The universe is mental

[Osaid]

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

I acknowledge to be coming from speculation and you might be, so it's useful to do that, which is to say I'm ignorant. Most people don't notice that this is what they do.

I am trying to describe, or transcribe, my direct experience, because I am enlightened.

I also acknowledge your strict adherence to being "directly conscious", but I don't find certain distinctions you make to be helpful, so I wanted to ask about them.

I am not saying you are necessarily wrong or right. Something like Zen, for example, doesn't really allow any concepts or distinctions at all, even if they are accurate or correct. This is essentially a safety mechanism to prevent dogma from accumulating, but I find it has weaknesses, for example, it becomes too vague and unclear by not attempting to really say or speak anything, but that is tangential, and maybe that works better for certain people.

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

You tell me. Survival seems to be the reason, so that you eat an apple, not a stone, and pet the dog rather than the tiger.

Sorry, I meant specifically the distinction between consciousness and experience.

If you are saying the distinction between consciousness and experience is useful for survival, I disagree.

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Since I'm speculating: Consciousness is absolute and sources experience, also there's a reason why two words are used here. A distinction is made within consciousness. Experience is a particular way in which consciousness shows up.

So, there is consciousness and experience.

Experience is sourced by consciousness, but consciousness is present throughout all of experience, and it can manifest experiences in many different ways, but all those experiences are consciousness too. Is that right?

Is the distinction to separate the "transient contents" of experience from "permanent and absolute truth"?

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

We might be confusing awareness with consciousness.

I do not imagine a difference between awareness and consciousness, what would you say the distinction is?

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Enlightenment is independent of perception. Unless by perception you mean something different, you're describing something relative, awareness perhaps. Experience, hence perception, are transient, too.

If you are perceiving things, enlightenment cannot be independent of that, unless enlightenment is transient or untrue. Because that means enlightenment is absent during perception. By perception I mean "existence" or "experience."

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

and that enlightenment, as in consciousness of one's nature, doesn't necessarily provide understanding of what these are, even though it's absolute.

Right, I am elaborating on this by highlighting a difference between clarity of perception and what you call "understanding", which is just knowledge. Knowledge is a subset of experience. Enlightenment certainly doesn't provide knowledge, at least not explicitly. 

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Experience as a distinction is relative, it occurs as a process and depends on a body, etc.

How do you know experience depends on something? What is your experience of that? Just something to think about.

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

Absolute is absolute, so it could be said that the true nature of experience is absolute.

Yes.

Existentially, there is no such thing as something which is not absolute or true. That cannot occur. Duality is not existential, it is like looking at a rope as if it is a snake. If you include duality or relativity into your existential formulation, that is just confusing the map for the territory, because the point is to realize that those don't exist in the first place, not to make a map of reality or consciousness which includes them. 

7 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

This relative/absolute business is paradoxical.

Yes.

Edited January 29 by Osaid

[UnbornTao]

@Osaid What are you conscious of now?

Direct consciousness is the key. What else would you care about in the context of enlightenment work?

Any distinction is made for a reason - it serves a purpose. We distinguish between experience and consciousness because they're seemingly not the same. Experience is a relative phenomenon, as in seeing, hearing, and feeling, dependent on organs, etc. Consciousness might be everything, but you still differentiate between a fork and a star. Could be one of the uses of such distinction -- to point out how one shows up as a process while "the other" might source it. 

Awareness is a function of mind, which is itself a form of consciousness.

On 29/01/2024 at 11:17 PM, Osaid said:

If you are perceiving things, enlightenment cannot be independent of that, unless enlightenment is transient or untrue. Because that means enlightenment is absent during perception. By perception I mean "existence" or "experience."

You may be holding enlightenment as some state or unusual experience perhaps. By saying permanent absolute, you might be holding it as dependent on time. If it's absolute consciousness, it was the case even before your self existed and had a body to perceive. It is true now regardless of experience and perception. It wouldn't be absent, but independent of experience. At some point talking about the absolute gets silly real quick.

You and I need to draw a sharper distinction between existence and experience as they aren't necessarily the same.

On 29/01/2024 at 11:17 PM, Osaid said:

Right, I am elaborating on this by highlighting a difference between clarity of perception and what you call "understanding", which is just knowledge. Knowledge is a subset of experience. Enlightenment certainly doesn't provide knowledge, at least not explicitly. 

Clarity of perception is good although not enlightenment. Seems to be more a function of awareness.

On 29/01/2024 at 11:17 PM, Osaid said:

How do you know experience depends on something? What is your experience of that? Just something to think about.

