Leo Gura

Calling it presence is extremely deceptive though. Everyone thinks they have presence so they don't think they're missing anything. Whereas with God, it's clear to most people that they are missing an experience of God. Take someone like Sam Harris. He has meditated for years, he even has some degree of awakening to no-self, and he would readily agree with you about presence, but he is not conscious of what God is. Presence or awareness are way too neutral of terms. These terms actually make many Buddhists believe there is no God.

There will be blood. There will be tears. There will be suffering. That's how growing is done.

@Garuda You're still not getting it. Enlightenment is not emotional mastery nor development. You can be genuinely enlightened and a racist or sexist, for example. The answer is to tread carefully and not build cult-like organizational structures and to stress an integral, dogma-free approach. The answer is also to not get ahead of your skiis, to maintain high personal integrity and to not lust after power, sex, money, fame, or success. The answer is to do shadow work even after awakening and to be sensitive to the collateral damage you cause. And to not go on a crusade.

@Miavono Nonduality contains duality within it. Just look at the yin-yang image. It's both nondual and dual at the same times because it depends on how you want to look at it. Free will vs not-free-will is a duality which collapses when you're in nondual consciousness. Yes, you can tap into the infinite creativity of God, since you are him. But that does not necessary mean you can create mountains out of thin air.

@Cocolove Yup, that can work. I had my first mystical experience doing just that: Vipassana followed by self-inquiry. I find self-inquiry not to be effective unless one's mind is already in the zone and highly mindful. So, for example, I find it bad practice to being a meditation retreat with self-inquiry because the mind is not focused enough yet to have any breakthrough. So my retreats begin with lots of Vipassana. The self-inquiry is best saved towards the end. Vipassana is sorta like sharping the knife and self-inquiry is more like using it to slit the throat. Without Vipassana you've got a butter knife.

But the crossfire might kill ya' Two devils do not make an angel.

A "relationship" in high school is a rather fickle notion. More like a 2-week affair. Obviously you're not gonna be doing one-night stands or same night lays in high school. You gotta build up to it through friendship in a way that you wouldn't need to do if you're hunting for girls at a bar or club. I don't see why you'd even want that in high school. Just get yourself a girlfriend. You don't need to sleep around with your entire class. If you're gonna be having sex with a girl in high school your intent should be to be in a relationship with her. Why you making it such a big chore? Relationships are fun. A relationship (in high school) is not marriage. It's a flimsy thing.

@Matt23 Such a thing should not be attempted unless you have significant spiritual experience. So if you're really serious about it, start by building your spiritual experience.

Entire books could be written on that one question.

@Garuda You are not hearing what I telling you. Your Buddhist Dhrama fantasies are wrong. Enlightenment will not even come close to eradicating all issues. You are already well on your way to developing a massive enlightened shadow. An entire book could be written on post-enlightenment shadow issues and pathologies.

Should be, but it isn't. We live in the real world, not some Buddhist fantasy. This is a very dangerous misconception. By equating enlightenment with moral perfection and an impossiblity of shadow, you set yourself up to be a great Zen Devil, full of much shadow. Because once your enlightenment happens, you'll still have a TON of shadow issues left unresolved, but your fantasy of perfection will force you to deny this fact and so you will suppress these shadow issues even deeper, doubling the size of your shadow and become a half-enlightened devil. Even the greatest most enlightened masters have shadows and pathologies. Don't be a fool. Nothing in this work is automatic. You have no idea what imperfections Ramana Maharshi had. You just have a fantasy of him in your mind. It's easy to appear to have no imperfections when living one's entire life in a cave. The real test comes when you live an active life, where you have leadership obligations, duties, money, fame, sex, luxury, family, children, business, politics, and other things to deal with. When a hot girl with big tits comes and rubs them on you, let's see how long your enlightenment lasts.

@Etherial Cat Orange will not regress to Blue. But Orange is dangerous enough as it is. And when those 60% Blue evolve into Orange, that will be a big problem as Orange will run hog-wild. That could easily end humanity. Imagine if all of Africa, South America, Middle East, and Asia became Orange! That's pretty scary. And you know it's coming unless we kill ourselves even sooner. Which is why I'm not worried about Green. We need a thousand times more Green to balance out all the Orange that's yet to come.

