Levels of self involvement, defilements & the measure of spiritual progress

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

A future video?

No video. You simply must become conscious of it.

Without psychedelics you probably never will.

[zeroISinfinity]

State desire to create Something and be aware of synchronicities. It will blow your mind. ?

 

[dmwrss]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Arhattobe Great stuff. Thanks!

I basically agree with all that except that even if all fear and all attachment is eliminated, there will still remain many degrees of insight into the fundamental nature of reality.

My claim is this: you could remove all those defilements but still be missing important existential sights such as What is Love? Or What is God? etc.

@Leo Gura Could "insight into the fundamental nature of reality", at an extremely subtle level, be a defilement? The desire for insight is still a desire, right?

[Arhattobe]

@Leo Gura Hey, thanks for making this thread a featured thread : )  I’ll try to give a detailed response to your question, and other people’s questions (if there are any) after I eat and take care of some things. 

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, dmwrss said:

@Leo Gura Could "insight into the fundamental nature of reality", at an extremely subtle level, be a defilement? The desire for insight is still a desire, right?

No

Insight is the thing that allows you to even know what a defilement is. And insight is what gets you free of defilement.

Desire for more insight certainly can become neurotic if you turn it into a rat race sorta thing. But it don't have to be that way.

Make a distinction between healthy and unhealthy pursuit of truth and understanding.

[zeroISinfinity]

@Truth Addict Yes go pursue Truth. It's worthy all your time and effort. You saw glimpses.You Can feel as That Formless Love everyday in your life. Hope You cried a lot. Hehe. It's lovely. 

@Mikael89 False scepticism only hurts You. 

Love is eternal and everpresent. 

[Nahm]

@Mikael89 Not much constructive in that post. It’s bordering on verbal abuse. Just uncalled for. 

[Aakash]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

My claim is this: you could remove all those defilements but still be missing important existential sights such as What is Love? Or What is God? et 

 

yes I agree 

[Inliytened1]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Arhattobe Great stuff. Thanks!

I basically agree with all that except that even if all fear and all attachment is eliminated, there will still remain many degrees of insight into the fundamental nature of reality.

My claim is this: you could remove all those defilements but still be missing important existential sights such as What is Love? Or What is God? etc.

This basically separates enlightenment with "purification" of the ego.  Which i agree with.  I put that in quotes because who is to say what purification is? That is relative or dualistic.

The realizations of which you speak only occur in non-dual states.

It is a paradox as is reality.  So there is no right or wrong definition of enlightenment.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Inliytened1

[Arhattobe]

@Leo Gura I misunderstood your post the first time around and thought it was a question. Now I see that it doesn’t require a detailed response. 

In regards to your claim. I’ll have to disagree. Both according to my experience and the buddhas words (who’s understanding on the path is beyond any modern teacher by a huge margin) it is our self involvement and the layers of delusion caused by it that separate us from truth and all of its facets for truth itself is ever present. 

Every insight and every deepening I’ve ever had were couple with a loss of self involvement. With the absolute loss of self involvement. Key word there being “absolute” I do not think any ignorance can remain. 

@mandyjw : ) 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Arhattobe

[Inliytened1]

@Arhattobe ignorance is not the same as impurities though.  You are basically saying that the absence of ignorance via enlightenment ultimately should result in the absence of impurity correct?  Therefore total enlightenment by your definition is the vanquishing of impurities through total understanding of one's self and reality.   When you are all knowing there cannot be any impurities left. 

Yet here we hit a paradox.  We are still left with the fact that impurities are relative.   If i feel that i am completely pure while maintaining an addiction post enlightenment - who is to say that is wrong?  When there is no longer a fear of anything than how can it be wrong? 

So you see where we run into a paradox here?

[Arhattobe]

@Inliytened1 Your claims and logic lack nuance, are black and white, and don’t look at reality honestly. 

This is due to your non dual state being filtered and distorted heavily by your defilements. This also causes you to not truly understand what I am saying which will make a back and forth between us not at all productive.

Ill end my comment with a story. A friend of mine awakened and stabilised in non duality. Thought his fear of death was eradicated, only when he got kidnapped and was actually threatened did he start to realised that his former beliefs and viewpoint lacked tremendous honesty.

