WaveInTheOcean

Great! I think that's exactly the purpose If people don't become lost in the search for enlightenment -- then they aren't searching very effectively. But I sort of hear what ya' saying. Even though some confusing is good... Enlightenment should IMO still be practiced/searched for with love, understanding, care, patience ... and probably with some degree of caution!

It's all about perspective. In the "boy draws on a blank paper"-analogy, to me, - the boy/the boy's hand/the pencil = God (y) - blank paper = True Self (z) - whats drawn on paper = experience/happenings/ego/mind/body (x) - The blank paper is eternal (was never born, will never die) & it's conscious of whats drawn upon it. - The blank paper is infinite in size & in its "ground-state" it's just completely blank and empty (nothingness). - The pencil that's drawing can switch randomly between infinite colours and infinite types of pencils and it also has an ereaser on it's back that it often uses. - The pencil can draw an infinite different pictures upon you. - Whats drawn on paper is real enough, but only momentarily real. If you cling to whats drawn, you will constantly switch between happiness (when something good is drawn) and sufferiing (when the drawn disappears again). - If you realize that what's drawn is NOT you, but just experience/happenings, and that you are the no-thing/blankness that experiences all that, then you become enlightened. - Makyo is when there is drawn something you percieve as 'extraordinary'/true and you then cling to it as Truth. - A True Complete Enlightenment Experience is when you become fully aware of what's going on: ... Your perspective/awareness sort of raises above the paper, and you directly see the pencil drawing on the blank, eternal you... You meet God. - A Real (with a capital R) Awakening happens when the pencil -- for whatever reason -- momentarily, completely halts all the drawing while also erasing the earlier drawn (mind/memories) completely. What is then left is just the blank paper: nothingness (True Self). No experience. It's not an experience. That's enlightenment. The mind is COMPLETELY killed. NOTHING is left. There is only YOU (nothingness) left... discovering your self (but ITS NOT AN EXPERIENCE, because you are a no-thing, and a no-thing can't be experienced). This is litteraly equal to physical DEATH. The only difference is that -- for some reason -- it's possibly to keep the body alive while the paper is completely blank... It's sort of a paradox, right, because the body is something that's drawn on the paper... What when you go to deep sleep? Isn't this equal to what I just described? Sounds like it... the difference may lie in that when you go to deep sleep, "the pencil is being handled in such a way" that the mind doesn't remember itself shutting down.. it happens gently and unconsciously... A real awakening, here you see the mind/ego getting annihilated right in front of You , and then momentarily there's nothing left but You, and then some "time afterwards", the ego comes back, and You see it coming back.., like You get pushed back into a skull from the nothingness... When going to deep sleep and waking up, it's all happening in such a way that the mind is programmed to not store (remember) the experience of it being killed. In a same way when "you" wake up from deep sleep, the mind is programmed to not store the experience of being resurrected from nothing. I'm not talking about the deep sleep/nothingness itself, because here there is only You/Silence/Nothingness, i.e. it's a no-experience because the mind produces zero experience -- the paper is blank -- simply because the mind is death. I'm simply talking about the very few seconds BEFORE the death of the mind (the killing), and the very few seconds AFTER the resurrection of the mind. No one remember falling asleep. Yes, we remember when we went to lie down on the bed. But we never remember any experience of actually falling into deep sleep (= the mind being killed). This, I postulate, is "simply" because the brain/mind is wired in such a way to not store such an experience. If the mind, on the other hand, WAS wired/programmed to store such an experience, then everyone would be enlightened, lol, because everyone would see their egoes/minds getting completely killed, and thus everyone would directly be able to see for Themselves that They are not the body nor the mind/ego. Everyone would be scared shitless, lol. Very few would dare to go to sleep -- because it would feel like getting actually killed. And from an evolutionary perspective it's extremely "bad" for an "organism" to realize its True Self is not the body (for very obvious reasons), so OF COURSE the brain/mind is wired to not remember falling asleep. Same goes for waking up from deep sleep. Everyone has tried to be waken by someting/someone while you were in a very, very deep, deep sleep. When that happens, you are always very, very confused in the seconds after waking up. I think this is because the mind/brain is wired in such a way to not remember the experience of being resurrected from nothingness. Also if your body dies/you commit suicide... Then... there is no mind left to integrate/remember "the experience" ("the experience" = the 'right before' and the 'right after' the 'no-experience'/ego-death. And thus, physical death has nothing to do with enlightenment, just like going to deep sleep has nothing to do with enlightenment. Enligthenment is sort of a paradox, because enligtenment, yes, is the DEATH of the MIND. But at the same time, enligtenment requires the mind/brain/person to be FULLY 'alive/awake/aware' to actually remember the experience of both the killing and the resurrection of the mind . It's the memories of such two 'happenings' that produces an enlightened person. The space between the two happenings (i.e the killing and the ressurection) is the no-experience/nothingness which the mind itself can't remember because it wasn't there. But the process of the killing and the process of the resurrection; this the mind 'can' store and remember as a memory. And when the mind remember these two happenings, the mind can now see that it doesn't really exist, and it starts producing thoughts and emotions without the "I" labeled on to them. So an enlightenment experience could basically be described as: - going to deep sleep, while being fully aware of going to the deep sleep (i.e. the mind rembering the experience of going to deep sleep, i.e. the mind remebering the experience of itself being annihilated into nothingness). - then shorty after waking up from deep sleep, while being fully aware of waking up from deep sleep (i.e. the mind remembering the experience of itself waking up from deep sleep, i.e. the mind remembering the experience of itself being reborn from nothingness). In both cases, of course, "You" (z) is always there, You can't be modified. You are just there. You experience the memories the mind produces for You. So after all... Enlightenment is sort of a paradox because it's: - on one hand: all about the mind (it has to be 'alive'/'be there' to store certain experiences needed for enlightenment) - on another hand: not about the mind at all (it has to be killed for reaching enlightenment) It's two opposing statements ... Yet both of them are equally true and false Truth with a capital T comes when the two opposing ideas come together and form a circle: - the mind has to be killed (one half of the circle). <----> So You can become You (Nothingness). - the mind has to be alive (other half of the circle). <----> So You can experience the killing of the not-you. The True Self can only fully discover itself by directly experiencing the killing of The False Self. Without a False Self (ego) in the first place, there could be no True Self (nothingness) in the first place And vice versa. The world we all see ourselves in is dualistic. For there to be darkness, there has to be light. For there to be 'a day', there has to be 'a night'. For there to be 'good', there has to be 'evil'. For there to be a True Self, there has to be False Self. Two opposing things are always two sides of the same coin. So basically enligtenment is a change of what x (ego / mind) produces for You (z) to experience. If "you" are an enlightened person, "you" are still just a person/ego/mind/brain running around -- playing the game of life. The difference "just" lies in what this person says, does, thinks, feels . (What the mind produces for You to experience) So achieving enligtenment is after all just achieving a special type of personality ... But a very special, rare kind of personality, of course. Its traits are, among other things: - Absolute Self-Discovery. - Unconditional Love to all of reality. - Deep intuitive understanding of human life & how the mind/ego functions. - Deep understanding of reality. - No attachment to any experience, yet no detachment from any experience either. - Passion for life -- passion for both self and others. Cheers. EDIT: I edited the shit out of this one. Added a lot of rambling shit.

