God as "Selfless"

[GreenWoods]

15 minutes ago, Juliano Zn said:

I have watched that video 3 times and still don't get it haha.

I might watch it again while on mushrooms. I know you have said that it's better to trip in silence and all, but this question about POV got me excited to try it.

watch that one too: https://www.actualized.org/insights/sense-organs-are-imaginary

[Matt Skinner]

@Leo Gura That does make sense, and I’m realizing there actually was a time not that long ago when that explanation was fresh in my mind because I’d watched your What is Love videos. I think something crucial I was forgetting is that suffering, hatred, struggle etc. are not default or fundamental to reality, they are directly proportional to ego and survival need. So without ego or survival, how could there be anything but love?

There’s still a fogginess present for me EXPERIENTIALLY, regarding the subject. But that’s partially because I’m feeling cannabis withdrawals (I’m pretty addicted and just stopped the other day) so although my mind unusually clear, I’m in a lot of bodily and emotional discomfort (so thoughts like “How could this suffering I’m experiencing be LOVE??” etc.) My awareness is being dominated by survival right now, basically.

But also I just need a deeper glimpse into Love directly and higher baseline consciousness. It won’t resonate properly without that. One of these days soon I’m gonna do another, deeper shrooms or LSD trip and contemplate on this... 

[Juliano Zn]

31 minutes ago, GreenWoods said:

watch that one too: https://www.actualized.org/insights/sense-organs-are-imaginary

I will! Thanks.

[Javfly33]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

I think we have gone through this plenty of times.

If I accept that this colours and sounds and feelings are happening to God/The Self and my persona/ego is just a construction built on top of the Absolute, then I am alone and this is a dream and I am just talking with imaginary people of my Consciousness.

If being conscious of this and accepting it is Enlightment, then people who are enlightened would stop playing the dream altogether. And this is clearly not the case. Every teacher of non duality who according to this forum is enlightened, is still playing all kind of games. Teaching to imaginary people, building business which are imaginary, using cars which are imaginary, uploading videos to YouTube which in fact is also imaginary and is reaching nobody...etc.

You were questioned by this in the past and you said "I keep playing games [...] because there Is no other thing to do ."

Yeah right. What an excuse, man. Sorry but I don't buy it. I keep myself open minded but it's really difficult to keep going in enlightment path because it's all seem so contradictory.

I mean it's so obvious. If t's really clear for you that every object and person is imaginary then nobody mentally sane would keep doing like they are real. They would stop just playing. They would probably just sit in a rock probably and then imagine another dream (because in my book this one would be "done" once you truly wake up and realize you are alone). Or forget everything and go back to ego like nothing ever happened of course.

 

[Gianna]

On 4/1/2021 at 8:12 AM, Kalo said:

Because there is, not seperation, but a distinction between the Godhead and everything the Godhead becomes/manifests/incarnates itself into.

It's so powerfully mystical but the way reality is designed, even God Himself must Love His Creation which ultimately is Himself.

That's God.

This explanation makes me think:

"Okay. God is selfless because God doesn't consider itself God. God considers itself all of the things in which it has created; therefore having no self of its own (e.g selfless)."

It's hitting me! I wish this "understanding through feeling" thing @allislove brought up lasted forever. Can we get to this point!? 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Gianna

[Gianna]

On 3/31/2021 at 0:16 PM, Forestluv said:

By creating a feeling thing called "self" that I am not feeling. 

We can create a thing called "anger". I feel "anger-less" when I'm not feeling anger.

Very interesting! This gives me a new understanding.  

So, it sounds like we create this thing in the first place in order to feel anything at all. Is this right? Otherwise, why would we create something in order to not feel it? We need to create it to experience it, learn from it, love it, and then let it go. 

[Gianna]

How can you feel selfless if you are one?

On 3/31/2021 at 0:16 PM, Forestluv said:

This example seems like nonsense, because it goes prior to making distinctions. The questions you ask are after distinguishing a thing called "a feeling of self". You don't assume a thing called "ruvaq" exists because you are prior to that distinction, yet you assume a thing called "self" exists because your mind space is dwelling after that distinction. 

So your answer is that you can't feel selfless if all feelings are one. You can only feel selfless if you make the distinction between self and selfless. Is that right?  

It's funny because I thought my initial question was before distinction because it was about the nature of God: how can you be no-self (i.e selfless) if you ultimately are The Self, The Ultimate Self, God, The Godhead, Consciousness– isn't this a Self? A Self of all things? While combining all dualities as one, as The Self, God, this is not self-less– this is the Ultimate Self, this is God. Yet, in working reality, because reality is dual this is where selfless comes in. Because God, in reality, never considers itself or acts as a God. It considers itself or acts as all things, which is selfless in reality. A selfless way of being. 

