WaveInTheOcean

It's about - the implications of reality being perspectival - how you get one to see this The rabbit hole is deep

Thank you gentlemen. It warms my heart to see that someone found my ramblings useful. Was just at work on the phone (nothing to do) and OP's questions initiated in me a state of flow. ❤️?? *present to the world

Amazing analogy, that tree-forest one❤️❤️❤️

Exactly. We agree, bro. The body -- and everything, including the sense of being a self inside a skull/ego -- is ultimately seen to be: imagination = formless Nothingness = Love.

God is Love bro. Which also happens to be Formless Nothingness ??☯️????❤️

James and other who rant about how DMT breakthroughs can "easily" be achieved sober with just a hard enough practice of Kriya Yoga (for instance) have you ever had a full-blown dmt breakthrough?:-)

All these objections are your ego talking. Notice you didn't deliberately "think" all these thoughts. They just came out of seemingly nowhere, right? That is the ego's job. To be negatively oriented, keeping you close-minded. The ego's job is to keep your body alive. Not only that, but to also keep "itself" alive -- the illusion of being a separate self inside a body -- socially & hieracally, climbing the ranks among "the human status space" (we are fucking apes in uniform, man) or at least trying to make sure you don't fall down. If you were open to, or even accepted that you were God (which actually is your true nature lol, but we could also call it Love or Pure Awareness), your ego is afraid you would stop pursuing sex, money, fame, achievements, success, all that jazz. The ego's job is to tell you that you're miserable and not good enough. You mostly believe it. So it gets you up in the morning and makes you pursue things. Illusory betterment for a mental, social construct. But by believing in it you will never become happy or at peace. Cos the ego naturally cannot be satisfied. It is always ready to tell you that you're a piece of shit and that danger is luring all around,... and thus you become afraid and at constant inner conflict on the inside - always looking for something external to make you feel fulfilled, if just for a brief moment: Sugar, sex, drugs, video games, junkfood, junk TV, small talking with other apparent egos, climbing the social ladder, getting higher salary, a new car, prettier muscles, new fancy fashion clothes, more power, more success, more achievements. This is the Matrix. This is enslavement. The movie, The Matrix, is an almost one-to-one analogy of the ego's power over us; its bars around our freedom. Heck, we are all mostly unconscious addicts, enslaved by the ego. How do one get free? Consciousness. Awareness. Love. Conscious suffering & a deep authentic desire to be fucking free again. Don't hate or love your ego. "Just" transcend it. Become conscious of its purpose, nature and mechanics. The shadow & darkness of the ego cannot survive the illuminating burning light of your consciousness. Stay mindful. It is valuable to know that there are two primary ways in which you can see that a person is deeply enslaved by his or her ego. It can indeed, namely, express itself two ways externally: - the inflated selfish external persona that is constantly participating in one-upmanship, constantly reminding himself/herself that he/she is superior to all others (as a way to suppress the ego's negative thoughts). You see that in people who are opportunistic, have zero integrity, and will do everything to achieve their ambitions, including hurting other human beings. - the victim persona. Here the person has not "managed" to suppress the ego (by lashing outwards as in the inflated case). Instead the person has bought into the ego's negative thoughts, believing them. Thus the person think he or she is a terrible human being, not worthy of love, or even worse: not worthy of living (suicide can happen). This person is constantly afraid, and feels like the world is cruel. Indeed, to become a mature adult, you shouldn't suppress nor accept the ego's thoughts. Don't try to "stop" the thoughts either; cos you can't! You didn't start the thoughts, thus you cannot force them to stop either (only suppression/denying will happen, which makes you an inflated, selfish person). As said, you should "just" become conscious of the ego's ways of behaving. Awareness alone is curative. By maintaining mindfulness, you can manage to see the ego unfolding its negative thoughts during the day & constrain yourself to not make the two possible mistakes of either *accepting* or *denying/suppressing* the ego's thoughts. Don't accept ego (you will fill miserable if you do). And don't suppress ego (it will come back a thousands time stronger, if you do). Just be conscious of it! And let it all go. ??? Your true self is NOT the ego. Your true self is Consciousness/God/Love/The Selfless Self/The Universe/ -- whatever you wanna call that ineffeable, mysterious formless "no-thing-being" that you truly are -- that innermost essential experience of 'being you', and which you deep, deep down know you are --- and will see yourself to be, if you can let go of the filters of ego. Ego is not equal to personality either. In fact, a human being's true personality/soul will shine through much clearer if the ego is transcended. Now, it is no easy task to transcend ego. It can take a lifetime. This is what life is all about: becoming your true self (you already are 'it', but realizing it!), becoming free. Also just