Some questions for Göran

[Ranger]

Hi I’m Andrew a.k.a. ‘Ranger’, a forum lurker turned noob poster. I have started this thread to ask the author Göran Backlund a.k.a. ‘anaj’ some questions. Göran has written a wonderful little ebook titled Refuting the External World and has a website uncoveringlife.com which contains some thought provoking material. I can tell that a lot of effort has gone into both creations, and I thoroughly recommend purchasing his ebook. It is very short and inexpensive, but it encourages the reader to think about their experience in an entirely different manner to the general consensus mode that the majority of us operate from, i.e. the ‘I’m here, experiencing a world out there’ model.

In summary, the book is a conversation between ‘Walt’ and his Philosopher friend (I assume to be Göran himself). Using step-by-step logic, Göran reveals to a befuddled Walt, that there is no world ‘out there’, also leading the reader to the realisation that essentially the world is actually a manifestation within a field of pure subjectivity - images on a screen. Similarly, this is also the premise of many of the world’s contemplative traditions such as Zen, and Advaita. Today, this understanding is mostly referred to as ‘non-duality’ – that there are not two things in experience. This is actually quite a shocking revelation, that the experience of the computer screen upon which you read these words, and the wall ‘behind’ it cannot be separated from subjective experience (awareness), thereby they are essentially one …You are the screen …You are the wall. Spooky stuff.

This realisation, and the subsequent shift into the mode of perception whereby subject-object are no longer divided has historically been referred to as enlightenment or awakening. In Zen it has been called ‘recognising your true nature’. Göran has defined enlightenment here, and claims that this has happened to him. To my knowledge, I have never entered into a dialogue with an enlightened being, so the goal of this thread is not only to gain clarity on some of the topics presented in his book, but to ask some questions about what it is like experientially to be enlightened. Maybe it will be helpful for someone else too. Obviously, language is a bit tricky here, “there is no one to be enlightened” and all that jazz, but you get my drift. That said, I believe that until this understanding is one’s own experience, one should reserve a healthy amount of open minded scepticism.

So, with the introduction out of the way, I would like to proceed to ask Göran a few questions. Here is my first, under the heading of:

The Experience of Enlightenment

I have read that the experience of enlightenment is self-evident and undeniable. The author Douglas Harding called it “the rediscovery of the obvious”. I have read that if you have to ask, you haven’t got it. There are many tales in the Zen tradition of practitioners making sudden breakthroughs into reality, whereby they end up laughing at how ignorant they’ve been to spend their whole life overlooking their ‘Buddha-nature’.

In contrast, I have also read of people who didn’t realise their own enlightenment, or didn’t understand the context of what was happening to them as enlightenment unfolded. U.G. Krishnamurti comes to mind. I think that part of the attraction toward ‘enlightened beings’ is the certainty and confidence to which they can attest that they have ‘woken up’, and brought to an end ‘the search’.   

So, how can you – or any other enlightened person for that matter – be sure that your mind isn’t playing tricks on you? That perhaps you’ve convinced yourself of your enlightenment through reading books?  Or that you’ve simply entered into an altered state of consciousness? How is it that one knows - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that they’re Enlightened? How obvious is it? What is it that is self-evident? Please speak from personal experience, perhaps referring to ‘pre’ and ‘post’ enlightenment modes of perception.

Finally, thank you Göran for taking the time and having the patience to read and answer my questions, I look forward to hearing back.

Best, Andrew

[anaj]

Hello,

If anyone is wondering, Andrew pm:ed me and asked beforehand if he could ask me questions, and I agreed, so that's how this whole thing got set up.

7 hours ago, Ranger said:

So, how can you – or any other enlightened person for that matter – be sure that your mind isn’t playing tricks on you? That perhaps you’ve convinced yourself of your enlightenment through reading books?  Or that you’ve simply entered into an altered state of consciousness? How is it that one knows - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that they’re Enlightened? How obvious is it? What is it that is self-evident? Please speak from personal experience, perhaps referring to ‘pre’ and ‘post’ enlightenment modes of perception.

Well, what is certain is that a shift in perception has occurred. The question is whether that shift is the same that the masters reference when they talk about enlightenment. Of course, you can never fully know, all you can do is compare the facets of this new way of taking things in with what they describe in the literature, and decide whether it matches. In my case, I think it does, but I can't know 100%, of course.

