What's Next on the Path?

[Raptorsin7]

I've been doing self inquiry for 1 hour per day and I've begun a concentration practice of 10 minutes of listening to a metronome three times per day. Furthermore, during my self inquiry I have been turning attention on the feeling of my head/ the feeling I am behind my eyes and I've been feeling pressure in my forehead for about a week now, which I hear is a good thing because of the effect on my third eye/ pineal gland but idk. I'm curious what to expect in the coming months, how will I know if I'm making progress and what positive things do I have to look forward too? 

[Inliytened1]

@Raptorsin7 do you still believe you are an entity behind the eyes?   If you do - where is that entity?

Edited September 2, 2019 by Inliytened1

[Aakash]

The funny thing about anything in life is the all efforts made are efforts towards your enlightenment. There is nothing you can do that will not add karma to your enlightenment. 

Simply put the more hours you spend it is inevitable that you will progress because it’s always stacking. Work hard and work smart ! Watch out for traps 

religions get dogmatic because they think you need to do saintly things to gain good karma. There is no such thing as good or bad karma. Your karmic body can not lie. So your better off not faking things because a religion tells you to be good. You literally can not lie. And even if you lie, your only lying to yourself. This is the idea behind bad karma. The only actions that your actions actually affect is you. Because you are the universe and you are the only one here. There is no one else other than you. The people you imagining are you and imagined by you. 

it’s impossible for you to fake practice because there’s no duality between practice and no practice 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Aakash

[Raptorsin7]

@Inliytened1 The issue is I have watched so many videos on no self that my understanding Is beyond what I experience. For example, I know I'm not the feeling behind my eyes because I feel nothing there when i'm sleeping or focused on reading, yet I still exist in a general sense. However, I would say that my awareness identifies most strongly with the feeling in my head/the feeling behind my eyes, for example when I stop and try to be mindful while writing this paragraph my awareness goes right to the pressure in my head. I'm just powering through with the practices right now, and i'm about to start ashtanga yoga in a few days, but i'm not sure how I can make my direct experience catch up with my knowledge on the subject.

[Raptorsin7]

@Aakash What kind of traps should I watch out for? 

[Inliytened1]

@Raptorsin7 gotchya.  So what does your your understanding tell you in concept about no self?   What does it tell you are in Truth?

Notice that you realize that you can't identify yourself so you default to this feeling behind your eyes.  

Edited September 2, 2019 by Inliytened1

[Aakash]

@Raptorsin7

“I’m done” 

“I know” 

“they don’t know” 

reality a reflection of yourself. Traps are created because you created your own traps with your mindset. 

The traps will always be, I know the absolute truth, I know, I know, I know. 

The biggest solution to counter all traps is to realise two things 

reality is infinitely self-deceptive and contemplate how reality is self -deceptive 

and 

reality is infinite imagination. You can imagine anything in your reality and it will be true for you. 

Ultimately you will find the self - referencing problem and the only way that anyone will ever understand reality is only if they watch Leo’s video on 

Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and understand it 

that video is the ticket to enlightenment. The most important video he’s ever shot along side what is truth. 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Aakash

[Raptorsin7]

@Inliytened1  I think no self is losing the identification with the "I" of the mind so you can just observe it and not follow it as if that's all there is to me. As far as the feeling in my head, I understand that it doesn't need to be there and I would exist just fine if my awareness were to just focus on anything I am focusing on rather than default to this position. I feel like there is the world and my awareness, and I can shine my awareness on everything in the world and that is all there is. But to be honest i'm not sure, all the jargon surrounding enlightenment like I am the world and I am love etc etc sounds great and If I experienced a major awareness shift I wouldn't be shocked because I've spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff, its just I don't experience any of this stuff in my own experience so it all rings hollow.

[Raptorsin7]

@Aakash  ahh thank's for clarifying that. Do you really believe that reality is infinite in the sense that if I imagined my self as having the abilities of superman I could actually manifest those powers? Do you believe in some limits like the laws of our universe etc? I'm not trying to denigrate that idea because clearly we are only on the cusp of what is possible in this universe, but some of the more out there claims regarding enlightenment I've always just dismissed but i'm curious to what you think is possible.

[Inliytened1]

@Raptorsin7 you are very close.  You have to become directly conscious that its not "your"awareness.  That still implies a subject or an I.  You fucking ARE awareness.  And its nothing. Its nowhere.  Its formless.  You are the substrate of all of reality.   That's what you ARE.  And when that clicks it will be an epiphany thats so completely total that it will be a direct experience of Being simultaneously.  You will become awareness itself.   Otherwise you are still understanding it as a subject.  This must collapse.

