Objections To Spirituality Mega-Thread

[Mada_]

If reality was that way, then society would already know about it.

[Leo Gura]

21 hours ago, TheAlchemist said:

If all our senses were to be just interpretations, how could we derive any truth at all from the world? Isn't everything you know based on your experience regardless of if you trust your senses or not? Wouldn't every interpretation be just as valid? Wouldn't there be an infinite amount of truths, thus no consensus truth at all?

See my video: What Is Perception?

Sensation minus ego = Absolute Truth

15 hours ago, legendary said:

The thing that frustrates me is when teachers say, "There is is no process to become enlightened since it isn't a destination, but the Truth of who you already are. Grasp it, Now!" 

And then many of them turn around and criticize anyone who advocates the use of psychedelics to explore altered states of consciousness.

Well, what am I supposed to do then? I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Just do the practices and experience the results.

Why are you listening to a teacher talk about psychedelics when you can take a psychedelic and feel it for yourself? Why are you giving more credance to hearsay vs direct experience?

14 hours ago, Azrael said:

@Leo Gura Objection 1: How can one be sure that one's consciousness is even able to experience the ground of being. If there is limitation in conscious awareness, there can be "more" out there, that one could never grasp. If there is limitation in consciousness, the ground of being one may discover, is still bound by a limitation.

You can't be sure until you acheive Absolute Infinite Consciousness.

Once you are conscious of what Infinity is, there cannot be anything more or other.

If you think there can be anything beyond Absolute Infinity, you don't understand Absolute Infinity.

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Objection 2: How can you be sure that the ground of being is one "thing" and not a collection of things. If it is a collection of "things", how do you know when you discovered the entire list? Is it finite? How would even know?

One/many is a distinction. All distinctions are imagined by consciousness. There is no difference between one thing and many things.

The list is endless, making it ONE.

You know via infinite consciousness. You are it. You are the one endless list. A list of all possible lists.

[remember]

there is only one question to ask: chance or choice? but all choice is chance.

[AleksM]

@Leo Gura

Are you denying the existence of individual souls? Are you telling us that everybody is the same God and there is no such thing as an individual Soul? 

If everybody is God, then how can God, that is perfect, be submissive to illusion? If the soul equals to God, then how can the individual Soul find itself subject to the limiting effects of illusion? Doesn't that lead to the conclusion that illusion is superior to God because it has the power to put God under illusion?

[hundreth]

How much of a mystical experience is primed by cultural reference? During a near death experience, a Christian sees christian theological memes, whereas someone from a different culture will see completely different imagery and themes. They aren't even pointing in the same direction.

You mention how psychedelic use won't bring you to a full awakening without studying and having a framework beforehand. How do you address this chicken and egg situation? You can't reach the truth without direct experience, but you also can't reach the truth without a theoretical framework. 

Is our perception of awakening completely dependent upon our pre-existing neural networks? Even If our cognitive filter is off (ego), what's left is still what was already there.

I'm not saying I completely stand behind this objection, but it's something I wrestle with from time to time.

[Nak Khid]

On 11/22/2019 at 0:21 PM, legendary said:

The thing that frustrates me is when teachers say, "There is is no process to become enlightened since it isn't a destination, but the Truth of who you already are. Grasp it, Now!" 

And then many of them turn around and criticize anyone who advocates the use of psychedelics to explore altered states of consciousness.

 

these are opposites?

and which spiritual teachers are you referring to?

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, AleksM said:

@Leo Gura

Are you denying the existence of individual souls? Are you telling us that everybody is the same God and there is no such thing as an individual Soul? 

Depends on how you look at it.

At the highest level of consciousness a soul is none other than God. So in this sense there is no soul. All souls are just partitions in the mind of God and made of nothing.

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If everybody is God, then how can God, that is perfect, be submissive to illusion? If the soul equals to God, then how can the individual Soul find itself subject to the limiting effects of illusion? Doesn't that lead to the conclusion that illusion is superior to God because it has the power to put God under illusion?

The answer to this set of questions must of course be riddled with paradox since we are now talking about the Absolute using dualiatic language.

