Adyashanti Retires

[Water by the River]

8 minutes ago, Display_Name said:

You cannot begin to compare the "boredom" and "resistance" of sitting in meditation posture for 5 hours infront of a wall with true suffering, like physical torture or real mental hell.

Well, then one better starts with the 5 hours.

Are you planning to get physically tortured this life? Or real mental hell ahead? If not, I assume it would be quite useful to be able to transcend/cut-off everyday psychological suffering via resting in the bliss of ones true nature... 

or:

Edited September 26, 2023 by Water by the River

[Display_Name]

5 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Well, then one better starts with the 5 hours.

Are you planning to get physically tortured this life? Or real mental hell ahead? If not, I assume it would be quite useful to be able to transcend/cut-off everyday psychological suffering via resting in the bliss of ones true nature... 

I've done a 3 month retreat of 10 hours a day, and I'm telling you, it was probably the easiest and nicest time of my life. It does not begin to compare to true hardship in this world

But yeah everyday psychological suffering you can absolutely transcend. But you will still be at the mercy of life and physical health

Edited September 26, 2023 by Display_Name

[Water by the River]

2 minutes ago, Display_Name said:

I've done a 3 month retreat of 10 hours a day, and I'm telling you, it was probably the easiest and nicest time of my life. It does not begin to compare to true hardship in this world

Awesome. Good for you! Its not for all like that.

[undeather]

Enlightened Neo-advaitans & theravada-buddhists when the barbarians have invaded and burnt down their village and captured their wife and enslaved their children:

Edited September 26, 2023 by undeather

[Razard86]

11 hours ago, Starlight321 said:

I agree with you on being able to reduce it a lot but my point was that in practice it is highly unlikely that eliminating it comepletely is possible even for the most advanced practitioners. 

It's possible, stop with these limiting beliefs. It would just take someone with the right genetics. For example if someone was already born with low pain sensitivity and then mastered the art of meditation to create space then they could theoretically not have to suffer physical pain because of their genetics and combination of spiritual practice. 

But this would be rare, and they would also have to have a strong psyche that doesn't suffer psychologically from strong attachment. So is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? Hell no!!! LOL.

[vibv]

27 minutes ago, undeather said:

Enlightened Neo-advaitans & theravada-buddhists when the barbarians have invaded and burnt down their village and captured their wife and enslaved their children:

[Water by the River]

1 hour ago, undeather said:

Enlightened Neo-advaitans & theravada-buddhists when the barbarians have invaded and burnt down their village and captured their wife and enslaved their children:

This days most mature post award is clearly taken.

In real life, it works more like this:

Ken Wilber, One Taste:

"Monday, March 24. With the awakening of constant consciousness, you becomesomething of a divine schizophrenic, in the popular sense of “split-minded,” because you have access to both the Witnessand the ego. You are actually “whole-minded,” but it sounds like it’s split, because you are aware of the constant Witness or Spirit in you, and you are also perfectly aware of themovie of life, the ego and all its ups and downs. So you still feel pain and suffering and sorrow, but they can no longer convince you of their importance—you are no longer the victim of life, but its Witness.

In fact, because you are no longer afraid of your feelings,you can engage them with much greater intensity. The movie of life becomes more vivid and vibrant, precisely because you are no longer grasping or avoiding it, and thus no longer trying to dull or dilute it. You no longer turn the volume down. You might even cry harder, laugh louder, jump higher. Choiceless awareness doesn’t mean you cease to feel; it means you feel fully, feel deeply, feel to infinity itself, and laugh and cry and love until it hurts. Life jumps right off the screen, and you are one with all of it, because you don’t recoil.

If you are having a dream, and you think it’s real, it can get very scary. Say you are dreaming that you are tightropewalking across Niagara Falls. If you fall off, you plunge to your death. So you are walking very slowly, very carefully.Then suppose you start lucid dreaming, and you realize that it’s just a dream. What do you do? Become more cautious and careful? No, you start jumping up and down on the tightrope, you do flips, you bounce around, you have a ball—precisely because you know it isn’t real. When you realize it’s a dream, you can afford to play.

The same thing happens when you realize that ordinary life is just a dream, just a movie, just a play. You don’t become more cautious, more timid, more reserved. You start jumping up and down and doing flips, precisely because it’sall a dream, it’s all pure Emptiness. You don’t feel less, you feel more—because you can afford to. You are no longer afraid of dying, and therefore you are not afraid of living.You become radical and wild, intense and vivid, shocking and silly. You let it all come pouring through, because it’s all your dream.