It will happen for you - you are close but you are still probing it as a finite subject.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Inliytened1

[Aakash]

Yes, there is a cycle in between nirvana and enlightenment where the person considers themselves done with the spiritual path, when this occurs people naturally gravitate to sorting out the worlds problems using increased levels of consciousness. Realistically speaking your talking about a shift in consciousness nearly 200,000 years + from here. So don’t count on it being in your current life. Maybe you will see it one day because there is a short cut. You are absolute infinity and you are absolutely infinite. You will reincarnate infinitely many times and including to be super man somewhere else located in your absolute infinity. However on the grand scale of things, you have limited lives so you may not choose to do so, when your physical body dies and you gain your memories back of your karmic cycle, you may choose to do something else instead of become superman. Like live a life in physical the lost city of Atlantis as a sea creature located Which is located elsewhere in absolute infinity  

Every life must come to an end. Because your absolute infinity Is an illusion. You are still in the domain of your larger self and you will eventually choose to go back instead of play in the play ground of your own imagined absolute infinity 

[Aakash]

@Raptorsin7 remember ilyten1 is just an imagination inside your mind, which is inside of the mind. At best he can only give you pointers, none of the words he actually said are correct even for himself. They are only partial truths because he has not understood what absolute truth is. 

He is taking about his direct experience and he has not come to grips with the self-reference problem of direct experience. The problem of epistemology. 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Aakash

[traveler]

49 minutes ago, Aakash said:

@Raptorsin7 remember ilyten1 is just an imagination inside your mind, which is inside of the mind. At best he can only give you pointers, none of the words he actually said are correct even for himself. They are only partial truths because he has not understood what absolute truth is. 

He is taking about his direct experience and he has not come to grips with the self-reference problem of direct experience. The problem of epistemology. 

Do you understand absolute truth? Does anybody? Are you talking from truth? From experience? Or are you just copying the words of masters who have said all of the things that you keep mentioning? Have you come to grips with the self-reference problem?

[Aakash]

I am aware of the absolute truth and I understand absolute truth  though it can only be represented dualistically, and therefore understand it dualistically and experience it dualistically. 

Such is the nature of absolute infinity, it is entirely dualistic. 

My words are coming from my own experience of dualistic absolute infinity. The absolute truth itself. 

Yes the solution to the self - reference problem is you must give up your limited form to become emptiness. To know absolute truth is to be absolute truth without awareness of it in the process. How can I know something , when I am an illusion ? 

To solution to the self - reference problem is to undergo conscious death, mahasamadhi 

there will be no “self” to “reference” in neither knowledge or direct experience. 

It will be total equanimity, it will be .... [not able to describe the feeling in words] because there will be no feeling at all. Just true emptiness and unconditional freedom from bondage.  

Nobody can be the absolute truth, they can only be a representative of the absolute truth. The absolute truth is beyond experience itself to “know” of there have been something other than itself. 

“You” can not experience it

”it” does not experience 

“it “ is not aware 

“it “ is just .... 

many words can be said, but none will know of it in any way shape or form. It is beyond qualities. However the absolute truth itself and the dualistic world in which non-duality and duality realm can be understood in its entirety and it must before you are to make this journey. All existential questions must be answered, they are there for a reason and we all ask the same ones. 

The absolute truth is the absolute truth about self - aware first you must complete the first part of enlightened to understand why this is the case. 

Edited September 3, 2019 by Aakash

[traveler]

@Aakash That is really interesting and all, but how do you feel? Why don't you start where you're at? Your experience right now in this moment is all that you have. Mahasamadhi is a concept in your mind. Why would you need to shed your body to be what you are?

[Aakash]

@traveler lol how do I feel is pretty misguiding but pretty much the exact same before I started the spiritual path because you realise that enlightenment vs not enlightenment is a duality that collapses. 

You literally arrive right back where you started, sensationwise and everything because enlightenment is about the realisation of the absolute truth. Nothing more. All duality is imagination 

[Raptorsin7]

@Inliytened1 Thank you very much for your insights. It feels good to know i'm close even though idk how close I really am haha. When I achieve some sort of break through with self inquiry ill definitely post about it and I hope to hear your thoughts. Good luck with your path man.

[Raptorsin7]

@Aakash It is difficult to follow what you're saying given my experience is all dualistic. I know you mean well and I appreciate you taking time to help myself and others but I know for myself and i'm sure many others I just can't make sense of a lot of what you say because i haven't had those kinds of experiences. How should I interrupt what you say from your perspective? 

[Aakash]

@Raptorsin7 lol my experience is dualistic aswell. It’s the exact same as your experience. So the exact way your feeling this moment is how I’m feeling. Literally 

I’m just here sitting in a room as my human self materialistic and everything. Nothing change. 

Enlightenment is a realisation not a change of state. But the paradox is you must go from duality to non-duality to them come back to duality. That’s the thing with strange loops. You always end up back where you started with 0 change. Because you have neither gained something or lost something. You just now know the truth, so all you’ve gained is the truth 

see when I talk about myself, I’m talking about yourself. Exactly how you feel right now. However it is, that is me. 

Just you know “normal” 

Edited September 3, 2019 by Aakash

[Raptorsin7]

@Aakash  So then why pursue this at all? If the end of the game Is to end up right where I am now then I wouldn't want to keep playing haha. There must be some benefit or something to self inquiry? Has your spiritual path had any effect on worldly aspects of success like fitness, relationships, self esteem etc?