Our bodies can't hear certain sounds and can only see within a limited spectrum of light. If your eyes were cut off, obviously you wouldn't be able to see, etc.

On 29/01/2024 at 11:17 PM, Osaid said:

Experience is sourced by consciousness, but consciousness is present throughout all of experience, and it can manifest experiences in many different ways, but all those experiences are consciousness too. Is that right?

Banana.

Not going to make up a cosmology. 

At this point we should focus on having, and deepening, enlightenments.

Edited February 2 by UnbornTao

[Osaid]

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Clarity of perception is good although not enlightenment. Seems to be more a function of awareness.

No, it's not a function of anything. It is existence itself. Clarity of perception means: Are you seeing what exists? I am not talking about some enhanced focus you get from caffeine or adderall or something.

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

By saying permanent absolute, you might be holding it as dependent on time.

I meant the opposite actually. Permanent, as in, it is always here. Maybe "eternal" is better? 

"Absolute" means it is absolute, not relative, which means it depends on nothing, so it is always the case.

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

You and I need to draw a sharper distinction between existence and experience as they aren't necessarily the same.

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

If it's absolute consciousness, it was the case even before your self existed and had a body to perceive. It is true now regardless of experience and perception.

If what you say here is the case, I don't see room for a distinction between existence and experience.

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Our bodies can't hear certain sounds, or see within a limited spectrum of light. If your eyes were cut off, obviously you wouldn't be able to see, etc.

That's an interesting idea, but what does your experience say about it? Are you experiencing your body creating experience? Or are you just experiencing the end result of what it supposedly creates?

If you're playing a video game, it wouldn't run without code. But, what is your experience of code in the game? Put experience first and foremost.

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Not going to make up a cosmology.

I was trying to figure out your position but I guess we are going in circles.

58 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

What are you conscious of now?

I could describe this in about 1000+ ways.

I am not really conscious "of a thing." There isn't any subject and object relationship in my experience anymore, because that would just be a thought about experience.

Edited February 1 by Osaid

[UnbornTao]

@Osaid Why clarity of perception if you're talking about consciousness of what is, perception being done through something -- body, etc? Unless you don't know what enlightenment is and are confusing it with some thing.

The room is made by you and in a way has already been made by us having chosen to bring up two different words -- existence and experience.

I think we're playing back and for with absolute and relative. Experience as a process shows up in some way; what way is it? Before you were born you didn't have any experience. Some correlation is there about the body and awareness being requisite for an experience of being alive to occur.

Why wouldn't there be a relationship between subject and object? Consciousness doesn't make you stupid, which is to say you likely have that relationship going on, even if enlightened. Survival demands some of that. Notice you eat apples and not your arm.

I think you might be conflating enlightenment with a relative phenomenon.

My position is: no matter what's believed, get conscious of what's true.

[Breakingthewall]

22 hours ago, Osaid said:

am not really conscious "of a thing." There isn't any subject and object relationship in my experience anymore, because that would just be a thought about experience

I think I understand what you're saying. You are referring to a state in which the self begins to expand until it disappears, reality gains depth, and suddenly you are the depth. eureka, you are inside, you are that. There is nothing more to say or see, the one who would say or see it is the self, and it is not there, there is only pure reality. But then the self wonders how to go deeper once inside, once you are fully connected with reality and you are reality. You are not alone as they say, since the one who would be alone is the self, and it is out of the equation. Even so, the self, the moment it returns, desires more, wants more depth, more life.

This is a deep state, but that's not enlightenment. Enlightenment is the next step, where reality reveals itself. I had some glimpses , but now seems unreal, far. 

Edited February 2 by Breakingthewall

[Yimpa]

Trying to disprove God is like trying to eat a banana while doing a a cartwheel and somersaulting into a massive pool located in the Grand Canyon. 

[Yimpa]

No amount of improving technology will ever reach God, because all technology is God masquerading as all technology.

[Osaid]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

where reality reveals itself

How does reality prevent itself from being revealed? 

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

I had some glimpses , but now seems unreal, far. 

Why would it seem unreal? Is the thing you glimpsed here with you right now, or is it in some other place?

[Osaid]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

Survival demands some of that. Notice you eat apples and not your arm.

No, it doesn't. Relativity is never actually the case. Something which is not the case cannot be necessary for survival.

Thinking about the difference between the apple and my arm is not actually relativity, it is just thinking or imagining. It doesn't change anything metaphysically or existentially. In the same way that thinking that you are a unicorn doesn't change you into a unicorn.

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

I think you might be conflating enlightenment with a relative phenomenon.

You are confusing the map for the territory. Duality is never actually the case, the point of enlightenment is to realize this.

