LastThursday

Ha ha ha ha. That made me chuckle. In laughter there is truth eh? No offence. I suppose language gets in the way. With all this conciousness work, my definition of 'you' or 'I' has somewhat expanded from the everyday version. I know or feel or whatever, that whatever 'I' am it is the totally of all the appearences and not apart from them. I feel or experience myself in everything. In other words all the appearences have 'me' in them, they're tainted with the essence of me and there's no way for me to step outside of that - in fact I wouldn't know how. So it's a simple step from there to say that I don't exist as a separate entity from the appearences, I am those appearences and no more and no less. Included in all the appearences are my thoughts and mental constructs, conditioning, yadda yadda. But. My ego is still part of reality, I am told that to be rid of it is bliss. My ego is part of me and I am my ego in small part, so what?

@lens I guess I'm at the stage of being a Zen Devil. I know, but I can't/won't/don't know how to apply. I know deep enough to realise my entire experience is a fabrication, but I'm still intoxicated by it. What keeps my in my place? Two things. Imaturity and I guess the fear of death does, or more precisely the fear of lots of suffering does. There is an irony there. What would lack of suffering mean to me? Complete freedom to be the animal I am. To kill my food and feed my loved ones and myself, to roam wherever I see fit, to mate when necessary, to use my skills to impress and to survive, to be bonded to a set of other animal humans, to understand the intricacies of the environment I live in, to live by my wits every second, to be sharp and alive and in tune with reality, to be pushed to my extreme as a human animal and come out of the other end, to be a hero! I know, romantic isn't it? Instead, it's 9 to 5, stuck in a artificially lit office, in front of a dazzling rectangle of meaninglessness, pushing buttons like a monkey all day, to go home and push a pizza into an oven for ten minutes, to sit and type nonsense into my laptop, then rinse and repeat. And for good measure an endless round of visiting and holidays in a pretense of 'getting away' from the grind. As Leo kindly says, prison.

@Mighty Mouse Ok, ok, I get it, nearly. Any sort of mental web or layer or net I cast over reality is a context, interpretation or 'identification'. But honestly, at this precise moment in time - whatever that means - to understand anything about what I'm experiencing, I need context. If there is no ground, then what? Absolute oneness is surely absolute no existence in any sense, it's less than a bit of information, zero. I identify, therefore I am, I am therefore I suffer? I want to stop suffering, I really do, isn't that the point of being self-actualised? I want to reach a point where I'm not impeded by suffering and I can be fully authentic, a.k.a. I don't give a fuck, or more to the point, I'm not even aware of not giving a fuck? That would mean not identifying with a whole shed load of crap I currently immerse myself in. But If I drill down to the the essence of the thing, then red is red, pain is pain, and lack of oxygen is death. How can I possibly not 'identify' with those things? Are they not reality?

Thanks. So: indentify = context?

The present moment is an illusion. Take a moment and think about something that happened yesterday in as much detail as possible. Now seriously question yourself and ask: 'When did that happen?', yesterday, right? Then ask youself: 'WHEN was I thinking about what happened yesterday?', just now, right? And so, next: 'What was I thinking about, when I was thinking about what happened yesterday?', exactly the same thing, yes or no? The only realistic conclusion you can draw, if you submit to it, is that yesterday never happened yesterday (or at all), it is in fact just a hallucination you're having in the present moment. You can draw exactly the same conclusions about events in the future, they're just the same hallucinations in the present moment. So what about the present moment? Ok, turn your attention to say, some music playing in the background, pay attention to the lyrics or the melody. Ask yourself: 'WHEN is it happening?', now, right? Ah no, it's gone already, it's already turned into a hallucination of a past moment. It's like trying to grab a pint of running water with your bare fist, you think you have it, but you don't. So again, the only sensible conclusion you can draw, is that the present moment is also a hallucination. BUT, at least the present moment IS the whole of reality, you just have to come to terms with it being JUST a hallucination.

This sentence is not real.

Is there such a thing as being in a state of non-duality; is this enlightenment? And if so, how would you know it, without comparing it to a previous state of duality? The comparison itself being dual? Confused.