But on the other hand, it doesn't matter. What's important isn't that your experience matches up to some standard, but that you're liberated from identification; meaning that you no longer perceive yourself as a self, but you drop identification altogether. And that can only happen when you perceive yourself as nothing in particular, which is exactly the sense you get from the shift; that you're everything in total, which amounts to the same thing as being nothing in particular. 

How obvious it is? Well, the obvious thing is that I no longer perceive through a 'witness'/subject. After the shift, the field of experiencing is taking itself in without a perceiver perceiving it.

When the subject of experience, which is what I, prior to the shift, had identified as, collapsed, the sense of me shifted to encompass the entire field (this is what one refers to when one says that you become one with everything).

Now, when I say the field is taking itself in, that doesn't say very much. But what is obvious is that everything is tangibly made out of perceiving as such. Is that you look around you and it's not that the objects are made out of consciousness, but more like that there are no objects, only indentations and ripples in the fabric of myself. And I don't mean myself as as a perceiver of perception (because that is the very subject/witness that vanished in the moment of the shift) but 'myself' as the substance out of which every perception is formed. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by anaj

[Ranger]

Thank you for giving such a detailed account of your awakening, and the subsequent changes in experience – mind boggling but very interesting.

Your reply dovetails quite nicely into the next question I would like to ask – what is it like to live and exist as this fabric? I was reading your account and it struck me actually how radical this shift would be. To literally turn ones world on its head. One minute your'e something, and the next minute you’re nothing/everything. It reminded me of the title of Paul Hedderman's book “the escape to everywhere”.

So, if I have this correct your localised sense of 'I' expanded to encompass the totality of experience? Sort of like a global awareness with no center? Please help me try to understand this. Let’s say that I'm looking at my hands outstretched in front of me. I am aware that they appear as clear images in my central field of vision, but as I move them out an around to my sides they enter peripheral vision, becoming blurry until eventually they disappear (behind me). Now let’s say that I suddenly shifted into the enlightened mode of perception – how would this experience differ?

Or another example, lets say that I have nothing to do and I'm aimlessly looking at a bowl of fruit on my kitchen table, when the shift occurs. Would the sense of 'I' literally expand to become the bowl of fruit, the kitchen table, and the surrounding kitchen and kitchenware, simply knowing itself? Would I exist as a piece of fruit? 

Also, how does this shift affect your functioning in ‘the world’? From your description it sounds as if it would be rather disorientating - perhaps even frightening to suddenly vanish as a space/time entity. For example, where do my hands (in the above thought experiment) go when they leave the field of vision? Do the orientations of up/down, inside/outside, front/back, in front of/behind no longer make sense? Is three-dimensionality now a ridiculous concept, similar to how you believe you are seeing three dimensions when engrossed in a movie, but in truth you’re watching a flat image? When you’re brushing your teeth and you glance up, do you no longer identify with the man in the mirror who is staring back?

Finally, is there some kind of special knowledge of ‘the Truth’ that is gained when this shift happens? I’ve always wondered when ‘awakened’ people speak of topics such as emptiness, infinity, eternity, the void, and so on, whether they’re speaking from an intellectual understanding, or some kind of transcendent wisdom that's gained in the moment of awakening.

I hope this makes sense, in trying to make sense of the perceptual shift you described I think I tripped a few of cognitive fuses.

Many thanks.

Edited September 14, 2020 by Ranger

[Ranger]

As a follow up question, exactly where do you exist now?

As an apparently space/time entity operating from the Universe model, I can state that I exist in my kitchen, that is in my house, that is in England, that is on the Earth, that is in the universe, etc. The bowl of fruit is in front of me. The wall is behind me. The Earth is below me and the sky is above me.

Would I be correct in saying that this kind of thinking gets thrown out entirely when the shift occurs? If so, where does this fabric you now identify with exist? ...I suppose that would imply space exists?

[anaj]

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

So, if I have this correct your localised sense of 'I' expanded to encompass the totality of experience? Sort of like a global awareness with no center?

Yes.

 

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

Please help me try to understand this. Let’s say that I'm looking at my hands outstretched in front of me. I am aware that they appear as clear images in my central field of vision, but as I move them out an around to my sides they enter peripheral vision, becoming blurry until eventually they disappear (behind me). Now let’s say that I suddenly shifted into the enlightened mode of perception – how would this experience differ?