to note: the ego isn't "an entity". In fact it doesn't really exist at all. "Ego" as a concept is best described as an inner 'tension', a special form of inner "negative energy" that is constantly 24/7 trying to convince you - the real you - that you're 'a separate self' located inside a skull placed on top of a human body. The ego's job is to make you feel guilty (or perhaps indirectly superior if you suppress that guilt). To make you feel anxious, afraid, angry, scared, like you lack something, like you desperately need x or y to become happy. The ego works through comparing you with others. Through dividing, fragmenting and splitting up the outside world in "bad" & "good" objects. The ego creates dualities: good, bad, worthy, unworthy, pride, shame, etc. The ego attaches itself --- often totally unconsciously to you, cos you have bought into the belief that you ARE a separate self (ego) --- to all kinds of things: this person is bad, this person is good, this is MY girlfriend/boyfriend, this is MY enemy, this is MY country, this is the right religion/ideology/belief/, that country is evil, and so on and so on. You thus become deeply attached to all kinds of objects, ideas, beliefs and persons. If your car or smartphone is damaged, it feels like YOU have been hurt, right? Your sense of identity is TOTALLY in the hands of the ego. The ego unconsciously created a worldview for you. A lens through which you perceive and interpret the world. The real you is experience itself! Consciousness. The perceiver is the perceived! The real you is equal to Love, Happiness, Peace. The real you is Whole. Oneness. It doesn't need or lack anything. It's completely at peace, cos it is in a sense nothing & everything simultaneously (non-duality). The ego and the logical mind cannot comprehend this, though. Don't even try to understand it, cos you will fail. The one who "wants" to understand it, in order to become 'superior', more powerful or 'better', is the ego. Likewise, the one who dismisses everything I wrote here is also the ego; protecting its own worldview, denying it could be otherwise. Close-mindedness is the job of the ego. Spirituality isn't about "adding stuff' to oneself (that is the job of the ego). Instead, it is about becoming free (again) through constantly practicing greater and greater self-awareness. Thus, it is actually about "dropping stuff", letting go of unexamined beliefs and attachments. Thus, slowly, your inner true being is allowed to shine through your human incarnation more clearly. We have to acknowledge that there are (sort of) positive things to say about ego as well (don't accept or love it though & don't hate it either): It keeps your alive. Its physical purpose is to keep you alive and make sure your genes pass on to the next generation. Unconscious ego is the main issue. When you have become fully conscious of the ego, it is naturally transcended and it's not really an issue anymore. Its energetic patterns/structures will still lay latent in the brain/mind and activate from time to time, but you are so conscious (of it) now, that you know when to listen to it, and - most importantly - when not to! Thoughts/thinking in and by themselves is an amazing creative technology created by the brain (God) and is not an issue in and by themselves. The ego, however, tries to make sure that you are constantly spending MUCH of your energy on: - polising your self-image, the mask you pretend to the world/social groups/workplace/community - thinking about how others perceive you, cos your ego REALLY wants to accepted by others, cos it believes this will allow higher chances for survival and gene-passing. - worrying, regretting, perfectionism. In fact, when you have transcended your ego fully, you will be AMAZED how much more energy you have available to divert into other activites such as: creation, art, love, creativity, humour, laughter, crying, dancing, playing around, having fun, being empathic with others, building crazy projects, helping others, doing actual GOOD things for yourself and others (healthy eating, meditation, exercise, reading, spending authentic time with other souls). But thoughts created *by the ego*, which you unconsciously attach yourself to (in lack of maturity/ wakefulness/love/consciousness/wisdom), is a BIG time problem and takes SO MUCH of your inner energy resources. As long as you can stay mindful and not attach yourself to your thoughts, it's good. This is much, much easier said than done, though! On a more metaphysical level, the ego is sort of "the shadow of God". God is Infinite & Eternal. The Infinite doesn't "know" it is Infinite cos it lacks the contrast of "finiteness" to be able to see/perceive/know its own nature: Unconditional Love, Selflessness, Absolute Infinity, Infinite Imagination, ... God. Thus, God created the ego as a tool of (ultimately) being able to know Itself. But first: Leela. Play. Survival. Drama. Suffering. Fragmentation. Hide'n'seek. Contrast. And then: self-realization..... Now that you know all this, go ahead and start slowly transcending your apparant (illusory) separate self (ego), so you for yourself can see your true immortality, divinity & Godhood. Practive Self-Love. Practice staying mindful. Meditation is inherently good. ❤️❤️❤️ Oneness is what is. It's all One & Whole. No real separation. I am you. You are me. Just Love. Just God. Just magic. Just mystery. Lila (Divine Play). ❤️❤️❤️ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_(Hinduism)

