A person worshiping a guru is not conscious that he is the guru. That's the point.

Stop blabbering nonsense.

[Truth Addict]

30 minutes ago, Paulus Amadeus said:

This is also dualistic thinking. 

 

Dualistic thinking vs non-dualistic thinking is.... Dualistic thinking

 

ANNNNNDDDDDDD CHECKMATEEEEEEE

No, it's not. It's a nondual thinking that required a dualistic tool (language).

Beware of the labyrinths of the mind.

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

A person worshiping a guru is not conscious that he is the guru. That's the point.

I know.

But what actually is the difference between the two? What differentiate being conscious of that fact from not?

I mean, I could realise that I am the guru but still suffer. What is even the point of my realisation then? It becomes just a mental masturbation.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Truth Addict
Nonsense is not nonsense

[kieranperez]

1 hour ago, Truth Addict said:

No, it's not. It's a nondual thinking that required a dualistic tool (language).

Beware of the labyrinths of the mind.

Anything you think about enlightenment, nonduality, whatever we wanna call this is at the end of the day WRONG. None of it at the end of the day is fundamentally true.

If we’re gonna talk most accurately about what’s Absolute we would either have to admit that anything we say at the end of the day is all bullshit babble or we shut ourselves up. Nothing you think is the Truth. 

1 hour ago, Truth Addict said:

What is even the point of my realisation then?

TRUTH is the point! If you care about usefulness then the pursuit of truth ain’t the right path. If you care about the truth regardless of whether or not it’s of use, them the pursuit is definitely for you. 

 

2 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

It becomes just a mental masturbation.

Anything we say about nonduality is mental masterbation. There’s a usefulness to it in order to pursue, but at the end of the day it is nonetheless all hogwash. 

[Truth Addict]

@kieranperez

1 hour ago, kieranperez said:

Anything you think about enlightenment, nonduality, whatever we wanna call this is at the end of the day WRONG. None of it at the end of the day is fundamentally true.

If we’re gonna talk most accurately about what’s Absolute we would either have to admit that anything we say at the end of the day is all bullshit babble or we shut ourselves up. Nothing you think is the Truth. 

TRUTH is the point! If you care about usefulness then the pursuit of truth ain’t the right path. If you care about the truth regardless of whether or not it’s of use, them the pursuit is definitely for you. 

Anything we say about nonduality is mental masterbation. There’s a usefulness to it in order to pursue, but at the end of the day it is nonetheless all hogwash. 

TRUTH is not the point. Truth is all that is. It doesn't require understanding.

Ego, on the other hand, requires understanding of the Truth for its own purposes. That's the deeper layer that Leo is (dis)missing.

Sure, ego is part of the truth. But that's exactly the point, it's just a part, it's partial, and therefore limited.

That might seem like a contradiction, or that I am the egoic one here. Not at all. What is, is that we all want happiness at the end of the day.

No matter what we do in life, it's all (at least thought to be) directed towards achieving happiness. Even noble concepts like "Truth's sake", etc... are only means towards finding happiness, if we're talking about the deepest levels.

Transcendence of the mind is required in order to get there.

That's how you align yourself with God. You know what you want, and then go for it.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Truth Addict

[kieranperez]

2 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

TRUTH is not the point. Truth is all that is. It doesn't require understanding.

The happiness that’s a result from awakening is a result of freedom. If you’re seeking truth as a means to try and live a better life then yeah have fun trying to do it that way. Knock yourself out and see where that goes. If you care about the truth enough that you want to know even if it kills you and may “make your life worse” regardless of outcome then yeah you’ll probably have a better place to stand.

Were answering this in relative terms so understand no matter what answer you or I give it’s all irrelevant. Nothing you or I say can explain the Absolute. 

“Ego” is a relative activity that has no existence in itself other than an illusion in an illusory word, none of which exist Absolutely. 

We’re answering this in a relative philosophical frame about something Absolute so all of this again is still going to be wrong and bullshit at the end of the day.

8 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

Transcendence of the mind is required for getting that.

Do you see a mind sitting around somewhere to transcend? So long as you assume you’re stuck or ever were stuck in a relative world there will still be the illusion of mind. Realize there is no world and is no mind.

Saying you want to truth to be happy is as partially true as saying you want to seek the truth only for its own sake... in yet still... all of that is also false since it’s based around a person who wants to be happy and that one that I has no Absolute existence. 

[Truth Addict]

@kieranperez

I've been there, and I wish you good luck. You really need it.

[Consilience]

Ill take that as a no