Leo Gura

Ego and self-concept are fairly similar. Self-image is more specific and refers to literally the mental images you have of yourself. How you picture yourself in your mind's eye. Personality is really different from all the above. Personality will remain even after complete enlightenment or complete ego death. Notice that even dogs and cats have unique personalities.

@Will Bigger There are levels and facets to enlightenment, but I don't like that classic 4 stage Buddhist model you listed. Because the stages are very poorly defined and mix-and-match metaphysical insights with spiritual purification, and even morality. This can become a very misleading map. There are many ways to map it, and potentially many more levels than 4, and it's not just a one-dimensional ladder. There are forks and off-shoots, and there's spiritual development which is really tangential to enlightenment insights themselves. There's also personal development. So it gets messy. What's even more complex, is that due to the incommunicable nature of this work, and the fact that people have different brains and genetics (or karma, or past lives, or whatever), levels of consciousness may exist which very very very few people have ever attained. It may not even be possible for you to attain certain levels that others have, or vice versa. You just don't know. Which is why it's a good idea to stay humble and keep working, even after you've had a big breakthrough. Chances are you'll still have much to learn. For a better understanding of the possible stages, see some of the books in my book list. And I'll be adding more books in the future on this topic. This is where a deep conceptual study of enlightenment/spirituality becomes indispensable. If you don't do the deep study, I pretty much guarantee you'll get misled by one map or another, and your attainment will be far shy of what's ultimately possible.

@Simon Håkansson Are you freaking kidding? You're going to be DEAD soon! Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!

If one is going to use any religious or mystical tradition's teachings, one needs to become good at deciphering metaphor and symbolism, almost in a poetic way. The problem that all exoteric religious teachings has been that the rational, materialistic mind likes to be literalist. Which is where fundamentalism goes wrong. It takes the teachings too literally while missing their spirit. Hence God becomes: old bearded man in the sky.

Well... just look at the havoc ego creates. Case in point. Self-hatred is big steaming pile of ego. Yes, the devil likes to use words to deepen his separation from God.

@Bodhi123 That's exactly what all the Christian Lucifer stories are pointing to. Devil = ego. I'll shoot a video about it in the future. Devil = what which separates itself from God by proclaiming itself to be its own God. And isn't that exactly what ego does? It acts like God, without recognizing any higher power. Isn't that exactly your current predicament? You little devil! Denying your own devilry! How devilish of you The holy light of God will burn your devil eyes when it shines forth upon thee. Hallelujah! The reason you can't see God, is because you already think you are God.

Look closer. Do you see a forehead? Or is the "forehead" an mental image? And does the line then terminate at a mental image? Is that what you ACTUALLY experience? Or do you ACTUALLY experience a line terminating at nothingness? And in a kid's mind, it makes sense that Santa Claus organizes the distribution of Christmas presents. Yes, "in your mind" it makes sense because it's a fantasy. In reality it's false. Your mind is the enemy here. What makes sense to the mind doesn't matter. Reality is otherwise. You can take it as an axiom of this work that no sensation perceives another. Now your job is to verify this by finding the actual perceiver. Hint: the actual perciever (you) is non-existent. You're never going to find it as an object. Because you are emptiness itself. There's no logical reason why it would. You have to discover via direct experience what you are. Then you'll see that what you are is infinite and without location (hence omnipresent). Well, be careful not to get lost in terminology. Language is a poor vehicle for this work. You need to have the direct experience of reality. "Silence" and "nothing" might point to the same thing. "Nothing", "source", and "no source" might point to the same thing. And "nothing" might point to something very different than what you imagine. Absolute reality is that which is true all the time, without change, under all circumstances. What is the ONE thing which never changes? Nothingness. Every other experience is relative truth. Hopefully you're starting to notice that all experience is changing all the time. Hence experiences cannot be The Truth. Experiences are not Absolute. To use a scientific metaphor, you might think of the vacuum of empty space as being an absolute. Although in fact, not even it is absolute, since it's merely a concept/experience your mind is having.

@Shin Lol

Consciousness != mind Emptiness != body The rest is more or less okay. Here's an idea of how to map it: Buddha = Jesus = God = you Consciousness = Awareness = Emptiness = Fullness = Divine Love Nothingness = No Self = God Ego = Mind = Sin = Devil = Hell Awareness = Holy Spirit Meditation = Prayer Reality = God Nirvana = Illumination = Kingdom Of Heaven = Bliss = Ecstasy

@MochaSlap You're not gonna understanding consciousness until you actually experience a leap in consciousness. Meditate, self-inquire, contemplate, or take a psychedelic. Then you'll know. The examples you give are tiny compared to what's ultimately necessary. Those examples are all operating on a same basic low level of consciousness. Totally new levels are available to explore. But of course, start wherever you can. Any increase in awareness is a good start.

@vikisss1 Human beings have been selectively breeding and genetically modifying plants and animals for over 5000 years. Hardly anything you put in your mouth is "natural" in the way it was in the caveman days.

@onacloudynight Great stuff! You're really growing. Don't worry about the fools who are lost in the spell of "normal" consensus reality. But if possible, keep it to yourself. There's no reason to go around freaking out those who won't understand. Try to purge all your inner demons privately as much as possible. You CAN control yourself in public. Don't let your spiritual practices become an excuse for misbehavior.

