Two approaches to awakening

[roopepa]

I see that I can adopt at least two different approaches to awakening/enlightenment. I would like to hear what you think, and which one resonates with you more.

The first one seems to be more popular, the "usual" one. This is basically a perspective of "I am a person who can 'become conscious of the truth' or 'awaken' through my own actions, such as meditation, psychedelics, or any other spiritual work."

The second one, and this one has just started to emerge in me, is: "roopepa is a dream charcter, and the dream character itself cannot 'wake up', as it is in the nature of the dream character to be a character. Awakefulness is already the case. Enlightenment has nothing to do with spiritual work, meditation, psychedelics, or the actions of the dream character. There is awakefulness already taking place and it cannot be otherwise. There is no-one to awaken.

What do you guys think? I think that the second one is a more "evolved" perspective. At least in my experience it seems to build on to the previous one.

[mandyjw]

There's no conflict between the two unless you believe one or the other. Teachings don't tell you how to do it or how to get there, but illuminate what you take to be the truth but is not actual. 

[mandyjw]

Also if you believe the second approach is more evolved, you're actually still believing the first approach anyway, see how impossible this all is to work out?  

[allislove]

Seems natural to me. At the beginning, you believe that you are just a separate person and there is an external world. Then, you believe that a person can achieve happiness/peace via substances, some actions. Then, you realize that there is no separate person, happiness/peace doesn't depend on anything, and you are it.

Any step doesn't deny spiritual work, psychedelics, meditation. It may or may not be helpful, all up to you.

[Breakingthewall]

I think there is a third approach, which would be: there are things like: the need for control, the need to understand and label, the need to "be someone", which create an illusion of separation and this illusion creates a prison in which I am prisoner. I want to be free, so I'm going to observe my jail, identify its bars, know it perfectly, so that I can enter and leave it whenever I feel like it. I don't worry about myself, I am what I am and that will not change, I perceive it naturally when obstacles disappear. I worry about my jail, since it is not fixed, it changes and I can avoid it

[BipolarGrowth]

If you’ve ever tried techniques to trigger a lucid dream, you’d know that which actions the character does have a large impact on the probability of truly realizing it’s a dream. 
 

Believing life is a dream is not the same as awakening, even if that belief feels to be true upon awakening. 

[roopepa]

@mandyjw Yeah, I see

However I think the most important thing here is that the second perspective feels a lot better, it gives my mind more freedom to shift between different perspectives and seems to make me overall more connected. I sense a truth there that is not present in the previous perspective. Hence I feel that at least for now, it is the right way for me.

[Nahm]

“I think”, “my mind”, “me overall more connected”, “I feel”, “way for me”. 

This thinking all seems to center around an individual, but does believing thoughts about a separate self make a separate self... or are you as awareness aware of these thoughts, about a ‘me’?

Can you point to that ‘me’ the thoughts are about?

If not, what is being said to approach? 

What is thought to be approached? 

Is it possible to inspect the actuality of validity of these thoughts, prior to believing and expressing them?

[WaveInTheOcean]

The two perspectives don't exclude each other as the rationalist logicians would like you to believe they do:-)

Reality is non-dual but SEEMS dualistic (self-other etc.).

Self-realization needs to occur.

It's a gradual path with possible break-throughs on the way there.

You are "IT" (we can call it Nothingness, Oneness, The Universe, Nature, God, Consciousness, Awareness, Love, Dao, Source, Absolute, Infinity, The Eternal Dreamer, The Selfless Self, w/e floats your boat).

But IT has tricked (willingly ofc) Itself into believing Its true nature is a <separate self // dream character // human person> stuck in an outside/external 'world' that doesn't give a damn about you.

:-)

There is SOMEONE 'to awaken': fucking YOU! Haha. Otherwise you wouldn't be here asking questions!

That 'Someone' you can call 'no one', if you want -- although I personally think a more holistic word is to call It God?️

You're God. Wakey wakey over there;)

As long as you *feel* like you're 'a form', a thing, a separate self, a concept or a social construct, you aren't enlightened, but still in the invisible chains of ego.

It's true that when you then finally fully awaken, you can clearly see that you've actually been just as much IT/God, as you are after awakening.

Of course! There truly only IS IT(God). Everything We imagine to not be IT but 'separate, form, divided, apart, different' is exactly that: IMAGINATION (Your Imagination as God! In other words: GOD)

Hehe.

But until then, until your soul&mind& ego is fully in the light of Your Divine Awareness, you're asleep, right?

Asleep as in: you feel mortal. You feel impermanent. You feel separate. You feel like you lack z, x and y. You feel scared. Your inner world is in tension, conflict. You don't feel at peace. You suppress a lot of stuff coming up inside you, because you're scared. And you're scared because you still believe you can die, like something can actually go wrong. That mistakes are actually possible. 

Imagine for a moment that your experience RIGHT NOW as you're reading these lines and nodding your head...is a DREAM. That it is something You're dreaming, and that you can (and will, sooner or later) wake up from it, exactly like waking up in your bed after a terrible scary night-dream in which a lot of mistakes/wrong-doings were happening. You would wake up and say "pyh! Oh boy! I'm glad all that shit was just a dream and not real! Oh God, haha, wauw - let me get a cup of coffee and enjoy the blue sky."

? ? ?️?

So, go with how you feel.

 ????️⛓️?♾️⚛️???????