God speaks to those who know how to listen Try opening your ears.

Nonduality and Infinity are not laws. And the distinction of apparent vs non-apparent is extinguished in nonduality. It is precisely what it wants to be. Nonduality requires nothing outside itself to define it. It exists without non-existence. It is light without dark. Nonduality has no opposite. You are still thinking of nonduality dualistically.

@Guided That's a good insight, but still only a partial perspective. If life is suffering, what is it when you are not suffering? Are you suffering right this moment? Yet the moment still is. Be careful not to over-generalize and call everything suffering. That chair is not suffering, for example. Notice that there are many times throughout the day when you are not suffering. Which shows you that your perspective is not totally right.

60%+ of the world population is at Blue or below. So I'd be more worried about that and Orange. Much of Green radicalism is actually a reaction against the stubbornness of Orange from evolving into Green. If Orange took environmental issues and income inequality seriously, then there would be much less incentive for Green radicals.

Infinity does not necessarily work the way your mind imagines. Reality is infinitely intelligent because it has unlimited power. In short, there is nothing to stop from being infinitely intelligent, so it is! What you must understand is that there are no constraints on reality as a whole. Reality is not random, arbitrary, or chaotic. It is fine-tuned by an infinite intellect which cannot ever be fully articulated, but you can become conscious that this is so.

@ActualizedDavid The substance of reality is nothing. There can only be one nothing. And you are it.

@Jkris Yes they can. Any psychedelic can. It's only a question of how deep are you daring to go?

If you were me, you'd be sitting here typing this sentence with no sense of being you. Since to be me is to be fully me, not you. What it means to be you is to not see through anyone else's eyes but your own. If you were able to see through my eyes, you'd be me! Which is precisely what I am: you looking through my eyes! And you are me looking through your eyes. Ta-da! This is possible precisely because the perceiver (True Self) is nothing.

He's a noob. He has much to learn about the ultimate nature of existence. That is not his wheelhouse. You don't go to me to ask how to build a rocketship to Mars and you don't go to Elon Musk to ask about God. God is real. End of story.

Or he builds a cult which goes off the rails and drives many people into delusion. What you have to take into account about every organization is how it plays out after the leader is dead. How much evil will it spread? If the leader enlightens 1000 people in his lifetime but leaves an organization which enslaves and brainwashes 100,000, it's not longer clear that it was a net positive. Is the Catholic church a net positive or net negative? Hard to say. The math is very complex in that equation. Jesus might be rolling in his grave.

@joeyi99 Well, all the great sages and prophets. Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, Muhammad, etc. It's no accident that such people are revered as gods among men. And serve a role models for millions. Because to truly pull off such a thing requires you become god-like. In practice no leader is perfect. Many of them have secret hidden shadow sides which you don't see in public. For example Gandhi was an amazing leader but not without some personal shadow issues. Same with Martin Luther King Jr. Also take note how many of these leaders were killed by the ignorant hoards. That should tell you something. Personally I find Gandhi very inspiring. He gave up his whole life for his mission.

This is too deep a topic to get into here. If you want to discuss that, start a new thread about it. For now what I'll say it this: you can spend decades reading various scriptures and various claims by monks and yogis. But all of it will be hearsay and you will have no clue if what they are saying is true or not. You must ground this work in your own direct experience. Are there aliens? Are there past lives? Is there karma? Is there an escape from rebirth? Is there a God? Are there angels? -- the truth is you don't know until such time you are directly experiencing it. So rather than speculating about this stuff, invest your time having direct experience of the things you speak of. Try this rule on for the next week: Do not speak of anything you have not directly experienced. Have you experienced a kangaroo? Then don't speak of it. Have you experienced being gay? Then don't speak of it. Have you experienced outer space? Then don't speak of it. Notice how this one rule cuts out a lot of bullshit from your mind. This is called being grounded. You must constantly reground yourself in this work because the tendency is to float off into metaphysical speculations, and then even worse, debate over those metaphysical speculations. If you really wish to honor the monks and yogis of the past then devote more time to meditation, contemplation, yoga, and psychedelics. That is the only way to validate the things they said.

Do not prune this thread as doing so will likely break stuff in horrible ways. Just stay on topic here.