 

Before the shift, the sense is that you as a subject is like a _camera_, having a point of view, or a perspective, upon an already pre-existing set of objects, whether these are your hands or some 'external' object such as a bowl of fruit, and that those have independent existence apart from you, such that they would be there whether you see them or not. 

But after the shift, there's no longer any sense of perceiving seperate 'objects', already pre-existing - it's rather that the only thing there is, is your own being, and what were once 'objects' is now recognized to be mere impressions of oneself. Like if you have a blanket and it looks like there's something under it making an impression that you can see, but when you lift the blanket there's nothing there. 

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

Or another example, lets say that I have nothing to do and I'm aimlessly looking at a bowl of fruit on my kitchen table, when the shift occurs. Would the sense of 'I' literally expand to become the bowl of fruit, the kitchen table, and the surrounding kitchen and kitchenware, simply knowing itself? 

Yes, the sense of I expands, or rather, infuses the entire field of experience. Because at that point you'd no longer see it as a room, within which you are situated, but the room and the kitchen table and the bowl would just be seen as the way in which you're knowing your self - You're literally seeing kitchen tably, fruitbowly and roomly.

 

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

Would I exist as a piece of fruit? 

So no, you're not a piece of fruit then, rather, the bowl of fruit ceases to be a bowl and becomes an aspect of yourself. 

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

Also, how does this shift affect your functioning in ‘the world’? From your description it sounds as if it would be rather disorientating - perhaps even frightening to suddenly vanish as a space/time entity. For example, where do my hands (in the above thought experiment) go when they leave the field of vision? Do the orientations of up/down, inside/outside, front/back, in front of/behind no longer make sense?

No, it's not disorienting. I'd say that my functioning in the world on the level of moving around is largely the same, but for the falling away of intentions, as I describe here, but otherwise, simply moving around in the world is mostly the same, it's just that the 'world' is seen differently:

Where do my hands go? It's a little like asking, where does the notes in the song go once they've subsided. That would only make sense if the notes are seen as separate things that could be either in or out of the song. But of course, the notes ARE the song, and have no existance apart from it.

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

Is three-dimensionality now a ridiculous concept, similar to how you believe you are seeing three dimensions when engrossed in a movie, but in truth you’re watching a flat image?

No, three-dimensionally is the way in which I manifest. It's not an 'illusion', as an 'illusion' implies a situation where subjective experience misrepresents objective reality. But there's no objective reality, so there's nothing to misrepresent. The appearance is the reality.

 

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

When you’re brushing your teeth and you glance up, do you no longer identify with the man in the mirror who is staring back?

Actually, there's still some identification with the character, although a lot has fallen away over the years ( 8 years since my shift ). Yes, when you shift, your identity shifts as you see clearly that you're _not_ the character; that the character is simply a custome; and you recognize your true nature as the field in which it appears. But, there's still some kind of energetic, emotional involvement in the dreamstate, that I sometimes completely check out of. And that's how I know that there's still involvment in the character, because sometimes I will disconnect from the dreamstate, completely severing that emotional attachment and just look at how the whole thing runs by itself. But then the connection is re-established and my energetic involvement resumes. I can feel though, that over the years this involvement gradually subsides, and I kind of see that the non-involvment is where the whole thing is heading, although I can't know for sure. It's a little scary because I like the involvement. 

So, at least in my case, the ego didn't magically vanish just because I had an awakening. 

12 hours ago, Ranger said:

Finally, is there some kind of special knowledge of ‘the Truth’ that is gained when this shift happens? I’ve always wondered when ‘awakened’ people speak of topics such as emptiness, infinity, eternity, the void, and so on, whether they’re speaking from an intellectual understanding, or some kind of transcendent wisdom that's gained in the moment of awakening.

I know they talk about this, that they had 'downloads' from the universe and stuff like that. I don't know about them, But I did not have anything like that. All my 'knowledge' about these things have been derived from purely philosophical reasoning. I did not gain any intellectual insight from my shift; it was just a new mode of perceiving, moment to moment. I gained insight into my true nature, yes, because I now perceive my true being moment to moment, so that's a kind of insight I suppose. But there was not any download of knowledge like some people claim.

Edited September 15, 2020 by anaj

[anaj]

13 hours ago, Ranger said:

Would I be correct in saying that this kind of thinking gets thrown out entirely when the shift occurs? If so, where does this fabric you now identify with exist? ...I suppose that would imply space exists?

