How many of us are awake?

[Moksha]

16 hours ago, Terell Kirby said:

This shows that you are under an illusion of duality. God is not a concept.

God realization encompasses ego death, no need to separate the two. All I am getting from this comment is a denial of your true nature as God. You can run from this Truth all you want, you will still continue being God, despite the lies of your ego.

The spiritual ego you have developed is tricking you to think that it’s dead as a mechanism to prevent you from realizing what you actually are.

I didn't say God is a concept (the word is, but not the ultimate reality it represents). I said it's easy to conceptualize being God. People that have not directly realized their true nature as God often claim that they are God, but it is only a conceptual identity for them. You can't understand the taste of water until you actually drink it.

Awakening rarely results in immediate ego death. You realize your nature as God, but this realization doesn't instantly dissolve your attachments and desires. It is only the first step toward equanimity.

I have directly realized my nature as God, but I am still far from enlightenment, which is the permanent end of suffering. As the Buddha put it:

Few are those who reach the other shore; most people keep running up and down this shore. But those who follow the dharma, when it has been well taught, will reach the other shore, hard to reach, beyond the power of death.

They leave darkness behind and follow the light. They give up home and leave pleasure behind. Calling nothing their own, they purify their hearts and rejoice. Well trained in the seven fields of enlightenment, their senses disciplined and free from attachments, they live in freedom, full of light.

[Terell Kirby]

@BenG these are great questions , happy to help through sharing my subjective experience (p.s. I don’t claim to be a guru nor do I want to be)

20 minutes ago, BenG said:

1)     When you first discovered God or when you first awoke, how did you KNOW you really awoke? Was there any doubt? If so, how did you get past this doubt? Were you initially skeptical of your awakening?

There was certainly doubt at the beginning.  But the key is not halting your inquiry after your mind comes up with doubts for the sake of protecting your worldview. A key here is being skeptical of your skepticism.

20 minutes ago, BenG said:

2)     When you first had the awakening, what did you feel? (during the awakening I mean) What emotions were you having? Were you surprised or shocked in any way?

Ask yourself this question: “If me (and by me, I mean your human name, body and history) never existed, how many problems would I have in life?” What you’ll realize is that most, if not all, of your suffering comes from your identification as the human you think you are. Ridding of this suffering, which created by your Mind, happens when you are able to let go of your human construction. What is left is what I would call bliss…you don’t take life personally, which means you get to play. God realization is the key to getting to this mind-space

20 minutes ago, BenG said:

3)     What was the most shocking/surprising part about it?

The sheer fact that no one in society, including people and institutions, is spreading this to the masses. The realization itself would fix 99.999% of the issues we see in the world today.

Even further, it is surprising when one expressing Truth, how they are aggressively demonized…as you can see throughout this thread. Something so beautiful to God is very threatening to human Egos. This is the great challenge that all sages and mystics have faced throughout time. We should be very thankful to Leo and Actualized.org for literally putting their life and reputation on the line for teaching these things.

Hope that helps.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Terell Kirby

[VeganAwake]

 

3 hours ago, Terell Kirby said:

Infinite Love is as real as it gets.

Infinite love is a concept held in your mind, it's actually completely unreal.... as in it doesn't exist whatsoever except as a concept in the mind.

You are equating real with form.

I'm not equating anything because there isn't an individual here.

Material form is unreal, what’s real is the formless God-head…and you are it ❤️

It's actually the opposite. The so-called formless God-head that you believe yourself to be is a completely illusory egoic projection of the mind. There's nothing real about it whatsoever.... complete fiction!!

Form can at least be experienced. Try running directly at a tree with the belief that form is unreal and see what happens.

 

[softlyblossoming]

5 hours ago, VeganAwake said:

Nobody wakes up and that's the thing that's impossible for the ME to grasp.... it simply can't fathom its own unreality.

It's the Revelation that the very individual attempting to wake up or realize it's God or whatever, was never real in the first place.

It's never what the individual expects it to be...BTW

And it's not just some concept about what no separation would seem like and trying to "live from that state of mind"

It's clearly seeing that there just never was a separate individual in the body in the first place. 

And when it's clearly recognized the energy used to uphold this unreal self construct begins to dissipate or collapse.

This can happen rather quickly in some cases or seem to slowly unfold. 

❤ 

 

@VeganAwake I really liked your answer, it's cleared up so much confusion for me. Thank you!! <3

@Terell Kirby This thread is great on the whole for newbies like me who haven't wrapped their heads around this stuff yet and are still trying to sort their toes from the rest of their feet, so to speak. Thanks for being OP.

[Terell Kirby]

3 minutes ago, softlyblossoming said:

@Terell Kirby This thread is great on the whole for newbies like me who haven't wrapped their heads around this stuff yet and are still trying to sort their toes from the rest of their feet, so to speak. Thanks for being OP.

You are welcome.

[softlyblossoming]

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

I have directly realized my nature as God, but I am still far from enlightenment, which is the permanent end of suffering. As the Buddha put it:

Few are those who reach the other shore; most people keep running up and down this shore. But those who follow the dharma, when it has been well taught, will reach the other shore, hard to reach, beyond the power of death.

