From Realization To Liberation

[ivankiss]

The Realization, and I mean The Realization itself, might not bring liberation, right away. In fact; that very same realization can end up being your cage.

Its walls are usually made up of the common 'I'm all alone here, everyone is me, or, there is no one here, nothing is real, etc...' 

Thoughts/beliefs like this might be stuck in a loop; orbiting your awareness for quite some time. And that is but an invitation to let go of realization. Of The Realization.

'Just when the circle is drawn, just then the circle is gone.'

Liberation is, in that sense, just a step ahead. It is when Realization fully blossoms into Being. You are no longer the one that has realized Truth. You are (being) Truth.

Indeed, there are challenges along this way. Remember 'time'? It's your friend now. Remember 'personality'? Yeah, you've got one now, and it's awesome. Remember all that stuff you proved yourself to be nonexistent? Well, they all exist, after all. Your mother gave you birth. You were bullied in school.

All that jazz.

Is there anything in you that wants to stand up and tell me how full of shit I am?

If yes, that is exactly what's holding you back from liberation. You ventured too deep into the opposite, on a quest to disprove your previously constructed beliefs. It was actually just an unconscious polar response. 

If you did not make peace with the past, you can believe all you want that it's illusory and it never happened... It will still haunt your ass. And you will keep drowning in the sea of self-deception.

There are no shortcuts here.

Bottom line is; you must face yourself, fully. Totally and Completely. In pure, divine, all-loving, all-knowing, all-seeing, infinitely intelligent Light.

Only then can you become liberated. Only then can you be, as you truly are. Make no mistakes; it is a process. A phase. A path. Completing it will most certainly require of you some courage, faith, commitment, will.

Remember; if there is a perceived path, which you are walking... there is also an infinite amount of wrong paths, that could lead to disaster.

'There's only one true path in life... The road that leads to all, leads to One.'

Holding onto realization is fear and belief in separation. Ironically.

Liberation is too busy being absolutely awesome and badass. It's love, it's freedom, it's unity. It's One.

 

[caspex]

had a similar insight this week. Was watching veritasium when he said, and i am paraphrasing, "The scientific method is the effort to disprove yourself in every way and what you know, and if it still stands, then maybe you're closer to truth" Now ofcourse the culturally accepted version of scientific method is much more different and materialistic, but what veritasium described is what we all do here as well. Thing was tho, I never really tried to disprove what I had realized(and I was resisting wanting to, telling myself, "it's just a waste of time"). When I tried, I realized that not being able to disprove myself provided the contrast I needed to embody what is more so. I really tried to disprove myself right, but I couldn't. I also saw that I was holding too tight onto "what I had realized". It's actually very similar to, if not, dogma. After that point, I had insight into what you are describing here. In my efforts to disprove isness, I tried to become as 'normal' in my way of thinking as possible. "Yes, I was indeed born." "Yes, I AM Swarnim." "Yes, I AM this body." "Yes, I AM a male." "Yes, I AM my thoughts." "Yes, I AM my mind." Which gave me more contrast to work with. I saw that yes Indeed I am all that and I am just fooling myself by excluding those. I told myself "I exist" and yes indeed I do. I needed to come back down and accept all these things that I was pretending to accept before. 

[ivankiss]

@Swarnim Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

I guess, in this post, I just wanted to point out a trap along the journey. 

All realizations must eventually be let go of. And in that sense; Realization is not the 'end all be all'.

 

[ivankiss]

In short...

You're God... so what?

[Tim R]

@ivankiss That's beautiful and truly wholesome. Uniting "illusion" and "reality" requires Love. For this duality, which one has so worked on creating previously, must finally collapse as well.

The Zen Master Dōgen says:

"Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters."

 

[Shmurda]

"I am lonely, pathetic and twisted."

A while later....

"I'm infinitely and intimately connected. I am everything!"

A while after that...

"I am everything and within that there appears a lonely, pathetic and twisted localisation."

A LONG TIME after that...

"I am everything and I lovingly embrace every facet of myself and unconditionally forgive all the lonely, pathetic and twisted aspects of myself."

The end?

