Is Peter Ralston Wrong About Enlightenment Not Being A State?

[Moksha]

13 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Do you think that the present moment is inmutable? Never. 

Do you believe the dreamless awareness changes?

[Breakingthewall]

@Moksha 

We can argue forever. You think that I have not realized the absolute because I am stuck in the dream, I think that you make an impossible division between creator and creation. If at any point I realize that you were right, I'll tell you.

[Moksha]

22 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

You think that I have not realized the absolute because I am stuck in the dream, I think that you make an impossible division between creator and creation. If at any point I realize that you were right, I'll tell you.

It was a genuine question. You referred to realizing dreamless awareness earlier and I was trying to clarify what you meant.

As far as impossible division goes, we agree on that. How the absolute interacts with its dream is beyond comprehension, but people keep pounding their heads against the mystery as if they can some day solve it. They can't, you can't, and nobody can. It is only directly realized.

[Yimpa]

I’m imagining Peter Ralston lying down on his couch eating popcorn straight out of the bag and reading this thread. 

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

How the absolute interacts with its dream is beyond comprehension, but people keep pounding their heads against the mystery as if they can some day solve it. They can't, you can't, and nobody can. It is only directly realized.

this is the duality of which I speak. the absolute does not interact with the dream, there are not two. the absolute is infinite flow. we say the mind as an analogy, but a mind is nothing. If you are aware of the infinite emptiness, it is because reality is manifesting as an infinite emptiness. There is no one imagining the void, there is only the void. Who realizes the emptiness? It's like saying, who notices that your head hurts? no one. There is a headache. You are a headache, no one who sees that their own headaches hurt. but let's see... I speak according to my baseline at this moment, maybe tomorrow I'll see that it's not exactly like that.  

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

but people keep pounding their heads against the mystery as if they can some day solve it. They can't, you can't, and nobody can. It is only directly realized.

Why not? You are the reality, there is nothing else, so it's sure that you can. Don't think in that people, they are just mental construction

[Yimpa]

It’s all Love.
Peter Ralston is Love.
Moksha is Love.
Breakingthewall is Love.
Yimpa is Love.
Leo is Love.

Enlightenment is Love.

Love is Love.

 

 

[Moksha]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

this is the duality of which I speak. the absolute does not interact with the dream, there are not two. the absolute is infinite flow. we say the mind as an analogy, but a mind is nothing. If you are aware of the infinite emptiness, it is because reality is manifesting as an infinite emptiness. There is no one imagining the void, there is only the void. Who realizes the emptiness? It's like saying, who notices that your head hurts? no one. There is a headache. You are a headache, no one who sees that their own headaches hurt. but let's see... I speak according to my baseline at this moment, maybe tomorrow I'll see that it's not exactly like that.  

Why not? You are the reality, there is nothing else, so it's sure that you can. Don't think in that people, they are just mental construction

There are dualities within the dream, but the dream isn't real and is within the absolute. The Bhagavad Gita compares the cosmos to a necklace, which is worn by God. It is not a duality for God to wear a necklace which is made of its own substance; the separation is only apparent, not real.

The absolute understands itself, but you and I are only its essence, within apparent forms. The human mind can't comprehend it, but the essence does.

What I'm sharing is in all major mystic writings, and is my direct realization. I don't ask you to agree or disagree, I'm simply sharing and you can take it as you like.

[Razard86]

On 4/30/2023 at 4:57 PM, Water by the River said:

Hi Phil,

some ideas:

1) Does the real You/Reality/Infinite Consciousness possibly change? Not the appearance side, but the Absolute Subject, the Absolute Empty Abyss? Reality itself? Of course it can't. You are You. The Absolute Subject. You never changed, can't go anywhere. You are all there is, and ever can be. The appearance side is just an appearing imagined show, relative stuff, always changing. Not stable. And not really existing, just a mirage happeing in the True You.