Consciousness and Being are identical. Nothing, no object, 'has' consciousness. Everything IS Consciousness... and "your being" is NOT separate from IT. You ARE 'it' !

Clear and to the point. I might start a youtube channel soon called Infinite Imagination where I talk for days about this, so much fun existence is?

Of course a yogi is still, somewhat at least, of a human. He still has to eat, shit and breathe like the rest of us, right?,? But besides that I suppose somw extremely gifted individuals could do superhuman things like tripping on DMT at will. 1/1 billion tho. Easier to just smoke it?

Gotta agree with this lol ???

I know?

Osho speaks so much Truth here: Would be fitting to end this fun conversation with this. Although I'm always ready to continue the dance ?

Well said my woman??? (or sister if you'd like ??)

Who has written it and who is that guy? When was it written? Sounds interesting to say the least.

I think my main point here is that everytime we speak or write... we are always telling a story, even when we are trying to convey/point to a 'non-story' ;-) So this is exactly my 2nd point: what actually matters is *experience*, FEELING, consciousness, perspective. So while it's all fancy to go meta ((and IMO go highly conceptual, which is I why I guess you're also a Five!)) and say: "oh well, in truth there never was a separate self that could be dropped in the first place, so nothing actually happened to no one" ... This is IME some kind of mild spiritual bypassing, cos that is -- at least to me -- not how it felt, these times I had profound ego-deaths. It very much felt like my sense of self dissolved into, well, Nothing/Everything :-) And it was profound. We might just be different, and you guys may prefer to not talk about it much and to not make a big deal out of it. So your way of describing such an awakening experience may be to just say "the veil was lifted. There was and never were a self to begin with. Just Nothingness". And I can vibe with that too, sure❤️ But you see, my friend, to me, it doesn't matter if we call it "something" or "nothing". I can vibe with both opposites pointing to the ineffeable. The only reason I go so much 'anti-no self" here in this thread against you and Veganawake, is because I smell dogmsticism about whether 'nothing' or 'something' are equally true (they are! Just two different perspectives pointing to the SAME ineffeable Truth). To me, both opposites point to the same ineffeable Truth. (Sorry to repeat myself lol). If you insist on one end of the spectrum being more "right" than the other, you are -- in my humble eyes -- still stuck in dualistic thinking. What I am interested in is the "best way" to communicate truth//point to truth, to a normal stage orange person. Even though I'm aware all souls need to hear something different. But I think the best way to speak to a stage orange guy, is to take their level of consciousness/their perspective/"the ground they are standing on" and then turn it on its head; show them the paradoxes that arises when you take their belief system/logic to the extreme! I think, thus, it is by far best -- along the way at least -- to speak to him in a way that includes both the perspective of 'something' & of 'nothing' and not just parrot one of the "stories" ( ;-) ). If you tell to a normal stage orange guy that is inquiring into spirituality: "there is no self, so there is nothing to drop, nothing to get to, nothing to achieve", I don't think it will help him much. I'd prefer to say something (?) along the lines: "What does this self you speak of consist of?" ... etc.:D Experience is what is. Trying to go beyond experience is an alluring trap that easily makes you stuck in concepts instead of The Now/Present Moment (feels much better to be 'stuck' in the latter, I tell you!). Seems like we are (sort of) on the same page after all ? Oh, as I said, I do like them. I just like to play The Devil's Advocate, when I sniff something is out of line ? My sniffing may be wrong, though, hehe. But it's still fun. Good! Now we can go a level deeper and say "yet, something IS opposite to nothing!" , although it simultaneously is not hehe. Non-duality is such a strange loop. If I say 'nothing is not opposite to something', I have simultaneously implied that it is! Haha. Okay I'm just lolling around now. Gotta stop ? In regards to the Enneagram model, if you're not a Five, whar core type are then? 9? ??❤️?