Life then assumes its true intensity, its vivid luminosity, itsradical effervescence. Pain is more painful and happiness is happier; joy is more joyous and sorrow is even sadder. It all comes radiantly alive to the mirror-mind, the mind that doesn’t grasp or avoid, but simply witnesses the play, and therefore can afford to play, even as it watches.

What would motivate you if you saw everything as the dream of your own highest Self? What would actually move you in this playful dream world? Everything in the dream is basically fun, at some deep level, except for this: when you see your friends suffering because they think the dream is real, you want to relieve their suffering, you want them to wake up, too. Watching them suffer is not fun. And so a deep and powerful compassion arises in the heart of the awakened ones, and they seek, above all else, to awaken others—and thus relieve them from the sorrow and the pity,the torment and the pain, the terror and the anguish that comes from taking with dreadful seriousness the passing dream of life.

So you are a divine schizophrenic, you are “split-minded” in the sense that you are simultaneously in touch with both the pure Witness and the world of the ego-film. But that really means you are actually “whole-minded,” because these two worlds are really not-two. The ego is just the dream of the Witness, the film that the Witness creates out of its own infinite plenitude, simply so it will have something to watch at the movies.

At that point the entire play arises within your own constant consciousness. There is no inside and no outside, no in here versus out there. The nondual universe of One Taste arises as a spontaneous gesture of your own true nature. You can taste the sun and swallow the moon, and centuries fit in the palm of your hand. The pure I-I, the greatI AMness, breathes to infinity and creates a Kosmos as the Song of its very Self, and oceans of compassion fall as tears from your very own Original Face.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Water by the River

[vibv]

@Water by the River Yeah that sounds pretty much what I'm talking about this whole time. The "split-mindedness". That means you are rooted deeply in yourself, but the dream doesn't become less important and juicy, it becomes MORE profound.

My message is just this: Don't stop at the first part. Because after that we can begin to build something far more advanced here than currently is the case. We got incredible potential here and that doesn't become meaningless by Awakening, quite the contrary.

Awakening isn't the end, it's the beginning.

What's there to do? AWAKEN MORE. Yes, it's possible.

[Water by the River]

5 minutes ago, vibv said:

@Water by the River Yeah that sounds pretty much what I'm talking about this whole time. The "split-mindedness". That means you are rooted deeply in yourself, but the dream doesn't become less important and juicy, it becomes MORE profound.

My message is just this: Don't stop at the first part. Because after that we can begin to build something far more advanced here than currently is the case. We got incredible potential here and that doesn't become meaningless by Awakening, quite the contrary.

Awakening isn't the end, it's the beginning.

What's there to do? AWAKEN MORE. Yes, it's possible.

Maybe you like that perspective also:

The basis for all of that is true non-conceptual nondual realization. Without that, it is just one more conceptual view, or just more ideas/opinions/views/paradigms. There is no shortage of that...

 

[vibv]

17 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

The basis for all of that is true non-conceptual nondual realization. Without that, it is just one more conceptual view, or just more ideas/opinions/views/paradigms. There is no shortage of that...

The reason I harp on about it like that is because I got a taste of what's in store for humanity, a taste of our true potential and the significance of that.

And one thing was absolutely clear: ALL ideas and concepts that currently exist must be dropped. NOTHING of it can remain. It must all be burned and deconstructed because it is what's holding us back.

That includes all religions and our current idea of spirituality, every idea of what is possible and impossible. It is all falsehood and must be completely destroyed.

This is beyond non-duality and enlightenment.

Edited September 26, 2023 by vibv

[Jodistrict]

The second noble truth says that there is an end to suffering.   This was the Buddha's greatest discovery.

Here is a talk by Shinzen   "Pain without suffering"

 

[ItsNick]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

PTSD from what?

He doesn't really want to go into detail about it. He talks about suffering from "nerve pain" for 18 years and after resolving it facing a "tsunami of trauma" because of how horrible the pain had been on his body-mind.

He is also admits taking medication to help with his anxiety but doesn't specify what he uses.