2) If you fully know what you are, how can you loose that? It can solidify again if you loose the nondual/mere appearance state when the psychedelic wears off. But it doesn't have to. It can stay stable without psychdelics. And that can be done with transformative practices, mainly meditation, to become fully empty, no separate self left, that you ARE the whole infinite Reality outside of which nothing exists. And its not that you need to be a genetic freak or something, or ten years of facing the wall. With the right techniques, it is very doable.

3) Maybe "From my experiences with psychedelics, it seems that I am enlightened in that state but come down to an unenlightened state when the psychedelic wears off" is not the Enlightenment that Ralston is talking about? And all the other enlightened sages? Maybe the "enlightenment with psychedelics" is not the final thing, exactly because it wears off, and you can only have the full insight when you are fully empty, and zero filters of a separate self left/not transcended?

I know, many won't like this idea. And that only the full transcendence of the separate self finally ends suffering. And still, its only logical that to become the Totality of the Infinite Reality that You are, the separate self has to go... because IT IS SEPARATE and not the total nondual infinite Oneness of Absolute Reality.

Feel deeply into you heart: If you dont fully become what you already are, if you don't give up every filter of the separate self that cuts the infinite nondual reality in pieces, makes it solid, takes its luminostiy/mere groundless appearance/magic show character.... These separate self arisings still running when you got out of the psychedelic state are what solidifies your world again. And they were never fully gone in the psychedelic state. 

If you get this nondual mere appearance state sobre without psychedelics, then you are sure you have transcended and cut down the separate self arisings sufficiently and fast enough, else you wouldn't get that state that allows insight into Absolute Reality or the True You. And then its stable, you don't come out of it, it is always there. And you can also call that a state. But it is always accessible and present then, and you fully understand/know/Realize that  the Real You/Reality/Infinite Consciousness doesn't change, only what appears in it, the appearance side. So it is a certain paradoxon, but only before entering the Gateless Gate. Afterwards it is as clear as day, and everyone who has had that has used terms of IT being permanent and the final realization. When You know what You are, You know what you are and what Reality is. And that never changed and can't change. There can only be "confusing-arisings" in it, clouding the understanding and realization of what you are.

But when you can touch/understand the always eternally here Reality, everything changing and appearing seems more like a magic show, an illusion, just appearing, in that which you are that stays constant. Of course it is all nondual and essentially the same, but the appearance side is TEMPORARY/CHANGING/FLOW/ILLUSION, while the Real You/Fully Empty Subject/Abyss never changes. Because it is NOTHINGNESS, nothing specific at all, unchanging, Reality itself, the Empty Abyss of the Eye that can't see itself. Because it couldn't change. It is the only "thing" than never can change. It is Reality itself, fully empty, but with the potential to manifest itself as any show possible and marvel at its temporary illusion show. 

Water by the River

You were good until you used the term separate self. That term confuses people. There is no separate self, if I take a gun and shoot this separate self you refer to, notice that the dream will end. The self is the dream itself. The character is not separate. They use the term separate self for you to unattached your identity from the avatar to all that is perceived. So its a relative pointer, but the problem most have is they keep demonizing the character and saying oh it doesn't exist, and all this other nonsense.

The dream is absolute truth, the character is not separate from the dream. Therefore the character is also absolute truth. The character is a filter of absolute truth, so how can it actually be separate? It can't. It's only separate in relation to the teaching that seeks to expand the identity of the spiritual seeker. This is the barrier that stops many from fully awakening.

[OldManCorcoran]

On 03/05/2023 at 1:34 PM, Moksha said:

It's good that you recognize the apparent past and future as illusions within the dream. Do you also see the illusions of the apparent now?

The absolute within and beyond all of this is unbound by the appearance of past, present, and future. It is timeless, motionless, and changeless. What appears to be happening now is also part of the dream.

You mentioned the undreaming mind. That is the absolute, and all change appearing within the cosmos is only illusion, or the absolute appearing to be what it is not. It is not absolute reality.