Yes, after awakening a kind of reversal took place. Before, I viewed consciousness as merely a perspective upon reality, situated at a specific location within a larger frame of reference called absolute space. Even if I could philosophically conclude otherwise, I couldn't help but see things this way. Afterwards, space was seen, not to be a larger frame within which manifestation takes place, but rather the way in which the manifestation is extended as it's being rendered apparent, namely in terms of width, breadth and height. And therefore, the manifestation itself is located nowhere at all. An interesting side note is that before the shift, as I was walking/moving forward, the sense was that I was a camera/perspective moving within a static world, whereas afterwards, the sense was that it was the world that was moving 'towards' the. now, non-center, if that makes sense.

Edited September 15, 2020 by anaj

[Ranger]

Thankyou for your patience and honesty Goran, there's plenty of interesting juicy stuff to mull over in your last posts. I'm away from a computer for the weekend. If I am not being too much of a nuisance, may I continue my line of questioning on Monday?

[anaj]

On 9/18/2020 at 10:23 PM, Ranger said:

may I continue my line of questioning on Monday?

Of course!

[Vittorio]

Super juicy topic! I have a question for you, @anaj.

I did many psychedelic trips and I have already had many experiences (and insights) of oneness, I am God, everything is a perspective, I am not my body, I am nothing, this is just an Avatar, everything is a perception etc. but even if I understand everything on a conceptual basis, I still cannot pierce through the ego mind and obtain enlightenment. 

Why is that? What can I do about that? 

Maybe I am still not ready to give up my identity because I want to obtain certain things in life first (creating a business, having new experiences with women, travels etc.)? What do you think? 

 

[Chris365]

@anaj , does love figure anywhere in your experience? 

[anaj]

5 hours ago, Vittorio said:

but even if I understand everything on a conceptual basis, I still cannot pierce through the ego mind and obtain enlightenment. 

Why is that? What can I do about that? 

Integrating insights can take quite a while, in my experience. For instance, way back, many years ago I had the realization that we, as human beings, did not possess free will; that the whole notion was, when you actually unpack it and trace down all its meanings, really inconceivable.

And a natural and logical consequence was that it didn't really make sense, psychologically, to blame people for stupid stuff they did. Yet, I found it quite difficult to align my emotional reactions with this new way of viewing the world, despite the fact that I had really grokked the insight about free will.

But over the years the old ways kind of wore off, and nowadays I mostly am fine with people acting the way they do. I might respond adequately, but deep down I don't blame people for acting like people. So it takes time for insight to seep through. It's the same with all this reality stuff. You don't just have an insight and then everything falls into place. It takes many years, before the understanding has permeated your way of being to the point where it feels aligned.

Edited September 21, 2020 by anaj

[anaj]

6 hours ago, Chris365 said:

does love figure anywhere in your experience?

Yes, but honestly, I'm still figuring it out, so I can't say much about it at this point.

[Ranger]

Hi Goran,

Thankyou, I'm glad that a few more people have been reading and have gotten involved in this thread. I have often watched videos online of people describing enlightenment and come away thinking "what on Gods Earth are they talking about?", but you have a knack for clearly describing/conveying the experience. Sorry this might be a bit of a lengthy reply.

A few points and comments before I ask another question (excuse me,  I'm still getting the knack of these 'quotes'):

Quote

Like if you have a blanket and it looks like there's something under it making an impression that you can see, but when you lift the blanket there's nothing there.

Is this what buddhist (especially Zen) texts refer to as 'emptiness' - that objects/things lack inherent existence?

Quote

So no, you're not a piece of fruit then, rather, the bowl of fruit ceases to be a bowl and becomes an aspect of yourself. 

Namkhai Norbu describes the objects/aspects of the world/you wonderfully as the world being 'ornaments' of your true nature. I like your description 'indentation' too.

Quote

Where do my hands go? It's a little like asking, where does the notes in the song go once they've subsided. That would only make sense if the notes are seen as separate things that could be either in or out of the song. But of course, the notes ARE the song, and have no existance apart from it.

So really, my hands have no inherent existence beyond this field of experience manifesting as a pink blobs and tingly feeling. There is nothing 'behind' me/the fabric?

Quote

No, three-dimensionally is the way in which I manifest. It's not an 'illusion', as an 'illusion' implies a situation where subjective experience misrepresents objective reality. But there's no objective reality, so there's nothing to misrepresent. The appearance is the reality.

