Leo Gura

One thing that might help you guys is to consider the possiblity that not everyone has the same brain type as you. Some people are naturally more intuitive than rational. They tend to be drawn to more mystical ways. If you're a highly rational and pragmatic person, well, that's just one way. Other people might be wired very different from you. Which means they literally access a different realm of experience than you. You may never have seen a demon, and maybe never will, but someone else might have. And so there is a huge disconnect. Don't expect people to translate all of their understandings and experiences into your rationalist paradigm. That would be a rather lazy attitude. Accept the responsiblity for understanding rather than putting the burden of "proof" on others. No one owes you understanding. It's your job to grapple with the mysteries of reality.

@Rimbaud Of course that isn't complete enlightenment or mastery. As I keep on telling people, but people keep refusing to listen. This here is kensho, or a first glimpse.

@Neo I have in the past covered the issue of losing motivation after stopping moralization. Deeper sources of motivation must be found. Of course ego has a lot of unhealthy motivations that need to be purified. That's a big chunk of this work.

You're failing to apply Vipassana to your thought process, and so are getting lost in metaphysical monkey-mind. After a bit of Vipassana your monkey-mind has moved up a notch from mundane monkey-mind to metaphysical monkey-mind. This is progress, but you still got a long way to go. A little insight is a dangerous thing Also, it's natural and good to contemplate your own death (as long as you aren't becoming suicidal). If you're like most people, you've avoided it for too long. And now all the sudden the dam has broken open. That's fine. Go through that process of hashing it out. You'll come out much stronger afterward. There can be no peace without contemplating death. The "depression" is just the ego's death-throes. Observe it with mindfulness and equanimity as best you can. And have compassion for yourself. Treat yourself with kindness and love.

If those questions could be answered for you, spiritual practice wouldn't exist. Time to roll up them sleeves and put some sweat on your brow

@Afonso You underestimate reality by infinity. It's only the biggest mistake possible to make. Oh well. No biggy

@ZeN The problem with possiblities is that that too is a distinction. And it assumes time. But time doesn't exist. So everything collapses into a sort of undifferentiated singularity. You gotta wonder, what would limit which possiblities get realized? And how could that limit itself be enforced? By another limit? And that one? And that one? And that one? And that one? Anything the mind comes up with is, by definition a limit. Anything that exists is a limit. That's WHAT existence or thing-ness IS: limit. And what limits how many limits there are? Nothing OMG! is exactly right!

It's the one thing that cannot be spoken. When you realize that every limit must have another limit to justify it, you will realize that reality is the sum total of EVERYTHING and NOTHING. Reality is that which has no container or limit. It's a lot weirder than "everything is possible." EVERYTHING and NOTHING are, simultaneously! Imagine an infinite-sized hard drive with an infinite number of infinite partions. And none of it exists! Fuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkk! Mind. Blown. Now you can really appreciate why Islam forbids images of Allah, and why Zen masters keep silent. It would be a great injustice. How can something limited represent the absolutely unlimited?

Yeah... the crazy thing is that 20mg is 1000x less significant than 30mg. So what did you learn?

@Empty No one can help you there. This is the whole point of this process, so sit with that confusion of not-knowing. So get used to it. There is nothing for the mind to latch onto. So it spins its wheels. You just gotta experience that emptiness long enough to realize that that's you!

Chop wood, eat Cheetos

@Travis Truth doesn't matter.

Just want to caution anyone interested in pursuing spiritual powers: you can go down that road, but remember your priorities. Enlightenment and spiritual purification should be your top goals. Careful not to distract yourself too much.

No, makyo is makyo. An enlightenment insight is an enlightenment insight. And it comes in many facets and depths. You're not studying this topic nearly deeply enough. You've just skimmed the surface. If spirituality was as simple as you think it is, mystical traditions wouldn't be as diverse and complex as they are. This is just basic common sense. If you bother to do the research, you will start to see that your conceptual understanding of spirituality is riddled with holes and doesn't account for the facts we see on the ground. Feel free to do it your way. Let's see which one of us develops the deepest understanding and embodiment. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.

@Babybat Religion? No That is not at all what I advocated.

@Babybat When you feel like that monkey on the stick, then you'll be enlightened. You ain't there yet.

