Two things...

[RMQualtrough]

Don't have to even ponder or meditate, it's immediately understandable to everyone:

1. Your entire life from birth to now has played out in your own mind. You have never known anything outside of this.

2. Reality "is"... Things do not come packaged with their own little slice of existence. Existence itself is the common factor between your consciousness and a boulder. They both "are". That "is"ness is what you actually are. We are existence itself which is all there is.

Or you can think of the Big Bang and that's useful. We are not separate entities who come INTO the universe. As you know, we arise out of it. And if you imagine the entire fabric of the universe, with little people shapes it contorts into (which is literally how the material world works), the shapes never cease to be the universe before or after they form and evaporate. There never is anything other than the universe. These characters we are, are small expressions within ourselves... We are the universe itself. Literally. We are the universe completely alone as it stands.

That should hopefully trigger bizarre Solipsist feelings, if you can get behind your character and see the singular universe which forms us all. And you should understand, WE are indestructible and unstoppable because WE are just existence itself. Alone.

[Yarco]

5 hours ago, RMQualtrough said:

We are not separate entities who come INTO the universe. As you know, we arise out of it. And if you imagine the entire fabric of the universe, with little people shapes it contorts into (which is literally how the material world works), the shapes never cease to be the universe before or after they form and evaporate. There never is anything other than the universe. These characters we are, are small expressions within ourselves... We are the universe itself. Literally. We are the universe completely alone as it stands.

Brings to mind a bunch of Biblical metaphors about how God is the potter and we are the clay. And how at funerals they say ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We rise out of the ground for a brief time and then return to it. Even if you were an atheist you can just substitute the Earth for God and it still stands.

I like an example Leo did on the blog a few years back as well, about how a blank piece of paper already containing every possible shape you could cut out of it. Then imagine that it's infinite, and constantly folding back on itself and recycling itself to make new shapes. It's easier to imagine in 2D than 3D. Maybe a better example would be like 3D origami rising up out of a 2D piece of paper without becoming disconnected, and then folding back in.

I can't see the recycling happening in my direct experience from moment to moment. Is that what enlightenment is?

Edited July 11, 2022 by Yarco

[Leo Gura]

You imagined the whole universe around you.

And that's all God is: a single bubble of absolutely perfect, self-deceiving imagination.

[bambi]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You imagined the whole universe around you.

And that's all God is: a single bubble of absolutely perfect, self-deceiving imagination.

But from what you say, everything you imagine, you have 0 control over, its completel a random permutation of an infinite number of possible imaginations, so kinda like materialist paradigm of a random big bang

[Matthew85]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You imagined the whole universe around you.

And that's all God is: a single bubble of absolutely perfect, self-deceiving imagination.

@Leo Gura What is your current perspective on waking reality being a collective dream of many sub minds? In your latest episode, which was excellent btw, you mentioned your legacy a couple times. In the past you have discussed that if one awakens deep enough or dies, this reality and everything in it will cease to exist. If that is true, isn't thinking about our legacy kind of pointless? Unless, it's a collective consensus reality that continues even if one sub mind awakens or "dies".

Edited July 12, 2022 by Matthew85

[RMQualtrough]

12 minutes ago, bambi said:

But from what you say, everything you imagine, you have 0 control over, its completel a random permutation of an infinite number of possible imaginations, so kinda like materialist paradigm of a random big bang

Seems as though it conforms to patterns. Patterns and symmetry are everywhere.

Maybe it's like the word association game. The thoughts are related somehow but not under your control.

[BuddhistLover]

@Leo Gura That's the reason why you're my ride or die bro, because you understand how the universe runs. The software of reality. What would it take to reengineer consciousness? To create new worlds, or is that actual engineering? Because we can create new elements out of stuff like Uranium. Lol bro, my lifelong dream was to become an engineer, an inventor. Your dream was to be a philosopher. We're ride or die brothers. Once I get my bachelor's I'm getting a job and apartment down there in Vegas, then we can be spirituality neighbors.