I both agree and disagree. I agree that this forum is largely for mental masturbation ... which I probably am also participating in! Yet I still think this forum has it uses. Just a few them: - sharing of resources - newbies who seek can get guidance on how to "get on the path" - I have written a lot of shit in this thread... By writing it all, I sort of understand my self better. You know? Before I wrote it all it was just vague ideas in my head, yet, when I write them down on paper like I do here, I can get a better picture of it all. - Concepts, logic, rationalism still has its uses on the path imo. It is the mind that has to surrender, after all, and it helps if the mind has a vague idea of what Truth might be and how it might get there (i.e. "HOW DO I SURRENDER?") I do fully agree, though, that to really find the Truth, one has to stop all the masturbation and go do the "practical" work needed.

interesting. Something tells me he maybe "just" have an extraordinary intuitive "understanding" of: - when the wind is coming - where it's coming from - how powerful it's going to be And therefore he is able to to do what he does. But having such an understanding is probably not less "magical" than creating wind with body-movements.

Inspiring to read! thank you. I'm a newbie to pranayma techniques. Did you do pranayma techniques before meditation? Or was the pranayma techniquesTHE meditation that you did? Are there any pranayma techniques you found more powerful than others? And do you (or anybody else) have a good free online resource for learning pranayma techniques properly? Thanks.

