Re: Actualized.org: The Dark Side Of Meditation : Spiritual Ego & It's Delusions Vs Enlightenment

[Leo Gura]

41 minutes ago, David1 said:

I don't get the distiction that is made between 'enlightenment' and 'permanent enlightenment'. What Leo described in the 5MEO-DMT video is enlightenment. Realizing, experiencing that you are Brahman/God... is it. You can't 'unrealize' it. It is permanent. What more profound insight can you have? Leo sais he's not enlightened because maybe he doesn't want his quest to be over?

Enlightenment is a complex matter. There are many facets to it. Much to discover and various degrees of attainment.

There are at least half a dozen different things to realize, and probably much more.

Not to mention dozens of various kinds of altered states of consciousness.

It's never as simple as: "BAM! Now I'm fully enlightened. Time for laundry."

[David1]

13 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

Enlightenment means to have the personal self drop away completely and for good. A glimpse is just a glimpse. If you experience a temporary drop of the personal self but it comes right back, it is of little value to your pursuit of enlightenment beyond having extra motivation and faith, because memory and thoughts cannot understand enlightenment. Even if you have a memory of what it's like, it is not enlightenment and it puts you no closer to it. I think motivation is important to take into account here. Having experienced this shift, I now seek it for the primary reason that it feels so much better to be that way. So, I seek it so that I can be at peace. Despite my experience with it in the past, I don't have that peace now. I'm still attached to the personal self. So, despite experiencing it... I am not enlightened now. There is a qualitative difference, and not just a 'Oh... I saw it and now I know and it's a done deal.' So, even if you have an experience where the personal self drops away, this is not enlightenment. It is a glimpse. 

Also, a key quality of being enlightened is a complete cease to the seeking process. It just comes about, and it's undeniable. If Leo is still seeking then he is correct in saying that he isn't enlightened. EVERYONE seeks except for the enlightened. If he were grasping at seeking and didn't want his quest to be over, that means he's definitely not enlightened... as this too is a form of grasping and seeking. 

The personal self drop away completely and for good? That's death. You can't function as a human being without a self or ego. You are a drop, you can't be the ocean unless you stop being the drop.

[David1]

@Leo Gura I agree, there is alot to learn, to play around with...different angels, insights, experiences. But none will be as profound as being God.

[Emerald]

16 minutes ago, David1 said:

The personal self drop away completely and for good? That's death. You can't function as a human being without a self or ego. You are a drop, you can't be the ocean unless you stop being the drop.

I was able to function perfectly fine and even better when I let go of the personal self for that short time. The identity is not needed for proper functioning. People just get used to functioning in a way where everything that happens to them and every thought that they think gets filtered through this idea of the personal self. But it's just an idea, and it distorts things a lot. For example, I have a difficult time standing up for myself in certain situations for fear of seeming a way that I don't want to seem. It causes me a lot of anxiety and takes away from the quality of my life, because my boundaries aren't as firm as would be comfortable for me. However, when the personal self dropped away for that time, I was completely unaffected by this issue. I had such deep love for everything in existence... including myself. In fact, other and self were one thing. It was like an equalizing effect. So, I know that, from that state, I would have no issue enforcing my boundaries. But I recommend trying to get a glimpse of what it is to be beyond ego. You seem to be under the wrong impression about what it is like. It isn't what it seems from the way it is described. 

Edited October 26, 2016 by Emerald Wilkins

[David1]

@Emerald Wilkins Ok...do this experiment...take a 'ego disolving' dose of 5meo-dmt and try to go out and do your normal routines. Do you think that will work? You need your ego to stay safe and to function.

[Emerald]

Just now, David1 said:

@Emerald Wilkins Ok...do this experiment...take a 'ego disolving' dose of 5meo-dmt and try to go out and do your normal routines. Do you think that will work? You need your ego to stay safe and to function.

I'm telling you that you don't from personal experience. I'm not speculating. 

[David1]

2 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

I'm telling you that you don't from personal experience. I'm not speculating. 

 Now you're scaring me. Be careful ok?

 

[Emerald]

Just now, David1 said:

 Now you're scaring me. Be careful ok?

 

Why is that scary to you? I've experienced ego-transcendence before. It's pretty uncommon but not as uncommon as you may think. There are others on this forum have had a glimpse or two before as well. I don't know why I would have to be careful though. These happened years ago. 