That thought must almost have come from Alan Watts' soul ?

The ego and your true self are not identical, no. Ego is all that which makes you suffer. It's the shadow of God. The ego's purpose is SURVIVAL. It's oriented negatively towards EVERYTHING. Why? Because it wants your body to survive. That is its number one goal. So it tells "you" WHATEVER it -- through evolution -- has "learned" is good to tell you in different scenarios in order to survive. This means it will tell you a lot of absolute bullshit. Cos we don't live out in the savanna anymore where we could get eaten by a lion every second. Your true self is THAT (unknowable as you say) which EXPERIENCES *everything!* . It is the ESSENCE of Experience. That is you. The ego is a FILTER through which you look at existence/reality. Let go of ego (transcend it) and what is left is pure being. Inner peace. Saying that nobody became enlightened is the same as saying someone did. Opposites arise together. If nobody became enlightened, well, somebody did! LOL. And vice versa. What matters is inner peace vs inner suffering. But on the path, sometimes, we have to go through hell to get to heaven. Peace <3 This guy is one wise motherfucker.

This fellow is on point

Unknowable is a good answer. Yeah, ego is all that energy inside of us that wants to make distinctions, comparisons and make us feel guilty or superior. It's indeed all that energy that latches onto something and identifies with it. "Ego = identity, so it will always identify itself as SOMETHING whether that be God, Higher Self, Pure Consciousness, The Self, No self, Nothingness or what have you." Fixed it for ya.?❤️ Thank you my friend - you too??❤️

Yet that nothing is also something. Wakey wakey. In my selfish eyes: When a guy/girl insist on one polarity of a pair of opposites being "the true one" -- e.g. insisting "but there is NO self!!" -- that girl/guy is stuck in dualistic/egoic patterns of thought. No self - self - no self - self .... an infinite dance. An eternal loop. Divine play; constantly oscillating between the two opposites. The Self is Nothing! The No-Self is The Self! The Selfless Self The formless forms. The gateless gate. ☯️☯️☯️ Yin---yang. Light/darkness. Life/death On/off. 1/0. ☯️☯️☯️ We get born with no self. Then we get a self by virtue of encoded genetics/culture/upbringing/conditioning. Then we can transcend and drop/let go of that self. No self again! Then we can get a new, more expanded self, we built a CONSCiOUS self. A self that is all embracing, all forgiving, all Loving. Seeing itself in everything. A self that knows deeply that hurting another is ?% equal to hurting oneself. Cos oneself IS the other! A self that sees itself in everything, yet knows it is nothing. Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows. - Nisargadatta Opposites imply each other! That's like the most basic of all lessons of non-duality, and if we cannot even agree on that, we are infinitely far away from each other....... Reality is fundamentally Non-Dual. Yet, dualities APPEAR cos We imagine them into existence. Why do We do that? Leela. Love. Play. Excitement. ❤️❤️❤️❤️????

Exactly. All this (spiritual work) is ultimately completely and utterly beyond cute concepts and word games; it's about how you FEEL. ??❤️????☀️

Thank you sir ??

Well, while it's true there *in actuality* never was a *separate* self, it's also true that every human being growing up grows a 'sense-of-self' around the age of 3-5. You agree? So, this sense of being s separate self HAS to be dropped in order to realize what the meaningless words 'no self' points to, you see? In other words, "no self" is INDEED "something" that can be realized. It's the dropping of the sense-of-being-a-self-inside-a-head... The question for you is who/what realizes it. My answer now would be the Dao that can't be spoken, or the Selfless Self, ska God. The veil is lifted. Feels like there are a lot of enneagram type Fives on this forum (I'm one myself) and the trap of the Five is to replace direct exp with concepts. Seems like 90% of Fives on this forum has fallen into that trap and is struggling big time to get out (been there myself, not pleasent at all).

God created ego. Don't befriend your ego. Don't love it. Don't hate it. Just become conscious of its patterns. Transcend it. Here's a good vid: