Leo Gura

@cetus56 You can call it "cupcake" if that floats your boat Islam alone has 100 names for God, from what I can remember. But all labels are not it.

Except you don't even control your body. You have no idea how you walk, for example, not to mention everything else your body does every second. Go for a walk, and notice that you have no idea how you're able to make your body move. Not a clue! Also notice that you have no idea how your mind generates or strings together thoughts.

@egoless There IS a base building block element of reality. And it is nothing. Imagine Lego blocks made out of pure nothingness. It's like that. Except anything you imagine is wrong. The world is made out of differences, and behind these differences there is nothing.

Everything is self-illuminating. That's what this experience that you're having right now is. Self-illumination. "Experience" is a tricky notion. It implies an observer and an observed. But in fact there's no such thing. There is BEING. BEING is self-illuminating. Which means, it's both observer and observed. Another way to put it is: merely by virtue of the fact that something is, it is known. To exist is to be within the eye of God, so to speak, and there's nothing outside the eye of God. It really helps to stop treating reality as something which exists behind the scenes somewhere, and instead to treat everything you see before your eyes as EXACTLY what exists, and nothing more. The mechanics of reality are completely open to you. They're happening RIGHT NOW. There is nothing behind the scenes. There is nothing hidden. "Knowledge of itself" is also a tricky notion. What you probably mean by "knowledge" is something intellectual or mind-based, rather than BEING. In this case, knowledge (and even perception or experience) is a human capacity requiring a human body. Whereas BEING is more fundamental.

The substance of reality is undefined, and undefinable. That's literally what it is. What you call it doesn't matter. Calling it "physical" is just a label. Calling it "nonphysical" is also just a label. The real thing is neither. It really has no name. The label you're using is itself identical to the thing you're trying to use it to define. So this whole language game is a never-ending tail-chase. The only reason labels like "physical" or "nonphysical" have meaning is relative to themselves. The meaning is constructed within a network of ideas in the mind. This entire network of ideas is dualistic and finite, so it's no good for our purposes here. You must go beneath language.

Psychedelics, yoga, meditation, self-inquiry, dark room retreats, etc. Don't matter how. It all leads to the same basic place. Yes, of course. Don't expect a tyrant to agree to being deposed. Your paradigm's job is to maintain power over you at all costs. You see how it's circular logic? You don't actually know whether materialism is true. That is the issue at question. So you have to investigate whether it's actually true before you can just assume that you have a brain. Try not having a brain. Then see which feels more true. What you have to be interested in, is genuinely exploring alternative paradigms. Notice, the only difference between an Islamic fundamentalist and you is that he calls god "Allah", and you call it "brain".

Of course all human discourse is dualistic. Language nor the mind cannot be trusted when it comes to understanding the fundamental nature of nature. The solution is very simple, yet infuriating and deeply unpalatable: stop talking & stop thinking.

@egoless Doesn't matter. Even if I were Buddha himself, it wouldn't help you one bit. You're not going to access the Absolute through anyone but yourself. Sit down and do the work. The more silly philosophical questions you ask, the slower it will be. This whole discussion is just a distraction from doing the work. Which is precisely why it's being had. Nothing wrong with that per se, but enlightened it will not make you.

@MiracleMan Sometimes pain is just pain and requires a medical treatment. Not everything is a sign from God. Don't underestimate how many possible medical/alternative/physical solutions there could be. Make sure you thoroughly research and explore all the options. Most Western doctors are fools, so def don't just trust them.

@AleksM Thanks for posting lots of evidence.

That is the whole problem, don't you see? All teachings are false.

@egoless What I believe will not help you.

Like I said, that's a fair concern for your current POV. But what you're failing to appreciate is that absolute means ABSOLUTE. TOTAL. There is nothing beyond it because it is includes EVERYTHING. So your concern is addressed by the revelation. Which is precisely why it's such a huge revelation. It's not like you just discover a new planet. It's a much bigger thing. It's more like you discover every single atom in every imaginable universe. So there's no more point in asking the question, "But what if there's some other cool planet out there somewhere?"

@Safari Celeste I don't want Actualized.org to be too political, but I will be discussing broader social topics in the future. You'll see how personal development and consciousness work and philosophy intersects with community, humanity, evolution, and public policy. Being a good citizen is really just an outgrowth of consciousness. Which is why we have so many problems in politics and society. People are not conscious enough to be good citizens. Relationship and community based on ego and dishonesty doesn't work well.

You can still have plenty of cavities with fluoride toothpaste. Cavities are caused from eating all the refined grain and sugar.

I am posting because ya'll start sending me PMs, emails, leaving comments, and gossiping. Of course we mostly only talk about things close to us. You don't talk about shootings in Africa unless you live there. Safer? Where would that be? There's no escaping a nutcase with an assault rife in the US.

I use an audiobook app which allows me to create digital bookmarks so that I can jump back and forth to the juicy parts I want to save. It's not perfect, but it's much better than nothing.

Yeah, it's interesting. I've definitely heard a lot about it from inside spiritual circles. But the rigorous science on it is still iffy.

@egoless You won't understand until you find yourself there. From the unenlightened perspective, enlightenment may not be possible. Hence a leap of faith is required. Who knows, maybe one day you'll discover it is absolutely impossible and this was all just a hoax.

Actually, it's stranger than that. "The brain" and "an impulse in the brain" are concepts! Not impulses! Concepts do not occur inside a brain. That's backwards. Rather brains are concepts occurring in consciousness. Reality is not a hardware system, it's more like a software system. The software is NOT running on hardware! Stop thinking about reality physically. There's nothing physical about physics. A self-consistent hallucination has the quality of appearing solid and material. Materiality is an illusion created by the consistency of ordinary consciousness. It has lulled you into a false sense of materiality because you haven't yet experienced the consistency break down.

Source? I have yet to see any conclusive evidence of this.

Humans are complex creatures. Being human ain't easy.

Consider yourself lucky.

Except are you really able to enjoy what life has to offer? No So here we are. The difference is in the one case you're happy, in the other case you're a drunk, crazed monkey with a Jalapeno stuck up its ass.