Wow thats a real mind blender, I have had to read this a few times. This must be what the Heart Sutra means 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form' or 'Samsara is Nirvana'. So I'm basically staring what I'm seeking right in the face. I just dont know/feel it directly?

On a sidenote, since I was a kid I've always had this idea that reality is two-dimensional. I cant help but picture an aware flat screen upon which manifestation is occurring, within which the dimensions of length and bredth exist, but not depth - as spatial depth to experience would imply something over 'there'. Objects look as though they are behind one another in 'space' but in reality this is an inference.

Quote

Yes, when you shift, your identity shifts as you see clearly that you're _not_ the character; that the character is simply a custome; and you recognize your true nature as the field in which it appears.

I see. May I ask whether this shift is sudden or gradual? In Zen, sudden awakening, or 'Kensho' is a hot topic of debate between their 'sudden awakening/gradual cultivation' (and visa versa) schools. I've read your article Awakening: My Story at it seems as though you went into a seeking frenzy prior to your awakening. Looking back, do you think that there was a moment when it flipped? If so, do you think the 'frenzy' was necessary?

Also, I don't know how familiar you are with Douglas Harding's work, but he's one of my favourite authors. He describes his 'headless seeing' as a "you either see it or you don't" experience. I believe that this is exactly what you describe in your article A Shift Into Enlightenment  as piercing through the veil of conceptualization i.e. non-dual awareness. It seems like this is the moment the theory was transformed into direct experience. Would I be correct in saying that this is the moment you shifted? When you pierced the veil of conceptualization and broke through into reality?

That this sudden experience of 'seeing' obliterates your previous notion of self and not-self, and that all that is required to abide in non-dual awareness is to keep trying to invoke this mode of perception until it becomes permenant?

Quote

An interesting side note is that before the shift, as I was walking/moving forward, the sense was that I was a camera/perspective moving within a static world, whereas afterwards, the sense was that it was the world that was moving 'towards' the. now, non-center, if that makes sense.

Yes this is another thing Douglas Harding described. He describes how the world slips and slides around the aware space. For example, when driving, the road and the telegraph poles whizz towards the still centre and dissapear into the void. That is interesting.

Thankyou again! I still have many questions but I will ask them another time.

[anaj]

45 minutes ago, Ranger said:

Is this what buddhist (especially Zen) texts refer to as 'emptiness' - that objects/things lack inherent existence?

As I understand it, the word emptiness is used differently across different schools of thought. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka, it's used more like a tool of deconstruction, where things are realized to be empty of inherent existence because they exist dependently; and the analysis of things existing dependently goes "all the way" down, eventually deconstructing everything, leaving nothing at all in the end. In other words, supposedly, you begin at your current assumptions of reality and bit by bit you deconstruct things by realizing their dependent nature until you realize that there's nothing there. I actually never found these teachings very  compelling, because I think that they play into materialism (even though they claim that in the end materialism itself is done away with). 

In zen, as I understand it, the word emptiness usually refers to the fact that one's true nature lacks any definable characteristics. 

47 minutes ago, Ranger said:

Namkhai Norbu describes the objects/aspects of the world/you wonderfully as the world being 'ornaments' of your true nature. I like your description 'indentation' too.

Yes, and another good word that I remember rupert spira once used was "modulation". I like that.

 

58 minutes ago, Ranger said:

So really, my hands have no inherent existence beyond this field of experience manifesting as a pink blobs and tingly feeling. There is nothing 'behind' me/the fabric?

Exactly.

 

48 minutes ago, Ranger said:

This must be what the Heart Sutra means 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form' or 'Samsara is Nirvana'.

As I interpret it, "Emptiness is form" refers to the fact that form and substance is really inseparable. Form and substance is really just a subtle duality; the form cannot exist apart from the substance and the substance cannot exist apart from the form. The notes cannot exist apart from the music and the music cannot exist apart from the notes. But both music and notes are really just nonexisting as independent things, as they are defined in terms of each other. It's just an artificial conceptual boundary that creates them in the first place.

59 minutes ago, Ranger said:

So I'm basically staring what I'm seeking right in the face. I just dont know/feel it directly?

Yes.

 

52 minutes ago, Ranger said:

Objects look as though they are behind one another in 'space' but in reality this is an inference.