Additionally, it is those things because, of course, in any way something is twisted it never stops being the thing it was twisted from.

The sheet of paper is always identical, although it is true that the shape can change. Yet never ever ever is even the tiniest shred of paper lost, or is anything of any other substance but paper ever introduced.

[Moksha]

13 minutes ago, OldManCorcoran said:

The sheet of paper is always identical, although it is true that the shape can change. Yet never ever ever is even the tiniest shred of paper lost, or is anything of any other substance but paper ever introduced.

Beautiful analogy. The same is true for gold, which regardless of its shape or setting, remains pure gold.

[Yimpa]

6 minutes ago, Moksha said:

Beautiful analogy. The same is true for gold, which regardless of its shape or setting, remains pure gold.

Ironic you say that since the origami looks like gold 

[Moksha]

55 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

Ironic you say that since the origami looks like gold 

Synchronicity speaks volumes 

[OldManCorcoran]

9 hours ago, Moksha said:

Beautiful analogy. The same is true for gold, which regardless of its shape or setting, remains pure gold.

That's right. It's important I think to see that the fact of change and whatever else, does not have a bearing on the fact of absolute unity.

I don't know much about time, but I do know that all that exists must be substantially the same. Being the same substance does not mean same in other ways: i.e. a gold necklace isn't a gold bracelet but it's still just the gold. That is how a nondual insight is (which is not a logical thing), but the unity of substance is also an inevitability logically.

You just cannot, for example, explain conscious experience in material terms without appealing to the existence of another place/non-place. E.g. claiming that qualia does not exist. Where matter is real and qualia is imaginary. So you create these two distinct realms, of existence, and non-existence, or real and imaginary. That is always duality... In actual nonduality, absolutely everything, both real and imaginary, MUST be substantially of the same nature just like how all origami shapes are inescapably paper.

[OldManCorcoran]

@Moksha Also that is something I dislike in Buddhism and Taoism. As soon as you say things "go together", well, together ALWAYS means two things joined.

Their philosophy may be accurate, but it seems more geared towards feel-good insights than anything existential. The Buddha refused to answer existential questions even... For example, when they say paper is empty, but full of everything, it is about how the paper cannot exist in the absence of trees, sun, stars, water, loggers, etc... A nice insight, but where is the relevance to existential questions?

Reality itself would never have to "go together" with something else, as it's the only thing there is. There's simply nothing else for it to "go together" WITH. Those philisophies are quite focused on the two sides of the same coin thing, as opposed to the coin.

[Moksha]

@OldManCorcoran You could say that essentially, we are the same page. 

It's stunning when the implications are processed by the brain, which is wired to track time, differentiate forms, and label perceptions. It goes beyond the brain, to direct realization, but even the brain eventually submits. Arrogance and humility become irrelevant. Love is realized for what it is.

Adam couldn't keep himself from naming every creature; it was in his DNA. Amazingly, while it's nowhere near common yet, the brain has evolved to the point of realizing its own limitations.

Einstein saw through the illusion of relativity. He realized that there is unconditional reality, beyond the appearance of space, matter, and time, which depend on the state of the observer and therefore cannot be absolute.

Feel-good Buddhism is like feel-good Christianity. People only read the insights of mystics on the surface level, rather seeing beyond to what is being pointed toward.

In the various writings I've pondered (Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Dhammapada, Tao Te Ching, etc.), they uniformly point toward the absolute sameness in and beyond everything. For example:

They see the same Self in a spiritual aspirant and an outcast, in an elephant, a cow, and a dog.

Having conquered their senses, they have climbed to the summit of human consciousness. To such people a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same. They are equally disposed to family, enemies, and friends, to those who support them and those who are hostile, to the good and the evil alike. Because they are impartial, they rise to great heights.

They alone see truly who see the Lord the same in every creature, who see the deathless in the hearts of all that die. Seeing the same Lord everywhere, they do not harm themselves or others. Thus they attain the supreme goal.