They leave darkness behind and follow the light. They give up home and leave pleasure behind. Calling nothing their own, they purify their hearts and rejoice. Well trained in the seven fields of enlightenment, their senses disciplined and free from attachments, they live in freedom, full of light.

@Moksha Wow, so beautiful. Thank you for your contribution, I love this so much ♥️.

2 minutes ago, Terell Kirby said:

You are welcome.

@Terell Kirby I've learned more from one thread than like a week on the forum, hahah. Btw, does not suffering right now (or being ok with the fact I'm suffering slightly) count as being awake? I thought that maybe this could be like a kinda of 1% of the full thing, or is there no percents?

[VeganAwake]

19 minutes ago, softlyblossoming said:

@VeganAwake I really liked your answer, it's cleared up so much confusion for me. Thank you!! <3

No problem ?

Awakening isn't about acquiring enough so-called spiritual knowledge that one becomes all-knowing, cleared up and enlightened or what not.

It's the recognition that the very individual attempting to acquire knowledge to achieve enlightenment is completely illusory.

 

"Enlightenment is a destructive process. It
has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the
crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing
through the facade of pretence. It's the
complete eradication of everything we
imagined to be true".

"Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special, it’s not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred. I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience. They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe. The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it. Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence. Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke. I use the word enlightenment all the time; not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it. Do not get stuck in enlightenment".

- Adyashanti

❤ 

 

 

[Nahm]

@VeganAwake  ?? ?? 

[Moksha]

@softlyblossoming ? There are levels of awakening. Many people awaken, only to fall back asleep. Meditation is a powerful exercise in learning to swim upstream, against the current of the conditioned mind. Eventually, your awareness becomes perpetual, regardless of the turbulence of the dream.

When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation, the Self reveals itself. Beholding the Self by means of the Self, an aspirant knows the joy and peace of complete fulfillment. Having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed in the stilled mind, he never swerves from the eternal truth. He desires nothing else, and cannot be shaken by the heaviest burden of sorrow.

- Bhagavad Gita 6:19

[Moksha]

@VeganAwake Love the Adyashanti quote, thanks for sharing ⚡ The cosmic joke is that the more enlightened you become, the less of you there is to be enlightened. The personality becomes increasingly transparent, until there is barely any person left, only the pure light of Consciousness that you always are.

[VeganAwake]

13 minutes ago, Moksha said:

@VeganAwake Love the Adyashanti quote, thanks for sharing ⚡ The cosmic joke is that the more enlightened you become, the less of you there is to be enlightened. 

Your welcome!

And yeah the big surprise or cosmic joke is that there already isn't a you to become enlightened or not.

❤ 

[Moksha]

25 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

And yeah the big surprise or cosmic joke is that there already isn't a you to become enlightened or not.

Consciousness is the dream master. It appears, within its dream, as a you. Ultimately, there is no you, but Consciousness pretends there is. Enlightenment is the great adventure it tells itself, in which it gradually stops pretending to be a separate being, until the dream boundaries of the self entirely dissolve.

[Adodd]

Not me?

All good though! Maybe one day.?

For someone hoping to awaken, what are some questions I should be asking vs questions that people waste their time with?

Edited November 10, 2021 by Adodd

[Moksha]

32 minutes ago, Adodd said:

For someone hoping to awaken, what are some questions I should be asking vs questions that people waste their time with?

Awakening is the opposite of questions. It is direct realization of your true nature, beyond conceptualization. If you find yourself asking a lot of questions, that is ok. Eventually you will let go of the questions, and realize the answer which is already within you.

[funkychunkymonkey]

me i feel i havent, ive realized everything and nothingness but i havent been able to integrate it into my life so i feel im not at a spirtually mature level to be called "realized" i still think im human 

[DaveB]

 I'm not awake.

[VeganAwake]

4 hours ago, Moksha said:

Consciousness is the dream master. It appears, within its dream, as a you. Ultimately, there is no you, but Consciousness pretends there is. Enlightenment is the great adventure it tells itself, in which it gradually stops pretending to be a separate being, until the dream boundaries of the self entirely dissolve.

Then that's what's being experienced there, its whole, complete and perfect! 

❤ 

[Moksha]

@VeganAwake And yet despite being whole, complete, and perfect, Consciousness contrives the appearance of our little selves. Apparently, the illusion is there for a reason 

[VeganAwake]

25 minutes ago, Moksha said:

@VeganAwake And yet despite being whole, complete, and perfect, Consciousness contrives the appearance of our little selves. Apparently, the illusion is there for a reason 

Well it's unknowable in the sense that anything said about what reality is and or how it seems to behave is just a mere concept that can never actually be verified.

Who would verify it and what would that even mean?

Reality or consciousness as you call it, is just exactly what seems to be happening.

There isn't a deep truth embedded within it or hidden somewhere. 

It's THIS exactly as it seems to appear.

So simple and already the case that it seems complex and hidden.

❤ 

 

[Moksha]

13 hours ago, VeganAwake said:

Reality or consciousness as you call it, is just exactly what seems to be happening.

There isn't a deep truth embedded within it or hidden somewhere. 

It's THIS exactly as it seems to appear.

As I see it (), what seems to be happening is not ultimately real. There is nobody verifying anything, only Consciousness playing the game of apparent separation. This, as it appears, is only a dream. The deep truth is that the dream is just a dream.