If God is unlimited, it must be unlimited in its ability to limit itself, otherwise it would not be unlimited. If God could not constrain itself inside an illusion if its own making, that would be a limit, which contradicts its unlimitedness. This God is so all-powerful it can fool itself. Illusion is not superior to God because God wills the illusion into existence, and also because there is no difference between illusion and reality, superior and inferior. All of these differences only exist in the mind of God and nowhere else.

God IS the power of infinite illusion. Illuison IS creation! Illusion IS God's greatest power.

If you just imagine an infinite mind, you can easily see that this mind can easily imagine being a finite thing, like a table or a kangaroo or a human. Just as you as a human adult can imagine yourself to be a child. It's easy to imagine something less than you, hard to imagine something greater than you. It's hard for a donkey to imagine God, but easy for God to imagine a donkey.

[whoareyou]

@Leo Gura Why not be more straight forward about it? When people refer to "individual soul", they refer to their ego, it's that simple. In other words, because there is no self, there is also no individual soul.

 

[Leo Gura]

51 minutes ago, whoareyou said:

@Leo Gura Why not be more straight forward about it? When people refer to "individual soul", they refer to their ego, it's that simple. In other words, because there is no self, there is also no individual soul.

No, soul is not the same as ego.

These are naunced distinctions which require much spiritual experience to make.

I wouldn't make too big of a deal about it. Just shoot for transcending all dualities.

[whoareyou]

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No, soul is not the same as ego.

These are naunced distinctions which require much spiritual experience to make.

I wouldn't make too big of a deal about it. Just shoot for transcending all dualities.

Ego = identification with mind, an illusion of separate self. Soul becomes another identity that the mind attaches itself to.  To majority of people in this world, a soul implies a separate self, it is one of many things they identify as.

This is one of the reasons why Buddha rejected the concept of the soul.

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by whoareyou

[Leo Gura]

Like I said, these are nuanced distinctions.

Of course from the ultimate absolute level nothing can be distinct at all, at which point soul merges into the godhead.

[mandyjw]

Soul seems to be a concept that describes the vague sense or knowledge of God or something timeless. This sense the word soul points to is uncovered to be One in this work. 

The spirit is another thing, something in between Source/God/Oneness and dualistic scattered creation. There has to be an inbetween, or you couldn't be physical and also part of the whole. 

[cetus]

The soul is the embryo of the ego. 

 

[abrakamowse]

This is what I understand according to Buddhism what "soul" is and It seems pretty accurate to me.

"The soul, or "self" is only a temporary composite of matter, sensations, perceptions, thought and consciousness that dissipates and ceases to exist at death."

 

 

[Elisabeth]

Should I really do techniques that bring up stuff? Does "shadow work" ever end? 

I'm mostly happy with my path, but sometimes I've also wondered how much it destabilizes me and if it's worth it. Kinda the "dark side of meditation/psychedelics/breathwork" question.

[Leo Gura]

33 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

This is what I understand according to Buddhism what "soul" is and It seems pretty accurate to me.

"The soul, or "self" is only a temporary composite of matter, sensations, perceptions, thought and consciousness that dissipates and ceases to exist at death."

The whole point of the notion of a soul is that it persists between lifetimes as an intermediate structure between the human self and the Godhead.

If soul is just ego, the notion of soul isn't needed at all. The point is in its being prior to ego.

[abrakamowse]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If soul is just ego, the notion of soul isn't needed at all. The point is in its being prior to ego.

Yes, I agree with that. I am not sure what Buddha was trying to say. There's even some conversations he had with his students where they asked him what was the soul and he stayed silent.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, abrakamowse said:

I am not sure what Buddha was trying to say.

He was speaking of total nonduality, the Godhead. From that POV, there is no need to speak of souls.

[abrakamowse]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

He was speaking of total nonduality, the Godhead. From that POV, there is no need to speak of souls.

Got you. Thanks!

[Key Elements]

If it's not:

God (No-self, nothingness, no external environment, no embodiment) -->

Everythingness (You literally become everything.) -->

Godhead (Singularity, Riding the Ox Backwards) -->

To love realm -->

embodiment in mind, body, world, universe...

then, what is it? It will just be more, and more, and more, and more of everything, of absolute infinity within God. In everythingness (infinity), any part of it, the stories do not end. In other words, how long do you want the stories? It's time to find an effective way to point to God after becoming it. That's the journey. Before that, it's pursuing a profound life purpose. Not so easy to do these things, is it?