Edited February 2 by Osaid

[Breakingthewall]

Just now, Osaid said:

How does reality prevent itself from being revealed? 

Why would it seem unreal? Is the thing you glimpsed here with you right now, or is it in some other place?

It's different frequency,For example few minutes ago I was meditating with two puffs of weed and a moment happened, reality opens to infinity, everything is clear, there is no question, you are not there, it is unlimited reality. Joy overflows simply because you are not blocking it. total expansion. but then you return to the normal state, which may be more or less profound but limits are still perceived.

[Osaid]

1 minute ago, Breakingthewall said:

limits are still perceived.

How do you perceive a limit? Through memory? Through inference?

[Breakingthewall]

40 minutes ago, Osaid said:

How do you perceive a limit? Through memory? Through inference?

I perceive the limits between my body and what is not my body, my Interior and the external, me and other people. It is a limited state, even if it is more or less empty of mind. The mind is always thinking what to do tomorrow, etc, but without identification. 

 

Edited February 2 by Breakingthewall

[Osaid]

3 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

I perceive the limits

What is a limit made out of? What kind of perception? Touch? Taste? Sight? Sound? Thought?

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, Osaid said:

What is a limit made out of? What kind of perception? Touch? Taste? Sight? Sound? Thought?

Fear. What about you? Have you ever tried a retirement in total solitude for a week? Without reading, internet , empty mind. 

[Osaid]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Have you ever tried a retirement in total solitude for a week? Without reading, internet , empty mind.

No.

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

What about you?

I don't have limits. You don't either, you just think you do. Thinking has no limits either.

[Breakingthewall]

42 minutes ago, Osaid said:

No.

I don't have limits. You don't either, you just think you do. Thinking has no limits either.

6 hours ago, Osaid said:

 

Sure, go alone for 1/2 weeks without any reading or internet, then tell me how was. 

 

Edited February 3 by Breakingthewall

[Osaid]

9 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

go alone for 1/2 weeks without any reading or internet, then tell me how was

What does that do? Or do you want me to find out for myself?

[Breakingthewall]

24 minutes ago, Osaid said:

What does that do? Or do you want me to find out for myself?

It makes you see your limits, your need for others, your incompleteness. All of this is caused by your fear. Without fear, the mind expands and there is no self, there is no loneliness, there is no projection into the future, but it is extremely difficult to reach that fearless state (sober, with psychedelic is easier). Without fear there is no mind and there can be enlightenment. I'm not saying that you can't do it, I'm just saying that you have to take the test to see what is inside yourself.

Edited February 3 by Breakingthewall

[UnbornTao]

20 hours ago, Osaid said:

No, it doesn't. Relativity is never actually the case. Something which is not the case cannot be necessary for survival.

Survival isn't based on the truth. Knowing what's true is unnecessary for survival. 

Quote

Thinking about the difference between the apple and my arm is not actually relativity, it is just thinking or imagining. It doesn't change anything metaphysically or existentially. In the same way that thinking that you are a unicorn doesn't change you into a unicorn.

You are confusing the map for the territory. Duality is never actually the case, the point of enlightenment is to realize this.

A distinction creates the difference; it is itself the basis of relativity. Whatever is existential is up for grabs. I'm saying in your experience you likely have a sense of self --a relationship between object and subject-- however enlightened, unless deeply enlightened perhaps, as in the case of Ramana. Which is to say, self and not-self is a distinction already operative in your experience, regardless of belief system. If your arm were to be cut off, you'd be really pissed; if the apple is cut off, you'd be fine. This isn't to say it's existentially true, but it exists as an invention that might be taken as real.

Again, I like being honest and grounded. If you know your nature deeply, good. But I wouldn't reference externalities nor abstract terms to communicate what I'm conscious of. People already fool themselves, thinking that their cosmology is special and makes them enlightened. This is fundamentally pretending even if spiritual concepts and language have been mastered to a certain degree. The point is for the individual himself to come from genuine insight and breakthrough. People don't make this distinction.

Edited February 3 by UnbornTao

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

If your arm were to be cut off, you'd be really pissed; if the apple is cut off, you'd be fine. This isn't to say it's existentially true, but it exists as an invention that might be taken as real.

Exactly, A state of total enlightenment is when it is the same whether they cut off your arm or the apple. All preference towards one side is energy that obscures real perception, which is why this perception is extremely difficult. People who say they are enlightened are blind to their limits. preference is the limit, and its energy is fear. For this reason, if you want to have a moment of enlightenment, since they will only be specific moments unless you are a Buddha and lack self, you must understand your structure very well and manage to lower the frequency of energy/fear in specific moments.