No, because the depthly aspect is given directly in experience. It's the difference between looking with one eye or two eyes. One way of looking gives a flat report, the other a depthly one. The "depthly" sense is not inferred, but given.

55 minutes ago, Ranger said:

I see. May I ask whether this shift is sudden or gradual? In Zen, sudden awakening, or 'Kensho' is a hot topic of debate between their 'sudden awakening/gradual cultivation' (and visa versa) schools. I've read your article Awakening: My Story at it seems as though you went into a seeking frenzy prior to your awakening. Looking back, do you think that there was a moment when it flipped? If so, do you think the 'frenzy' was necessary?

The perceptual shift was sudden. But the recontextualizing of my experience began long before the shift, and continued afterwards. But there was definitely a single moment where the shift occurred. And yes, I think the frenzy was necessary. I can't see how I ever could end up where I am without the seeking, but of course, I've read accounts where it happened spontaneously ( Like eckhart tolle )

1 hour ago, Ranger said:

Would I be correct in saying that this is the moment you shifted? When you pierced the veil of conceptualization and broke through into reality?

Yes.

1 hour ago, Ranger said:

That this sudden experience of 'seeing' obliterates your previous notion of self and not-self, and that all that is required to abide in non-dual awareness is to keep trying to invoke this mode of perception until it becomes permenant?

Yes, that's how I did it.

[billiesimon]

Amazing responses, @anaj !

From what I've read, some people attain enlightenment by sudden shock, or sudden realization. People like Eckhart Tolle for example, or some monks from the zen tradition.

Others, which are the majority, attain it by constant and persistent use of the techniques and everyday presence in the moment.
Can you confirm this second statement?

[anaj]

4 hours ago, Mikael89 said:

Since you are everything, you should also be everything which appears in my consciousness?

Think about what is implied within your question: that there's separate pockets of experience, one mine and one yours. That kind of thinking; namely that in terms of objectivity; is dismantled in the book I wrote (which I'm happy you like

In other words, it's possible to realize that there's no particular objective way in which reality is, because objectivity as such isn't real, but merely a way of thinking; and thinking is to reality what sheet music is to the actual sounds that make up the music. That is, in no way do the symbols on the paper even begin to resemble the actual notes in the song as they appear in audible form. 

Of course, in the case of sheet music there's a kind of mapping, but in the case of reality and thinking there isn't even a mapping between concepts and objective reality as such, because there is no objective reality to which the concepts could refer. Unless concepts reference something in direct experience, they are ultimately empty and meaningless. Like in your example of "my experience" and "your experience". If you think about it, "mine" and "yours" isn't something that's given in experience, but is a reference to a kind of spatial situation within a larger objective frame of reference. This is true whether one is a non-materialist and thinks in terms of free floating separate streams of experience, or if one thinks of different located subjects in physical space, each having their own respective inner movie being played out in their own separate consciousness.

In other words, using concepts such as "mine" and "yours" must necessarily invoke thinking in terms of objectivity and can thereby be demonstrated to be non-viable, logically speaking, as I do in the book.

Edited September 21, 2020 by anaj

[anaj]

On 9/21/2020 at 10:48 PM, billiesimon said:

From what I've read, some people attain enlightenment by sudden shock, or sudden realization. People like Eckhart Tolle for example, or some monks from the zen tradition.

Others, which are the majority, attain it by constant and persistent use of the techniques and everyday presence in the moment.
Can you confirm this second statement?

I'd say that the actual moment of enlightenment always arrives as a sudden realization. I can't see how you would slowly slide into it. But even though the moment consists of a sudden shift, in general you'd have to build up to it, by investigating your direct experience, and your underlying conceptual framework with which you interpret it.

Edited September 23, 2020 by anaj

[Ranger]

Hi Goran, and thankyou again for answering these questions with amazing clarity. Your honest answers have cleared up a lot of misconceptions around the notion of being ‘enlightened’, and I have many more questions that are floating around in thought space, which I will type into something coherent later this week. I’m just checking back in to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about this thread.

‘Free time’ has become somewhat of a luxury these days - in fact, ‘time‘ is one of the themes I would like to explore at some point. Stay tuned for another question or two, if that okay with you?

[anaj]

19 hours ago, Ranger said:

Stay tuned for another question or two, if that okay with you?

Absolutely!

[Chris365]

@anaj, how do you perceive other people, when you see/hear them? How is the collapse of subject object duality working in this instance.

Are they also aspects of you?