It just because this episode was about love that made me think of God as a being. One that can feel, one that can love. This ultimate being made me conclude, "well if God is a being, a being of all things, God is The Self" God is the Ultimate Self which is not 'self-less' it is The Ultimate Self! But as you point out, this is prior to any distinctions. After distinctions, you have selfless.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Javfly33 said:

I think we have gone through this plenty of times.

If I accept that this colours and sounds and feelings are happening to God/The Self and my persona/ego is just a construction built on top of the Absolute, then I am alone and this is a dream and I am just talking with imaginary people of my Consciousness.

If being conscious of this and accepting it is Enlightment, then people who are enlightened would stop playing the dream altogether. And this is clearly not the case. Every teacher of non duality who according to this forum is enlightened, is still playing all kind of games. Teaching to imaginary people, building business which are imaginary, using cars which are imaginary, uploading videos to YouTube which in fact is also imaginary and is reaching nobody...etc.

You were questioned by this in the past and you said "I keep playing games [...] because there Is no other thing to do ."

Exactly.

God has nothing else to do but dream. And God loves to dream.

Quote

Yeah right. What an excuse, man. Sorry but I don't buy it.

It's not an excuse at all.

Quote

I mean it's so obvious. If t's really clear for you that every object and person is imaginary then nobody mentally sane would keep doing like they are real. They would stop just playing.

You assume there is a distimction between real and imaginary things. But there is not. Reality IS imagination. And this is not some bummer. This is the mosg wonderful thing. One day you will realize that you want to live in an imaginary world. It's so much more fun!

Why the fuck do you want things to not be imaginary? Seriously!

[Inliytened1]

5 hours ago, Javfly33 said:

I think we have gone through this plenty of times.

Yeah but you haven't broken out of the dream yet so this all still at the level of concept for you

Once you have actually broken out of the dream you will realize it's a hundred times more enjoyable than before you knew it was a dream

 

[Gianna]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Colorless = Infinite Colors. No-self = Infinite Self.

 

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

So a true Chameleon cannot even be a chameleon. He must be a non-chameleon Chameleon

And if you understand that, then you understand why God must have no identity: precisely so he would take every identity fully, without mimickery. See? God can't just pretend to be rock or a bird or a human, God has to actually BECOME those things, otherwise how would they come into existence?

Ohhh my goodness. Okay. I see where I was thinking wrong now.

I was thinking that God was all things simultaneously so there was like reminisce of God in everyone. But what you're saying is that God can't know at all that it is God in order for it to understand what it's like to be one thing. God can't partially be God and partially be some other thing. "God has to actually BECOME those things" fully and entirely for what it is– its form, its limitation– in order to TRULY understand what it's like to be that one thing. God has to surrender its identity entirely (i.e. selfless) to understand what it's like to be something.

God can't be anything else while being that one thing because then God wouldn't be that one thing– it would be that one thing plus or minus some other thing that wasn't true to that thing. 

Wow. I knew God was Selfless but now I understand WHY. Which leads me to understand why God can't be anything. Holy shit. I finally get it.

The idea of The Self with a capital S is what was not letting me comprehend the selflessness component. But now I see.

Thank you Leo! 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Gianna

[Dazgwny]

@Gianna so now you get it, conceptually, become conscious of it. That is a much greater wow than the wow you’ve just experienced. An Infinitely greater wow. Mind fuckery at its best?. The conceptual getting it still will not prepare one for the becoming conscious of it. But it’ll certainly hold you in better stead. No matter how you’ve got it, it will blow your mind in ways that are still unimaginable to you. Even if you just become conscious of it for 10 seconds. Sit there for an hour or 2 conscious of it and you could very well believe you’ve gone totally insane. Which is terrifyingly beautifully brilliant?

[Gianna]

44 minutes ago, Dazgwny said:

@Gianna so now you get it, conceptually, become conscious of it. That is a much greater wow than the wow you’ve just experienced. An Infinitely greater wow. Mind fuckery at its best?. The conceptual getting it still will not prepare one for the becoming conscious of it. But it’ll certainly hold you in better stead. No matter how you’ve got it, it will blow your mind in ways that are still unimaginable to you. Even if you just become conscious of it for 10 seconds. Sit there for an hour or 2 conscious of it and you could very well believe you’ve gone totally insane. Which is terrifyingly beautifully brilliant?

Ah! I want that. How!? My meditations don't lead me to mind fuckery. 