[David1]

@Emerald Wilkins Oh, i've had my share of ego loss and psychedelic experiences. But i never tried to go about my daily routines. I just can't function normally. I would be a danger in traffic to myself and others. Idem at work. I would probably end up dead or in the ER.

[Emerald]

Just now, David1 said:

@Emerald Wilkins Oh, i've had my share of ego loss and psychedelic experiences. But i never tried to go about my daily routines. I just can't function normally. I would be a danger in traffic to myself and others. Idem at work. I would probably end up dead or in the ER.

I would posit that your experiences of ego-loss correlate to the effects of the drug but are not directly caused by the drug, if that makes sense. So, the not being able to function is probably caused by the drugs and not the ego loss, if that makes sense. I experienced mine as a result of experimenting with Ayahuasca. The high was very mild in many ways, as I had most of my normal faculties. The effect of the drug was mostly seeing images super-imposed on things and at the onset a nice body high. But I was able to function. I don't know if it would have even been super apparent that I was high. But the profoundness didn't come directly from the effects of the drug, it came from the dropping of the personal self. My self-concept just became less important to me, and it was as though I zoomed out from my sense of self. So, all the things I would normally edit out of my internal experience and repress away, came back into my conscious awareness. I could still make decisions and had preferences, but I didn't run them through the filter of the personal self. I still knew how reality worked, and I could still make sound decisions. Less so, because I was high. But none of the impairment came from the dropping of the personal self. It was separate from the drug effects. 

[Rali]

On 10/21/2016 at 5:27 AM, Leo Gura said:

Ya'll need to learn to fucking listen, Rali included.

A) That entire video he's rebutting was NOT about enlightenment! It was about the side-effects of meditation! Nothing I said there had anything to do with enlightenment.

B) I never claimed those side-effects have meaning or value. In fact, I said to stay calm and carry on.

C) I never took any ontological position regarding those side-effects. Keep in mind that your mind constructs all of "physical" reality. So to say that a wall is "real" while  a demon is not, is rather moot.

D) Clearly none of you have very much meditation or altered consciousness experience.

E) Watch out for all these projections you make about me. (A rookie spiritual aspirant mistake.)

F) Another rookie mistake: nitpicking spiritual explanations to create a false sense of rivalry or contradiction.

G) Just because you understand enlightenment logically, doesn't mean you have any experience with all the other aspects of spiritual realms.

As a rule of thumb, when you think you have some angle on this stuff that I haven't thought of, think again. You underestimate the depth and diversity of what we're dealing with here too easily. The understandings I communicate to you is maybe 1% of what I actually understand. Some of the things I tell you, you won't understand until you spend years digging deeper and doing the practice, Rali included. There is more to this stuff than merely no-self.

You guys are failing the open mindedness test. How am I supposed to talk about demons in the future when you pull out the pitch forks or jump ship at the first uttered syllable?

May your mind materialize a big fat demon who bites you in your mind-constructed ass for your arrogance

Hey Rali here, Someone just facebook messaged me about this thread, and I felt the need to respond. Here is my response.

A) This is true, but you seem to think said experiences/altered states of consciousness matter. When they do not, you also seem to think that you are progressing on the spiritual path. When there is no progress to be had. The point is the dropping of all ideas/the acceptance of whatever arises as it is. So one can see reality as it is as opposed what one projects onto reality.

B) True. I did not watch the whole video, and apologized after watching the whole thing when it was pointed out to me that you said, said experiences are distractions. Although again, you do appear to attach a lot of importance to altered states or as adyashanti puts it "whacked out spiritual states of mind that are ultimately meaningless".

C) This is true. Ultimately everything is a projection onto consciousness, however, the "human medium" which the whole "world" is projected by can be "damaged" in the "real world", and when it is it will correlate to a change is "the real world". If I poke my eye out. I will cease to see out of said eye. If I die. The projections will stop. This is not the case when one is dreaming/or tripping in altered states.

D) Chill out bro. It is not that serious:)

E) I just watched your video because someone asked/to get views and found it to be amusing/go against the whole point of the path. Again not that serious.