As the same fire assumes different shapes
When it consumes objects differing in shape,
So does the one Self take the shape
Of every creature in whom he is present.

[Yimpa]

9 hours ago, OldManCorcoran said:

In actual nonduality, absolutely everything, both real and imaginary, MUST be substantially of the same nature just like how all origami shapes are inescapably paper.

It wouldn’t be nonduality then.

9 hours ago, OldManCorcoran said:

Reality itself would never have to "go together" with something else, as it's the only thing there is. There's simply nothing else for it to "go together" WITH. Those philisophies are quite focused on the two sides of the same coin thing, as opposed to the coin.

Since when did Reality create a set of rules in order to maintain Itself…

…oh.

 

[OldManCorcoran]

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

@OldManCorcoran You could say that essentially, we are the same page. 

It's stunning when the implications are processed by the brain, which is wired to track time, differentiate forms, and label perceptions. It goes beyond the brain, to direct realization, but even the brain eventually submits. Arrogance and humility become irrelevant. Love is realized for what it is.

Adam couldn't keep himself from naming every creature; it was in his DNA. Amazingly, while it's nowhere near common yet, the brain has evolved to the point of realizing its own limitations.

Einstein saw through the illusion of relativity. He realized that there is unconditional reality, beyond the appearance of space, matter, and time, which depend on the state of the observer and therefore cannot be absolute.

Feel-good Buddhism is like feel-good Christianity. People only read the insights of mystics on the surface level, rather seeing beyond to what is being pointed toward.

In the various writings I've pondered (Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Dhammapada, Tao Te Ching, etc.), they uniformly point toward the absolute sameness in and beyond everything. For example:

They see the same Self in a spiritual aspirant and an outcast, in an elephant, a cow, and a dog.

Having conquered their senses, they have climbed to the summit of human consciousness. To such people a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same. They are equally disposed to family, enemies, and friends, to those who support them and those who are hostile, to the good and the evil alike. Because they are impartial, they rise to great heights.

They alone see truly who see the Lord the same in every creature, who see the deathless in the hearts of all that die. Seeing the same Lord everywhere, they do not harm themselves or others. Thus they attain the supreme goal.

As the same fire assumes different shapes
When it consumes objects differing in shape,
So does the one Self take the shape
Of every creature in whom he is present.

Gita's pretty good in my opinion. And the Upinashads of course.

I REALLY think ancient Indians used DMT or Ayahuasca brews. Most of my psychedelic visions on n,n-DMT, aside from jesters (which didn't exist irl then, so weren't an archetype in anyone's mind), were of Hindu deities. Chicken or egg type thing, I suspect the drug came first... As in those ancient Indians took the drugs and saw the same apparitions and that's why this occurs.

Probably what "Soma" is.

I think the Tao Te Ching is crap realistically. I think it's one of those things that:

1. People want to pretend makes sense, because it sounds deep and mystical, and they wanna act like it's not nonsense words.

And

2. Typical Asian vocab is very different and used differently. This is very obvious with Buddhist philosophy, the way they use terms is very alien to the way the same terms are used in the West. And many authors interpret it as though it means what a Westerner would think a certain line means.

[OldManCorcoran]

20 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

It wouldn’t be nonduality then.

Since when did Reality create a set of rules in order to maintain Itself…

…oh.

 

I don't understand what you mean.

[Yimpa]

10 hours ago, OldManCorcoran said:

For example, when they say paper is empty, but full of everything, it is about how the paper cannot exist in the absence of trees, sun, stars, water, loggers, etc... A nice insight, but where is the relevance to existential questions?

Paper can exist in the absence of trees, sun, stars, water, loggers, etc.

How is that possible?

[Water by the River]

On 4.5.2023 at 10:17 AM, Razard86 said:

You were good until you used the term separate self. That term confuses people. There is no separate self, if I take a gun and shoot this separate self you refer to, notice that the dream will end. The self is the dream itself. The character is not separate. They use the term separate self for you to unattached your identity from the avatar to all that is perceived. So its a relative pointer, but the problem most have is they keep demonizing the character and saying oh it doesn't exist, and all this other nonsense.

