Cessation vs God realization

[spiritual memes]

I've been reading some buddhist teachers talking about Nirodha-samāpatti. They describe it as a complete cessation of all consciousness. Like blipping out of existence. 

Daniel Ingram states:

''It is not that nirodha samapatti is necessary, but it is a good and useful thing to be able to attain. In fact, I have not yet spoken with anyone who had attained it who didn’t consider it the absolute King Daddy of meditation attainments other than arahantship, as the depth of its afterglow never fails to impress and amaze''

i have also heard people like Frank yang and others on this forum state that it is a higher level to God realisation (which is actually only the 6th Jhana).

My current intuition is that God realisation and infinite love are the highest awakenings but cessation both interests me and kind of scares me.

Absolute infinity vs absolute nothingness

Is there anyone that has experienced both cessation and God realization? And if so which one is the higher one?

[Carl-Richard]

I've dipped my toes into cessation many times, and it scares me to death  I haven't had a God realization though.

[Razard86]

This is all a dream, you blip out of existence whenever you go to sleep and don't dream, its called deep sleep. If you can remember that you do that, and before your first memory of your life that was true as well, then its not a big deal. You are constructing stories to make it more than it is, go to sleep, don't dream, and wake up and wonder how long you were out. 

[vladorion]

11 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

This is all a dream, you blip out of existence whenever you go to sleep and don't dream, its called deep sleep. If you can remember that you do that, and before your first memory of your life that was true as well, then its not a big deal. You are constructing stories to make it more than it is, go to sleep, don't dream, and wake up and wonder how long you were out. 

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

[BipolarGrowth]

Edit: Some people seem to be talking about cessation in a lot of ways other than what the original post is talking about. Here’s a description of it from Daniel Ingram which clarifies and captures what this term means:

“Fruition (phala in Pali) is the fruit of all the meditator’s hard work, the first attainment of ultimate reality, emptiness, nirvana, nibbana, ultimate potential, or whatever extrapolative and relatively inaccurate name you wish to call something utterly non-sensate. In this non-state, there is absolutely no time, no space, no reference point, no experience, no mind, no consciousness, no awareness, no background, no foreground, no nothingness, no somethingness, no body, no this, no that, no unity, no duality, and no anything else. “Reality” stops cold and then reappears.

Thus, this is impossible to comprehend, as it goes completely and utterly beyond the rational mind and the universe. In “external time” (if we were observing the meditator) this stage typically lasts only an instant (though the question of “duration” will be addressed below). It is like an utter discontinuity of the space-time continuum with nothing in the unfindable gap, exactly like what happens when someone edits out a frame or sequence of frames of a movie. It is not that you see a blank screen for a while where they edited the frames out, instead that part of the movie is just not there.“

 

I will say that I’ve experienced both although Leo will certainly claim that I haven’t accessed God Realization before as he says this with essentially everyone. Regardless, cessation was far more important to my spiritual development personally. The instant before my first cessation was by far the highest state I had ever experienced up to that point, but cessation was what made the difference. There is something truly transformative about seeing experience and everything and anything you’ve ever known disappear. It can give particularly solid insight into the fact that there really isn’t a self or even Self that lasts and can be accurately identified with. 
 

Experiencing myself as God was transformative in that moment and maybe some transformation power and momentum lingered for a bit, but it is essentially just a peak experience (albeit an incredibly amazing one that CANNOT be imagined before it happens). Cessation on the other hand was the spark that started a chain reaction which caused deeper and deeper AUTOMATIC insight into experience. My baseline modes of perception were forever changed and enhanced after that event. The first cessation is in some people’s interpretations seen as stream entry described in Buddhism which is essentially you entering the stream to be carried by the current toward full awakening no matter what you do. 
 

I think it’s certainly possible that cessation did so much for me and was seen as such a high thing at the time partially because I had already built a foundation with God Realization and other insights. Maybe if I had experienced cessation first and had God Realization afterward, I would interpret God Realization as higher due to that event first occurring upon a greater spiritual foundation. 
 

There is also no one true God Realization or cessation. How either of these or practically any other spiritual insight and experience occur relies a lot on how far you’ve gone in your previous history of practice. Insight is something which builds upon itself to further and further degrees. 
 

I will also clarify that, in my opinion, the sixth jhana is not God Realization proper. It has some of the elements of God Realization there, but it is not quite as full and miraculous based on my experience and interpretations. Sixth jhana is a direct feeling while in a formless state that You extend to and contain everything in an infinite distance spanning in every direction. It’s pretty similar, but it’s not quite the same as the feeling that You are unquestionably God. 
 

I guess the point of all of this is to say that BOTH of these realizations are integral for maximum spiritual progress and that they can be incredibly complimentary and can build into even greater personalized realizations and states that you’ll be able to discuss with practically no one once you’re at that point. 
 

My subjective ranking of peak states and insights has things beyond both God Realization and cessation, but it’s important to remember that you can’t judge one person’s awakening against another’s with any validity. You can only judge states you have experienced against others you also have experienced, and even then it’s likely that your rankings of one thing as better than another is going to be a bit inaccurate as you can’t truly hold the two or more realizations in their fullness directly next to each other to compare them. 