F) Wanted to get views/grow my channel. Again. Not that serious. Chill:)

G) Understanding enlightenment logically, and chasing it are both pointless. Your ideas, all of them should drop on the path. Including your ideas of enlightenment. Which appear to be very strong. Even though you have state you are not "enlightened" iirc. 

" You underestimate the depth and diversity of what we're dealing with here too easily." You take it way too seriously. Enlightenment does not matter. It is of no value. It just makes you feel better. It is what it is. You either accept it or delude yourself with fantasies and other bs.

"May your mind materialize a big fat demon who bites you in your mind-constructed ass for your arrogance " haha you keep calling everyone who disagrees arrogant. C'mon bruh. Ask yourself who is it that is arrogant? jk haha

PS Dude I am enlightened as fuck. I do not need to dig deeper. This comment was made for comedic purposes. For if you care about the idea of enlightenment, think you are getting there or are there. You are deluded. For enlightenment is merely the dropping of all ideas. Enlightenment included.

 

"Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish opinions" - The third zen patriarch 

 

[abrakamowse]

That's why Nisagardatta Maharaj always write on his books that if you find any contradiction it is in the words, because words don't represent truth.

We can be talking here for years and years and we will be talking about the same thing (maybe) thinking that we are talking about different stuff.
Who knows? We only listen to ourselves or to our understanding of what others are trying to convey.

"As you are about to go through this book, please note that nothing you are about to read is true. It is merely words which represent things which do not exist."

---- Stephen H. Wolinsky, PhD (Preface to The Zen of Advaita by Nisagardatta Maharaj)

[Neill]

2 hours ago, Rali said:

Dude I am enlightened as fuck. I do not need to dig deeper. This comment was made for comedic purposes.

hahahah. love this guy.

[abrakamowse]

5 hours ago, Rali said:

For if you care about the idea of enlightenment, think you are getting there or are there. You are deluded. For enlightenment is merely the dropping of all ideas. Enlightenment included.

Yes, I agree with that! Are all of you listening guys? Drop everything!!!!

 

[Leo Gura]

@Rali Altered states of consciousness do matter. There is more to life than enlightenment. And there is more to enlightenment than enlightenment.

You're too flippant about the nuances of consciousness. There's way more to it than meets the eye.

Enlightenment is really just the beginning.

[abrakamowse]

3 minutes ago, John Flores said:

@Leo Gura Noah Elkreif got angry ...

I wonder if that guy is really enlightened if he got "angry" because of that...

 

 

[abrakamowse]

7 minutes ago, John Flores said:

@abrakamowse You do not understand enlightenment. These people are human. They are simply messengers of the eternal.

No one understands anything.

[Rali]

7 hours ago, John Flores said:

@Rali You do not understand the meaning of savior. What you are saying is technically true, but what the fuck ISN'T true!

 

With your attitude we'd spend another thousand years and no one will choose to be enlightened. Enlightenment is the source of existence. It's the beauty and pleasure of our lives.

 

Delusion is another concept. Delusion is relative, existent, and non existent. It's just a word. But see the logic in helping people see the truth about reality. The reality that is infinite. Don't stand idle while the word suffers in ego. Many enlightened people have made that mistake and we have spoken about their imperfections for thousands of years following.

Have no idea what you are talking about my dude. 

[Rali]

4 hours ago, John Flores said:

@abrakamowse  Correct. The rabbit hole goes so far it can give you headaches. The point is not to get a headache, it's to help people

Nope. There is no point. Whatsoever. The point is seeing the rabbit hole as it is. As a hole. That is pointless haha

@Leo Gura "What is enlightenment when it is not enlightenment any more"- Adyashanti. This is what "enlightenment" points towards. When you stop trying to box your experience into words/concepts/ideas. From said "point" one becomes completely content. Nothing more.

Siddhis, altered states, and etc. Are irrelevant on the path. For the "truth" must be ever present. Not just in certain states. Nor does one to accomplish anything to get it. Altered states are cool projections though. 

@Prabhaker Yezzir. My laptop is tripping so I am responding to you in this comment haha:)

Edited October 27, 2016 by Rali

[Prabhaker]

11 hours ago, Rali said:

Dude I am enlightened as fuck. I do not need to dig deeper.

When enlightenment happens then there is nobody left to dig deeper.