Careful what ya'll assume. Some of the most enlightened people are the most humble, least flashy, and most unassuming. Like Yoda living in a swamp. He's not walking around with a slick sales pitch, throngs of devotees, and fancy neon signs saying: ENLIGHTENED MASTER! You'd never know he was there at all unless you were really serious about seeking out Truth. Yoda doesn't run around showing off his force lighting powers in the middle of a crowded intersection. He's not stupid. You probably couldn't understand 1% of what he has to teach you. So he is silent. The more one has transcended ego, the less you will know one has. Someone like Osho is a showoff. And the reason he's popular is precisely because stupid people like flashy things.

@ElenaO Of course anything do you mindlessly will put you into an unconscious state, by definition. Before you can learn to work mindfully, you need to start practicing mindfulness just sitting and doing nothing. Once you've developed some proficiency there, you can start mindful eating, mindful sleeping, mindful walking, mindful talking, and perhaps finally, mindful working. Also, be clear about whether you mean your work is being done mindlessly, vs your work makes you irritated and drained because it's not fulfilling, because it's not aligned with your deepest values. That's another matter. For that, you need to align your work with your life purpose. Which probably means transitioning out of whatever lame job you're probably currently doing. Such a transition requires lots of careful planning and strategizing to pull off. I remember when I hated my old job.

@jdeugarte Just use some basic common sense here: If you are what you do, you'd have to stop existing whenever you stopped doing it. Cut the sloppy thinking and speculating, and get serious. What ACTUALLY are you?

@Lenny Notice, what is your current experience of the "external world"? The world you believe exists beyond your phenomenal field? It's literally nothing. That's what the "external world" turns out to be. You might say you have access to the entire external universe. It just happens to be absolutely nothing. You have to realize that reality doesn't need any external causes. It's all right here. There's nothing behind the scenes the way you were taught in science class. Of course this means you have to open yourself up to a deep inherent mystery. Hence it's called mysticism.

@khalifa It's not meditation. It can morph into meditation when your self-inquiry gets very deep and so focused that the mind shuts off and you're just "sitting" right on top of matter. You're past verbal questions and answers, and your mind is honed in on the matter of who/what you are. Then you can just sit with one-pointed focus, waiting for the truth to hit you. This is ideally where you want to work up to. The most powerful self-inquiry is non-verbal. But when you start -- for perhaps many months -- there will be a lot of verbal questioning, confusion, and monkey-mind. That's okay. It's part of the process.

Locking this topic because it's turning into a random hodgepodge of stuff. Not a good way to use this forum. If you have something worthwhile to share, take the effort to start your own topic. If it's not worth starting a topic, then it's probably not worth posting.

@Echoes The brain controls the body and creates experiences, emotions, and thoughts. But it is not what you are.

Yes and no. It's tricky. What the lamp is, is prior to experience. "Experience" is what you have when there is a "you" looking at the lamp in the ordinary sense. But there is actually no "you" looking at the lamp. You ARE the lamp. This is the difference between experience and BEING. You need to get past experiences, to the being level of things. This requires a radical shift in perspective. Imagine for a second that you became the entire world. That's what happens when you realize you don't exist "inside there somewhere". You exist as the world. Notice that there's nothing "inside" you. Enlightenment is like becoming 100% extroverted. As if introversion didn't exist. Even "your mind" is actually happening "out there". Nothing is happening inside the body. Imagine for a moment that there is no difference in kind between your thoughts and emotions, and a lamp or a tree. There is no "in here" vs "out there". The "in here" never existed in the first place. There's just this bubble of consciousness and within it arise all sorts of phenomena, from lamps to tree to thoughts to emotions. And this bubble is self-aware, without a witness or perceiver. But don't get lost in all these explanations and metaphors. You need to become directly conscious of it.

Enlightenment is a shift in PERSPECTIVE. That means, nothing about the "external" world changes. You just begin to see it in a radically different way. Sort of like reality flips inside out. The context of everything changes while the content remains the same. But you can't appreciate just how significantly a change in context can alter your relationship to the content. You'll have to discover that the context you call "my life" or "our reality" is totally unreal. It it's groundless! That "you were born" is just a story, and that you are inhabiting "this reality" is just a story. Yes, you are already enlightened, but it will take you many years of grueling flailing around to realize that. Your perspective must flip. That flip of course must occur in the present moment, because there's nothing other than the present. Nothingness exists in the exact same place as everything! For example, when you look at your lamp, are you aware that the lamp is nothing? It's nothing right now, as you're seeing it. The nothing is located exactly where the lamp is. It's not necessary for the lamp to disappear or change colors. Those are misleading expectations of the mind. You just have to realize that the lamp's "substance" is nothing. Everything is made out of this substance of "nothingness". It's like objects are hollow, including yourself. Consciousness is not a change in phenomena. It's a change in consciousness. You can't imagine it because your present consciousness prevents you. It's too low. As it rises, everything gets seen in a different way, although it's not like you're seeing aliens, dragons, and unicorns. The mundane world is enough. After enlightenment, the mundane becomes magical. Seeing a table or a lamp is no less magical than seeing a dragon or a unicorn. The mind likes to get lost on shiny objects. That's the whole problem. Nothingness isn't shiny at all, which is why you keep not seeing it.

@Outer Of course the more you do it, the better. You can do it all day long and in your sleep. But it's emotionally grueling. Start small.

Yes, that will be part of the various levels of enlightenment you'll pass through. First you'll have to discover that you are awareness. Then you'll have to discover what awareness is. Neither of these things is anything you can imagine.

@Anton Rogachevski You're just wasting your time avoiding the actual work. Do the exercises! They are the most direct method.

If you knew what awareness was, you'd be enlightened. Go self-inquire.