[Dazgwny]

@Gianna I’m as equally not upto meditating my way to mind fuckery haha. Psychedelics is my way??‍♂️. Many will tell you the same

[traveler]

You don't want what is really pointed to, you want to understand and know truth. All of the God talk, conceptual ideas and descriptions of this, are really just distractions from death. Death is already this, total hopelessness, total let go, absolutely nothing. That sounds terrifying in the dream. The glimpses and the conceptual feeling-understandings are terrifying when there is a dream of a "real me in existence." When the "real me in existence" isn't there anymore, no one is left grasping for truth and experiences. It is more simple, and not overwhelming, because there is no one left to relate to it. That is what oneness really points to, it is impossible to understand because there is not two. The need to understand it in order for it to be okay is the dream. That need comes with a bunch of expectations about what "enlightenment" and "god" is.

You don't get superpowers, animals won't follow you everywhere because of your enlightened aura, people won't love and adore you because of how peaceful you are. These are all expectations of the individual. It is a dream chasing a dream. When I say "this is it" it is as direct as it gets, no hidden meaning or something to get. This is it, so if this is it already, what is there to get? 

There is no sense of urgency or a pressure to understand what was just written. It does not come from a place more deep or enlightened. It comes from nothing. There is no one here that understands this, this is totally unknowable, yet the energy of freedom puts this into words, that energy can be felt and can be liberating to the contracted energy of need. 

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Gianna said:

God can't partially be God and partially be some other thing. "God has to actually BECOME those things" fully and entirely for what it is– its form, its limitation– in order to TRULY understand what it's like to be that one thing. God has to surrender its identity entirely (i.e. selfless) to understand what it's like to be something.

Exactly. To be everything one must be nothing. Only nothing is flexible enough to become everything. Like a blank sheet of paper can take any drawings, but a drawn sheet of paper cannot take other drawings. There is an absolute trade-off between drawing one scene vs another scene. You cannot draw a scene of Egypt while also drawing a scene of Japan. Drawing any finite thing precludes the possibility of drawing another finite thing. All form is finite in this way. The only way to escape this limitation is to surrender existence as a form of any kind. Which, God, in its infinite wisdom has done. God surrendered all form to -- paradoxically -- create all possible forms. The only way for God to create everything was to itself be nothing. Which is why God is so hard to find. God is hard to find because it cannot exist as a form -- and since humans are forms, they only care about and look for forms. So humans look around, they don't see God's form, and they conclude that God must not exist. But what they don't realize is that God doesn't have form by design. It's not a bug, it's a feature!

[soularlight]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Exactly. To be everything one must be nothing. Only nothing is flexible enough to become everything. Like a blank sheet of paper can take any drawings, but a drawn sheet of paper cannot take other drawings.

Beautiful 

[WaveInTheOcean]

Humans don't realize all form is formless. That everything is nothing. That everything is an expression of God, Love ?

Edited April 3, 2021 by WaveInTheOcean

[WaveInTheOcean]

20 hours ago, Matt Skinner said:

@Leo Gura The TV/movie screen analogy remains one of the clearest pointers to no-self and meta-awareness I’ve come across. 

It's a good pointer/analogy, but be careful: The concepts/analogies/explanationd that we like the most are often the ones that are hardest to let go of. And letting go of all maps is ultimately needed to become IT.

[Matt Skinner]

11 minutes ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

It's a good pointer/analogy, but be careful: The concepts/analogies/explanationd that we like the most are often the ones that are hardest to let go of. And letting go of all maps is ultimately needed to become IT.

Totally. I’ve definitely gone through phases of getting too wrapped up in models/concepts. Whenever I actually have a profound experience, there’s a distinct difference between that and what I thought it was going to be like/“supposed” to be. And I find it can feed a neurotic need to understand everything logically, slowing progress.

I’ve learned it’s extremely easy to underestimate the degree to which I’m over-conceptualizing. Nothing matches experience and surrender. Appreciate the reminder!

[Superfluo]

@Leo Gura

 

On 2/4/2021 at 0:26 PM, Leo Gura said:

If you have difficulty getting that a rock is selfless, perhaps you should see a doctor

That's from a human point of view. I've been asking this question to myself for ages. How can we know that a rock is selfless? From a human definition of self maybe it is, but we're biased towards our definition. The only way to know, in the relative domain, is to be a rock.

 

On 2/4/2021 at 3:24 PM, Leo Gura said:

The only thing that keeps you from falling in love with absolutely EVERYTHING is the ego wanting things to be different.

Question: but why does the ego want things to be different? Because it knows that if it surrendered everything it would die? Then it's afraid of itself, because it has the capacity to drop itself, right?