 

 

 

There's an hour-long talk where he talks more about it all here: https://adyashanti.opengatesangha.org/store/downloads-file?dky=Cd5ost38&admv=1

[Breakingthewall]

Suffering has a function, it is the most powerful engine for evolution. Without suffering there is stagnation. Life wants to evolve, increase in complexity, in consciousness, and for this it invents suffering, a perfect tool. Every living being suffers, and suffering pushes it to seek a solution, then evolve.

The collective human mind is a living being in evolution, and suffers a lot in many fields, and therefore evolves at great speed. It seems that it is in a phase of extreme evolution and therefore his suffering is enormous. Seems certain that the suffering of the Paleolithic collective mind would be several orders of magnitude less. Probably when this evolution reaches a plateau phase, the suffering will decrease, and being spiritually awake will be normal for humans.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Breakingthewall

[RickyFitts]

6 hours ago, Display_Name said:

I think he had kidney or liver diseases or something like that

Really? Didn't know he had all these health issues, poor guy.?

[vibv]

37 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

The collective human mind is a living being in evolution, and suffers a lot in many fields, and therefore evolves at great speed. It seems that it is in a phase of extreme evolution and therefore his suffering is enormous. It is certain that the suffering of the Paleolithic collective mind would be several orders of magnitude less. Probably when this evolution reaches a plateau phase, the suffering will decrease, and being spiritually awake will be normal for humans.

That's the way I see it, too.

I think it will end likely with some kind of bang (which doesn't need to be necessarily destructive). That's one of the most exciting things right now – how will this be solved and where are we headed towards. It will require a lot of Consciousness & Creativity to solve our collective predicament.

We'll need a critical mass of Awakening. Actually that's what my life purpose is about 

Edited September 26, 2023 by vibv

[Salvijus]

1 hour ago, ItsNick said:

There's an hour-long talk where he talks more about it all here: https://adyashanti.opengatesangha.org/store/downloads-file?dky=Cd5ost38&admv=1

...rip

[Applegarden8]

20 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

PTSD from what?

But this is a good lesson. It's important for you guys to understand that the end of suffering is nonsense. More Buddhist bullshit.

Well, if the myths are true, beings like Shiva didn't have these problems.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, vibv said:

We'll need a critical mass of Awakening. Actually that's what my life purpose is about 

This seems very difficult for now, but who knows. So far no awakening movement has done anything, but perhaps if the systematic use of psychedelics for this purpose becomes popular, this will change. People are looking for new horizons, 20 years ago traveling to remote parts of the world was the super adventure, now it is...meh, yes, the typical thing that boring college students with some money do. Maybe in 10 years taking 300 ug of LSD and then vaping 5 meo 3 times in a row after having been at a meditation retreat for a week will be something common, and a lot of people will be seeking real awakening.

[vibv]

18 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

This seems very difficult for now, but who knows. So far no awakening movement has done anything, but perhaps if the systematic use of psychedelics for this purpose becomes popular, this will change. People are looking for new horizons, 20 years ago traveling to remote parts of the world was the super adventure, now it is...meh, yes, the typical thing that boring college students with some money do. Maybe in 10 years taking 300 ug of LSD and then vaping 5 meo 3 times in a row after having been at a meditation retreat for a week will be something common, and a lot of people will be seeking real awakening.

Yeah I don't know if it will happen in my lifetime. That doesn't stop me from devoting my life to finding creative ways to perform something like that, starting at a very small scope, that's so rewarding – and there's nothing else to do anyway 

I agree, if it happens in the next 100 years psychedelics will have played a huge role.

I will probably formulate and post my ideas so far within the next few days/weeks. Little teaser: It has to do with music, a story, the heroes journey and psychedelics. And I also performed it once so far it with 15 people attending and it was a pretty awesome success for the first time.

Edited September 26, 2023 by vibv

[Razard86]

6 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Suffering has a function, it is the most powerful engine for evolution. Without suffering there is stagnation. Life wants to evolve, increase in complexity, in consciousness, and for this it invents suffering, a perfect tool. Every living being suffers, and suffering pushes it to seek a solution, then evolve.

The collective human mind is a living being in evolution, and suffers a lot in many fields, and therefore evolves at great speed. It seems that it is in a phase of extreme evolution and therefore his suffering is enormous. Seems certain that the suffering of the Paleolithic collective mind would be several orders of magnitude less. Probably when this evolution reaches a plateau phase, the suffering will decrease, and being spiritually awake will be normal for humans.

Totally agree....lol and we gotta live through it...