The dream is absolute truth, the character is not separate from the dream. Therefore the character is also absolute truth. The character is a filter of absolute truth, so how can it actually be separate? It can't. It's only separate in relation to the teaching that seeks to expand the identity of the spiritual seeker. This is the barrier that stops many from fully awakening.

I think we are already aligned here: The separate self is an arising appearance, appearing/moving temporarily in You/Reality/Infinite Totality, like any other appearance. Every night in deep sleep its gone. The bullet will also work 

That is why I mostly write "Separate Self Arisings". "Arisings", to emphasize

• it is not a really existing "thing", more like a process clouding ones recongition of ones True Identity, but the clouding itself creates an illusion, and is an illusion, not a thing. Technically defined by some as ignorance, or illusion, Maya...
• All arisings in ones mindstream that make one feel/think that one is not the Totality, but something separate (ranging from Ego/Body-Mind to a Transparent Witness with some last remnants of feeling separate/Individuality or feeling like watching/experiencing the totality).

At the end, its all of the same/one essence, like the beautiful example of gold or origami/paper. Same essence, different forms/expressions.

I belong not to those demonizing the whole character/body-mind.

• The more functional it is (health, relationships, financials, the whole Maslow-Pyramid), the easier it is to transcend the separate-self-arisings-part of it. Wilber for example says a strong&healthy ego is easiert to transcend than an ego that hurts in many areas. That is also my experience.
• The character can also operate without separate-self-arisings. The separate-self-arisings are only an optional part of the character/body-mind.
• Actually, at least in my experience, once the separate-self-arisings are no longer disturbing ones intuition, one acts much more efficiently/smoothly/successful, much closer aligned to Ones True Core.
  • Once "one" gets out of the way, things run much smoother. 

Actually, "the" separate self is more a process/structure/Gestalt,

• "separate-selfing", a verb more than a noun/thing....
• Like a process, that can happen, but that can also stop. Then, the True You/Reality, by definition has still to be there, and is of course, as always.  The clouds between the sun, that can also evaporate or no longer happen.... and then, welcome home to a home you never left in the first place. It only appeared so. Coming back from a trip that never really happened, only appeared to do so. 

Thanks for your message, I want to learn to optimize communicating all of that, and I should emphasize this point sometimes more.

Water by the River

 

PS: "The dream is absolute truth, the character is not separate from the dream. Therefore the character is also absolute truth."

Many (including me) would probalby prefer writing that the essence of the dream or character is Absolute Truth, but not Absolute Truth in itself (which is the Infinite Totality, the One without a second, of which nothing can be finally said) but this depends on the context it is used, and is a question of preference.

One can only use pointers to the Absolute Reality of which nothing positive can be said at the end since that would limit it, make it no longer infinite.  

• IT can only be pointed to (the pointers appearing in IT/Absolute Reality), and realized as Ones True Identity.
• That is why the pointer Nothingness of Halaw (God is Nothingness) is actually in my opinion a beautiful tool.
• The essence of every appearance is already Nothingness.
  • The essence of every thought, of every "separate self arising" is already Nothingness.
  • The "behind ones head" is it already floating in Nothingness. The visual field is floating in Nothingness already.

Once the referent (Enlightenment, realizing ones True Identity as Absolute Reality/Absolute) is in place, one can use signifiers (pointers) to point to it. Before that, all pointers can only show in the direction of that Realization of Ones True Essence.

When the referent is in place, something like Bashô "The old pond, A frog jumps in: Plop!" can work very precise when said from one person knowing the referent and the corresponding/accompanying states, to another. Much more precise than some pointers like Absolute/Nothingness/Infinite Reality,....  At the "edges of Duality" approaching "that" which can never be made to an object of any kind is challenging business 

I assume that you mean that, and that its only a preference of writing/pointing.

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Water by the River