 

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

@Shmurda I guess the end point is: "Meh, it is what it is." *shrugs and takes a sip of tea*

[Breakingthewall]

 @ivankiss very sure. reconciling with your past may seem impossible in many cases. From the case you mentioned about the child bullied at school, to or the girl sold to a brothel, to the Congolese boy forced to torture his mother, there is a whole range of difficulties. It's not fair, why to me? nothing strengthens the ego more. trying to realize god to forget all that, it never happened ... it doesn't work! first you have to make amends no matter how difficult it is. It is necessary to understand that what is is not subject to what it should be. It comes out of nothingness, and is, without judgment. If you take away his judgment, the trauma turns into a shining jewel. It's liberation from should be, and like you said, it takes courage

[gettoefl]

realization is not dissolution

enlightenment is not embodiment

heaven is not happiness

mysticism is not truth

history is not my story

the finger is not the moon

 

aim for the one after the is, lose the one before the is

[Endangered-EGO]

@ivankiss For post awakening work, the only book I have found was Adyashantis :"The end of your world".

What do you think is the fastest way to liberation? I basically don't really care about realisation as much as I care about liberation tbh.

 

Apparently, a one sentence practice from shinzen young (paraphrased): turning the coping mechanism of avoidance, grasping and suppressing into concentration, equanimity and clarity.

[Gnosis]

19 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

For post awakening work, the only book I have found was Adyashantis :"The end of your world".

Most teachers do not teach post-awakening work. Teaching what they do, they already lose the majority, and their words fly over people's heads. There are people attending these "Satsangs" who literally do not understand a word.

The material you're looking for, is unironically probably better found in selective traditional literature, of which, there is no easy way to determine if the text is "post-awakening" unless you yourself already recognize a lot of nuance. And certainly the literature itself will not be describing itself as "post-awakening material".

I've found certain Chan Buddhist "recorded sayings" (of some masters') texts to express these levels of insight. And Dzogchen, regarded as the highest teachings in Tibetan Buddhism, also expounds upon and expresses these levels of insight and development. There's also a contemporary Catholic contemplative called Bernadette Roberts who wrote several books which could probably be considered "post-awakening material". Carole Griggs and Ted Strauss also have a developmental model which includes mapping of post-awakening territory, although I do not know how much actual material (textual or otherwise) regarding it is available. I've also noticed Leo in some recent videos touching more on some "post-awakening"-related themes.

In traditional literature, these levels of insight and development usually either come across as extremely sobering, to the point of a layman not even being able to tell if the text is talking something "spiritual", or elaborately radical and seemingly exaggerated, to the point where you can read 20 lines and not understand a single one, and be under the impression that the text must be exaggerating its description. In informal contexts or contemporary texts, the themes may also be non-spiritual, in the sense that the text is talking about something very practical and not about mystical things.

There is no lukewarm ground of such a text speaking about "oneness" (in the lofty sense), or "I Am", or "everything is interconnected", or any such common mystical ideas. In that sense, these texts usually appear unattractive to laymen and newer students because they do not make considerable efforts to appeal to their conceptual fantasies. Take note that I'm intentionally generalizing here.

There are also certain kinds of non-binary; multi-truth-valued logical or linguistic structural resemblances that texts from these high levels exhibit, but this is esoteric, nuanced and difficult for me to describe in detail, and furthermore, this is not exclusive just to these high level texts. These structures mostly derive from Indian Logic/Fourfold negation/Nagarjuna; there are also variants such as the logic of the verses in the Diamond Sutra.

Also not exclusive to texts at these levels but interesting nevertheless, are certain kinds of structures to an inquiry and answer, most notably, an answer which undermines the foundation of the inquiry, such as, "What is right and what is wrong?", "One journey, many paths.". Related to this, is a kind of structure to an inquiry and answer, wherein the answer simply points to immediate consciousness, which may additionally also undermine the foundation of the inquiry, such as, "What is the mind that the Patriarch bought from the West?", "An Ox is giving birth, take a look at it.".

An example which both points to immediate consciousness and simultaneously undermines the foundation of the question is:

"Is the cup half-empty or half-full?"

"It's a beautiful cup."

This stuff is very subtle. I think this is the first time I've ever explicitly described this in some detail. This is also a kind of meta-analysis of stuff that is already very obscure in the first place, which makes this even more obscure than it already is, which is frankly quite funny.

 

19 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

What do you think is the fastest way to liberation? I basically don't really care about realisation as much as I care about liberation tbh.

If what you deeply care about the most is the Truth, that is the "fastest way" to liberation.