 

[Inliytened1]

3 minutes ago, Arhattobe said:

@Inliytened1 Your claims and logic lack nuance, are black and white, and don’t look at reality honestly. 

This is due to your non dual state being filtered and distorted heavily by your defilements. This also causes you to not truly understand what I am saying which will make a back and forth between us not at all productive.

Ill end my comment with a story. A friend of mine awakened and stabilised in non duality. Thought his fear of death was eradicated, only when he got kidnapped and was actually threatened did he start to realised that his former beliefs and viewpoint lacked tremendous honesty.

 

I'm simply stating that a "defilement" is a relative term. I understand your points.  But this can't be escaped.

[Arhattobe]

@Inliytened1 It’s an energetic reality actually. Karma or defilements carry with them a physical and energetic tension that is stored within each organism. Certain actions further increase this tension and self involvement, certain ones help decrease said tension.

What you are saying is that ultimately it what is a “defilement” is relative due to an insight or seeing into that which is beyond the relative. Yet simplifying reality to just that and ignoring the truths I am pointing towards in the first paragraph of this response lacks nuance, and is incorrect.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Arhattobe said:

@Leo Gura the buddhas words (who’s understanding on the path is beyond any modern teacher by a huge margin)

How do you know this? Be careful with such assumptions.

To put a guy from 2500 years ago as the highest authority figure when you haven't even met him in the flesh is to set oneself up for epistemic blunder.

Quote

Every insight and every deepening I’ve ever had were couple with a loss of self involvement. With the absolute loss of self involvement. Key word there being “absolute” I do not think any ignorance can remain.

I think that's generally true, but this notion of "absolute" is quite problematic because in practice you can be in a state of little to no self-involvement and yet not be conscious of important facets of reality. I prefer to think of these as somewhat independent variables, with both being desirable and both being synergistic. Insight helps overcome defilements, and overcoming defilements helps attain deeper insight into the metaphysics of reality.

Historically it just seems pretty clear that there were gurus and masters who have had very deep metaphysical insight yet still plenty of defilements.

[Arhattobe]

@Leo Gura I distinguish between peaks, highs and stabilised states. What you say is true for peak and high states. Said highs and peaks also feel like that because of the contrast and the drastic difference between them ones baseline. If ones baseline reaches a state of absolute no self involvement it is far different that a defiled minds high of such a state in other words. Much more stable, cohesive, holistic and nuanced.

In regards to the Buddha I am no making him an authority figure due to fancy notions or ideas of who he is. I used to not care for him for much of my path. I went from teaching to teaching and teacher to teacher as I progressed. Eventually none remained yet I saw that he eloquently described my progression and how I would progress from that point on. This remains true to this day.

I can not say the same for any other public teacher. It is my experience, insights and understanding that makes me make that judgement.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Arhattobe

[Aakash]

@Arhattobe you are conflating absolute truth.

buddha was a good MEDITATOR. He has a few facets TAKEN to its EXTREME. Yet he did not embody love to its extreme. 

This facet is the key to embody to be truth at an accelerated rate and to correct all metaphysics

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by Aakash

[Arhattobe]

@Aakash I almost never understand what the point of your posts are, but to respond to the latter portion of your comment Buddha talked about metta, and other facets of love and stressed that they were key for development.

@Leo Gura “Historically it just seems pretty clear that there were gurus and masters who have had very deep metaphysical insight yet still plenty of defilements.”

I didn’t see this paragraph when I was typing my response. Maybe you added it as I was typing, but that is due to what I said earlier.

Experiencing a number of peaks with deep insights while ones baseline consciousness is still quite self involved.

[Truth Addict]

@Nahm It's fine. Thank you ❤️

@Mikael89 Don't forget that I also realised infinite love 

[tedens]

5 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

 

Yet here we hit a paradox.  We are still left with the fact that impurities are relative.   If i feel that i am completely pure while maintaining an addiction post enlightenment - who is to say that is wrong?  When there is no longer a fear of anything than how can it be wrong? 

So you see where we run into a paradox here?

@Arhattobe prompt:

duality /you now/ -> looping /paradoxes/ ->

Nonduality /infinity/