It also includes those who confuse their first enlightenment as the end of the road. And those who behave like cocky fools after enlightenment, thinking they've figured everything out. And those who use enlightenment to bash duality, not realizing that nonduality includes duality. One's behaviors speaks louder than one's enlightenments.

@Babybat Answer the following questions honesty: Did a major shift in awareness occur? Are you absolutely clear now of what you are? Are you the physical human body you've always thought you were? Do you feel infinite, without boundaries or location? Do you actually understand, or are you in a temporary meditative high? If you answered: "YES! YES! NO! YES! I UNDERSTAND!" then there's a pretty good chance you're enlightened. Otherwise, no. Sounds like you still aren't clear WHAT you are.

I don't think you guys appreciate the degree of depth of insight possible. However amazing you might think your first enlightenment is, I'd bet good money that it can go 1000x deeper. Consider, your current position is one of assuming you know better than a master with 40 years experience who has innate, near-superhuman spiritual capacities compared to you, and 20,000-40,000 hours of practice in contemplation. You will never know how deep you didn't go. And no one will ever be able to tell you. Is that a chance you wanna take? To do what instead? Eat Cheetos while watching TV?

@Neo That's why I'm constantly harping against ideology. Ideology of ANY kind -- including scientific and rationalist -- is mechanical and leads to much suffering. Any tool can be abused. Hence the importance of values, emotional development, and conscious development on this path. Otherwise varieties of Zen Devilry can happen. Don't forget that the biggest cult is the one you're presently a part of: mainstream Western materialism. It destroys lives by the 100s of thousands every year.

@oysterman Psychedelics can definitely make you creative as fuck. Levels of creativity are possible beyond any normal human capacities. The brain seems to enter a high entropy state: extremely intuitive, effortlessly drawing connections between many dots.

@sgn One of the problems with paranormal abilities is that ego wants to dissect them with science and turn them into technology or power for profit. Ego wants to treat them egoically. But that's antithetical to how they work. Ego only wants to accept the paranormal on the ego's terms. And finally ego says, "Well, if it's not done on my terms, then it's bullshit. Cause my terms are the only true terms." This creates a catch-22. The way past that is to loosen demands and expectations and to truly be curious and open to exploring totally new paradigms of reality, which you may not understand until years later. The paranormal -- if it exists -- is a function of subtle intuition and consciousness, not logic. If it was easily quantized or modeled, then there would already be scientific agreement about it and it would be thought of as "normal" rather than paranormal. Consider, what was considered paranormal 200 years ago, is now so normal kids take it for granted when they're born.

@Joel3102 Yes. I'm planning to get some energy work done on myself using a good healer I know over the next few months, so there should be some good insights from that process to share with ya'll. I also want to experiment with various kinds of massage techniques for releasing energy blocks, coupling it with my growing mindfulness skills. Results from that should be interesting too. This is a very deep field however. You could spend 10 years just studying and experimenting with it. There's a whole science and art to it. People devote their entire lives to mastering it. So I'm just a newb to it. But I see a lot of potential there.

@Extreme Z7 No, more like psycho-spiritual purification or chakra cleansing. As your "energy-body" is purified, energy blockages are unblocked and you become more spiritually attuned. Very much like a Jedi gets attuned to The Force. Your mind and body become clear, untainted by low-consciousness cravings and fears. You're permeated by a thirst for consciousness, love, and the Infinite. Materialistic matters become irrelevant in your calculations in the same way that as an adult you no longer crave kids toys. You acquire a kind of glow or radiance. Most people have no idea how much emotional baggage they have locked up in their entire body. The energy flow is all twisted up from a lifetime of low-consciousness living, repressed emotions, and repressed passions. Ego takes a heavy toll on the body. When you're stuck in your head, you're not aware that you're also very much stuck in your body. There is no hard separation between mind/body/spirit. It's one interrelated system. Fixing this whole mess is another one of the very important aspects of spiritualy/nonduality that Zen Devils neglect. When it comes to your happiness and well-being, clearing this up is probably gonna have a bigger impact than enlightenment.

"Among the great things which are found among us the existence of Nothing is the greatest. This dwells in time, and stretches its limbs into the past and the future, and with these takes to itself all works that are past and those that are to come, both of nature and of the animals, and possesses nothing of the indivisible present. It does not however extend to the essence of anything. c.a. 398 v. d" -- Leonardo Da Vinci