In this human life-dream, however, you don't get to wake *up from* the dream. Only physical death does that, of course.

However, you can 'still die before you die' and realize -- INSIDE the Dream! -- that IT IS in fact A fucking DREAM ?

Awakening/enlightenment is a kind of Lucid Dreaming!

You know that you're dreaming, but the dreaming doesn't stop, whereas before enlightenment you just weren't aware of the fact that you were dreaming ;-)

??♾️⚛️???

Good luck, I'm sure you'll get there.

Edited April 28, 2021 by WaveInTheOcean

[Consilience]

It’s both. When you start to embody both... things start to be experienced as pure magic on a daily basis  

[roopepa]

2 hours ago, Nahm said:

This thinking all seems to center around an individual, but does believing thoughts about a separate self make a separate self... or are you as awareness aware of these thoughts, about a ‘me’?

There is awareness of the thought "me". There is also awareness of a thought "it is me who is aware of the thought" and it seems very real. Can't imagine it being any other way. There is an unpleasant feeling in the body. Feeling like staring at a brick wall. Feeling bad because I think it's a failure if I can't understand what you are pointing to.

3 hours ago, Nahm said:

Can you point to that ‘me’ the thoughts are about?

No. I can't point to any thought really. Actually I'm not really sure what "pointing" means.

3 hours ago, Nahm said:

Is it possible to inspect the actuality of validity of these thoughts, prior to believing and expressing them?

No.  They seem very real if believed and focused on but this focus can be shifted and they become "just thoughts", like "a unicorn".

[roopepa]

@WaveInTheOcean 

[Nahm]

55 minutes ago, roopepa said:

This thinking all seems to center around an individual, but does believing thoughts about a separate self make a separate self... or are you as awareness aware of these thoughts, about a ‘me’?

There is awareness of the thought "me".

?? ‘Me’, is a thought. 

55 minutes ago, roopepa said:

There is also awareness of a thought "it is me who is aware of the thought" and it seems very real.

?? Yep, awareness is... aware. 

“Real” is just another thought, like, “unreal”. Awareness is aware both of these thoughts. Because awareness is aware of these thoughts...these thoughts can not actually be about, or define or label in any way, the awareness which is aware, and prior to, the thoughts. 

Don’t look to become awareness, or more aware, etc. In the most ordinary plainest sense, simply notice awareness is aware. 

55 minutes ago, roopepa said:

Can't imagine it being any other way.

?? Exactly. Even if you did, the very same awareness would be aware of that thought or image as well. 

55 minutes ago, roopepa said:

There is an unpleasant feeling in the body. Feeling like staring at a brick wall. Feeling bad because I think it's a failure if I can't understand what you are pointing to.

Woah. Slow down meow. 

‘Body’ is a thought. Awareness is aware of this thought. 

‘Failure’ is a thought. Awareness is aware of this thought. How does this thought, ‘failure’, feel to awareness? Is awareness ‘saying’ hell yes, or, hell no? 

Go by feeling, intuition, your direct experience so to speak. Awareness letting you know there is this thing you believe in called ‘failure’, or not? 

Is awareness believing that thought along with “you”, or not? Is awareness “going there”, or is there the experience, of the discord, of awareness “not going there with ‘you’ ”? 

55 minutes ago, roopepa said:

No. I can't point to any thought really. Actually I'm not really sure what "pointing" means.

Usually folks kinda make a fist, and then extend the index finger towards something. Do that to the “you” that’s being talked about. 

Exhibit A: ??   

If you can’t point to a thought....

And you can’t point to a “yourself”....

5 hours ago, roopepa said:

However I think the most important thing here is that the second perspective feels a lot better, it gives my mind more freedom to shift between different perspectives and seems to make me overall more connected. I sense a truth there that is not present in the previous perspective. Hence I feel that at least for now, it is the right way for me.

Then what are you talking about when you say “my mind”, who’s mind? 

“Make me overall connected”, who ya talking about? 

“I sense a truth”, who does? 

“I feel that”, who does?

”the right way for me”, who’s that you’re talking about? 

55 minutes ago, roopepa said:

No.  They seem very real if believed and focused on but this focus can be shifted and they become "just thoughts", like "a unicorn".

Liberation is in the details. Inspect every ‘movement’. This inspecting is literally effortless awareness being aware. 

[roopepa]

@Nahm 

Most of what you said just does not compute. Such a weird thing. Waiting for an "a-ha!" moment, trying to figure it out. Such weird feelings come up. Almost crying. There is just this unspeakable, unthinkable crazy what-the-fuckness going on. Feels kinda good, actually.

[Nahm]

@roopepa

 

I do not mean this sarcastically... but the best thing is probably t completely forget it. Insights tend to sudden just ‘pop’ in the mind which is emptied of the inquiry. The intention to “get it” is more than ample. Source will do what source does so well. 

[SpiritualDandelion]

Enlightenment represents the final stage of the development of consciousness, which certainly requires the practice of some type of non-Ego meditation.  Then the Soul of the meditator with its healing-developmental action lowers the level of vibrations of consciousness, erases the "patches" of the Ego from the 12 layers of the aura, heals all disorders and diseases that exist ... and much more, which is individual for each meditator individually. 

Thanks to these actions, the Spiritual Plans of consciousness become available to the meditator, first of all through contact with his Soul, and later with other spiritual consciousnesses from which he received the necessary spiritual knowledge and directions.