Edited January 2, 2023 by BipolarGrowth

[roopepa]

Cessation is what enlightenment / waking up "actually means". Cessation = Liberation.

It does not scare you to death, it's not nothingness, it's not "higher or lower than" etc.

Cessation is not a thing.

[Breakingthewall]

incomprehensible. if it were the total cessation of consciousness, you would not be aware of it. It would be like an anesthesia with propofol, a time jump.

I have experienced absolute emptiness with psychedelics, without me, without sensory information, without god, nothing. empty. but i was aware of it, since otherwise, i would not be describing it. So what are these people talking about?

[PenguinPablo]

37 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

incomprehensible. if it were the total cessation of consciousness, you would not be aware of it. It would be like an anesthesia with propofol, a time jump.

I have experienced absolute emptiness with psychedelics, without me, without sensory information, without god, nothing. empty. but i was aware of it, since otherwise, i would not be describing it. So what are these people talking about?

when everything including that consciousness / awareness you are describing goes as well. it is a time jump. 

[roopepa]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

if it were the total cessation of consciousness, you would not be aware of it

Nonduality is already the case.

You're already not aware of anything.

"There is no end to what never actually began."

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, PenguinPablo said:

it is a time jump. 

So? That's nothing, just an idea. existence is conciousness, if there is no consciousness there is no existence, therefore cessation does not exist 

25 minutes ago, roopepa said:

Nonduality is already the case.

You're already not aware of anything.

"There is no end to what never actually began."

What do you mean? Ok that "of" but awareness is the case, so define cessation 

[roopepa]

44 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

What do you mean? Ok that "of" but awareness is the case, so define cessation 

It's best to just see for yourself.

 

Here's a suggestion:

Keep a journal and a pen handy at all times, or a note-taking-app on your phone.

Whenever you experience discord (not so good feeling), investigate what thought / belief / thought-story / narrative is it that feels off.

Whenever you spot a discordant thought / belief, acknowledge it simply by writing the emotion experienced and the thought / belief in your journal, inside "apostrophes".

For example...

I experience the emotions guilt and worry:

"I am a person living in a world, making decisions, and who is doing a wrong thing for another person. I should do the right thing. If I don't do the right thing, maybe something bad will happen to me."

or

I experience the emotion boredom:

"To feel better, I need some thing in a world to make me experience better feeling, like a phone, movie or candy."

Though you can be more specific in your personal journaling. When you keep doing this, basically spotting and letting go beliefs, true nature starts to fill in what was before held captive in darkness. Eventually it actually becomes fun and exciting every time you spot yourself focused on a belief, feeling down. Cause you know that too, will be emptied and filled with cessation-love.

[Breakingthewall]

@roopepa that's not the cessation they're talking about here imo

[roopepa]

7 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

@roopepa that's not the cessation they're talking about here imo

See for yourself.

[Breakingthewall]

@roopepa you Re talking about the ego cessation , that of course is real. The op is talking about the cessation of the conciousness, that is a strange concept. If it's the case, is the non existence. The non existence doesn't exist, because otherwise it were existence, etc...so , what is the cessation? @BipolarGrowth talk about it but he doesn't explain what is it.

[roopepa]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

@roopepa you Re talking about the ego cessation , that of course is real. The op is talking about the cessation of the conciousness, that is a strange concept. If it's the case, is the non existence. The non existence doesn't exist, because otherwise it were existence, etc...so , what is the cessation? @BipolarGrowth talk about it but he doesn't explain what is it.

All things are a projection of the ego.

All life, stuff, cosmos, reality, space and time. God, infinity, consciousness. All ego's projection. None of it ever even happens.

Edited January 2, 2023 by roopepa

[spiritual memes]

11 hours ago, BipolarGrowth said:

My subjective ranking of peak states and insights has things beyond both God Realization and cessation, but it’s important to remember that you can’t judge one person’s awakening against another’s with any validity.

seriously? damn.

What states are beyond cessation and God realization? I'm actually super curious

[PenguinPablo]

@Breakingthewall bruh... You coming at this intellectually. Are you serious?

Come on. You know better.

 

If you were a serious meditator you would at least have an idea what this is. But you're talking out of your ass. Go meditate rigorously for a month

Edited January 2, 2023 by PenguinPablo

[Carl-Richard]

@PenguinPablo No need to be disrespectful.

[axiom]

Daniel Ingram refers to cessation as some kind of peak experience. 

It is not this.

Cessation is already the case.

All jhanas are just a story. Some might be considered useful pointers.

But getting hooked on them as "a path" is just to perpetuate the dream.

There is actually no such thing as consciousness. That is what the 8th Jhana points to. That's the whole shebang.

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, PenguinPablo said:

@Breakingthewall bruh... You coming at this intellectually. Are you serious?

Come on. You know better.

 

If you were a serious meditator you would at least have an idea what this is. But you're talking out of your ass. Go meditate rigorously for a month

Man, don't be a clown, please. We are talking in a forum about the cessation. Obviously the only approach is intellectual . Cessation is a word. What that word means? I think it doesn't mean nothing,  just an invention of people who meditate a lot to make themselves interesting and special.

never lose sight of this fact: in spirituality there are many pretentious idiots trying to compensate for a wounded ego.