The matter is, realization is not a side-step-able thing. Deep realization is fundamentally required. Really, the way you phrased the question comes across as a misunderstanding. Liberation here is just a word which describes the result of even deeper degrees of realization than what you're using the word "realization" to refer to.

Liberation means freedom. Freedom is simply no longer being attached to conceptual notions of "the Truth" and no longer maintaining falsehood.

To do that requires you to first recognize what not to attach to (i.e. "the Truth"), and secondly, on top of the foundation of some already deep integration and embodiment, most likely decades of non-outsource-able cogni-psycho-physiological work related to understanding and unraveling the patterns of falsehood still producing suffering in your "ordinary state of consciousness".

 

On 8/15/2021 at 4:20 AM, Tim R said:

"Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters."

This quote is not actually the word of Dōgen, but rather Dōgen quoting an older Chan (Zen) saying attributed to Qingyuan Weixin.

 

Last note: Regarding the sources of my three quoted questions and answers. The first question and answer is me quoting "myself", or rather quoting an inquiry I was contemplating, which was "answered" visually through an advertisement catchphrase I happened to see at that exact time. The second is a quoted dialogue from the recorded sayings of Chan (Zen) Master Zhaozhou (Joshu). The last quote about the cup is from a certain documentary I forgot the name of, in which a man quotes his dying grandfather, and this is apparently what he answered. So as you can see, the source is really not nearly as important as your orientation and motivation. As they say, when you're ready, anything will be the answer.

[allislove]

Liberation from liberation :] 

[The0Self]

On 8/13/2021 at 8:52 AM, ivankiss said:

You are no longer the one that has realized Truth. You are (being) Truth.

Indeed, there are challenges along this way. Remember 'time'? It's your friend now. Remember 'personality'? Yeah, you've got one now, and it's awesome. Remember all that stuff you proved yourself to be nonexistent? Well, they all exist, after all. Your mother gave you birth. You were bullied in school.

All that jazz.

Is there anything in you that wants to stand up and tell me how full of shit I am?

If yes, that is exactly what's holding you back from liberation. You ventured too deep into the opposite, on a quest to disprove your previously constructed beliefs. It was actually just an unconscious polar response. 

? ? 

[ivankiss]

Thanks for your input guys. Beautiful.

I see you opened up the topic of 'post-awakening'... and I'd say, it's kinda difficult to say anything about it, since it's so unexplored. At least from where I'm standing.

A cool analogy comes to mind with the 12 step program. The 13th step being 'post-awakining'. While waking up, along those 12 steps, there is guidance. There are rules, stages, routines, practices... And then, once you take that 13th step... you're all alone, out on the vast, endless, open. Sober. Newborn.

The thought of all the endless possibilities can be paralyzing. You are basically free to whatever. And not.

If you do choose to engage deeply, I'd say a navigation system is necessary. You need something that will help you stay oriented.

In my case... it's my heart.

But also; the breath, feelings, thoughts. I also still recieve hints and nudges from 'my higher self' - if you will. Not often, but I do.

On 8/15/2021 at 5:01 PM, Endangered-EGO said:

What do you think is the fastest way to liberation?

You become liberated once you come to truly, wholly, unconditionally love yourself. In all of you different forms and shapes. Sizes and dimensions. Shades and densities. Space and time. And far, far, beyond.

The answer is always Love.

[Endangered-EGO]

19 minutes ago, ivankiss said:

You become liberated once you come to truly, wholly, unconditionally love yourself. In all of you different forms and shapes. Sizes and dimensions. Shades and densities. Space and time. And far, far, beyond.

The answer is always Love.

That's what I tend to think now. Absense of suffering is probably not enough.

[The0Self]

1 hour ago, ivankiss said:

You become liberated once you come to truly, wholly, unconditionally love yourself. In all of you different forms and shapes. Sizes and dimensions. Shades and densities. Space and time. And far, far, beyond.

^^

Yeah this

[RickyFitts]

On 8/13/2021 at 1:52 PM, ivankiss said:

Bottom line is; you must face yourself, fully. Totally and Completely. In pure, divine, all-loving, all-knowing, all-seeing, infinitely intelligent Light.

Yes, exactly right. Having a glimpse of realisation can make it tougher, ironically, because you've had a taste of heaven and now that's all you want, naturally, you don't want to have to deal with all your unresolved pain and trauma. I think people only tend to do the hard yards of inner work when they've seen that's there's no way around it.