I'm not claiming that anything I wrote is "Truth"... In fact I THINK I wrote, that Truth can only by experienced, not communicated. So this is just my humble description of Truth... _ a description_ . Descriptions is concepts and logic. Yet, within rationalism and concepts, I would say my above description is accurate. If you have any valid arguments of why I might be wrong, feel free to point it out. The mind cannot "know" stuff. The mind is "simply" a brain that produces and processes internal software (thoughts, emotions, vision, sound, sense of feeling, smell and so on) -- which btw depend on the external "programming" . I include vision and sound because it' light and soundwaves being processed by hardware to produce software.. the software is then video and sound you see and hear. The "you" that experiences all this is not software itself. It's simply NOT A THING. We can call it consciousness or apeshit, both are equally true. Yet consciousness sounds "better" lol. That's why we say you are nothingness. Self-aware nothingness is the basic fundamental nature of reality. ", but one thing i know for sure is i have to detach and let go" ... Yes, just don't become too attached to the idea that you should detach from everything, hehe. There are a infinite number of traps in this journey. Forget all concepts. If you realize you are nothing, then naturally, you cannot attach anything, but you cannot detach from anything either! Attachment and detachment -- bvadr,, FORGET the concepts and go for direct experience. "you just change the thing you hold on to to something different." You hurt me here. lol. You are probably right though ... However, I enjoy contemplating this stuff and discussing it But you are right, I should be careful I don't get too attached to any idea my mind produce. ... I would say, though, that I'm in general conscious of the fact that everything we discuss here is merely concepts and can't lead to Truth in itself. "How can there be x,y,z if there's only y?" x isn't anywhere, and wasn't anywhere to begin with. "x" as ego is just a stream of apparantly random thoughts and emotions that is happening. Yet, the random stream of thoughts and emotions are what makes up your personality. It's your persona. But IT'S NOT YOU. What you are, is just the experiencer of all this stuff. But it's even wrong to call it an experiencer, because you aren't a noun or a thing... You are more like an eternal proces of reality that is all experience, that knows all experience, and that creates all experience. Yet, you are right, there is only y, but because y is infinite beyond time and space, to realize that it is infinite, it has to create the counterpart: finiteness. And you are a finite part of that infiniteness. As an analogy imagine a little boy with very high creativity sits down and wants to draw a picture with his pencil. Before he begins, the white paper is absolutely blank. It's nothing.. It's just paper. Now the paper = infinite consciousness = you When the boy begins to draw he sort of makes a finite picture out of an infinite number of pictures he could have drawed. I think that's the best language-made explanation of true infinity... Right before one begins to draw a picture on a blank paper, there are an INFINITE number of possible pictures that can be drawn. As SOON as you start to draw, you transform the infinite to a finite picture. Anyway, if you see yourself as the paper being drawn on... Can you see what the problem is if you, as the white paper, begins to identify yourself as what's drawn on you? What if the boy draws something ugly and bad? You would cry... However, if you realize you are not whats drawn on the paper, but that you are the paper itself, then you cannot be hurt... Unless the boy tears up the paper lol:D Also, because something is drawn on the paper, you as the paper are able to identify yourself. If boy never drawed anything on you, you would not have anything to contrast yourself with, and thus you would not know your self. "Isnt x's(ego's) biggest dream to be the z(immortal being, spirit ), which is still just illusion on another scale? Ego on a spiritual level, still allowing for Other and war. " x cannot dream anything nor have any dream. x is not a thing. x is an experience... a stream of emotions and thoughts. x may give you these streams of emotions and thoughts in a nice package labeled "DREAM". It may even, if it's REALLY naughty be labeled "I HAVE A DREAM" ... If the package is only labeled "DREAM" we got an enlightened dude right there. Must be extraordinary to have a stream of emotions and thoughts without the "I AM/I HAVE/ I XXX"-part labeled on it but only "dream", "hungry", "thirsty", "funny"-packages. My point is, nothing has any dream. You see what I did here? It's nothing that has any dream. ITS Z THAT HAS THE DREAM CMON MATE!! The difference just lies if the dream has attached an "I"-feeling to it or not. If the dream has attached an "I"-feeling to it, then z cannot see that it's z, but identifies instead as the "I" (the x that doesn't exist). If the dream has no "I"-feeling attached to it, but is just a happening..., then z can see that it's z, because there are no dirty little tricks being played anymore and becaise the dream is still an experience, which has to be experienced, and if there is no "I" from the ego saying it's experiencing anything, but the experience STILL _HAPPENS_ then my gentlemen,, the z is free to see that there are only happenings, and that it is the nothingness-"perciever" percieving all the happenings. You call "z" an "immortal being, spirit"... which is just a bad use of conceptual words imo... Better call "z" NOTHING. EMPTY AWARENESS. That's more accurate, even though no words and do your true self full justice.

Well you are a finite part of the infinite mind ('infinite mind' = pure infinite empty consciousness aka God). Leo is another finite part. Or Leo is an EGO with a part of infinite consciousness experiencing that ego. You are another part. Of course you can compare how deep a finite part has delved into the infinite ocean in terms of understanding reality(=the ocean). There are no separate "I's" though, no separate "owners" or "controllers". But there are separate finite minds -- obviously. The "no-thing" that experiences each finite mind is the infinite mind. The feeling that you are an "individual experiencer" experiencing this life of yours ... now that's the ego-illusion we're always talking about. There is no individual experiencer.. there is only experience within consciousness. When you go and make a sandwhich, and the thought comes up "Mhm, what a nice sandwhich _I_ just made".. that's the illusion right there.. There was none who made the sandwhich. There was only the experience of "making a sandwhich".. no one did it. You could say God did it, but the "you" didn't do it, because "you" don't exist. If we speak in terms of langauge, there are no subjects. There are only verbs. Only doings. There are no do'er except God, if you really want one. The creation of "subjects" / nouns is a man-made thing (but though, also a God-made thing hehe)... it's a tool to function in the world... Use the tool (mind) wisely. hehe. The mind/ego stores "happenings"/doings as memories and instantly creates a story in your head that says "I did this" or "this happened to me". And that is the illusion right there... If we could remove the memory of "you making a sandwhich"... then you wouldn't know that you have created the sandwhich... There is only the present moment. And in the present moment there are a lot of "happenings". But there isn't anyone who "do" the "happenings". .. Yet the present moment for each of us often includes the internal experience of being an "I" that did something in the past... Now how do we get rid of this internal experience? First.. one probably has to see, that it's just a thought/internal experience, and has nothing to with the actual reality... And then we can work from there. But who is the "one" that has to see this? LOL. It's a paradox right... Who IS it that can SEE that this "I did this"-feeling is just a thought? ... It's sort of the mind/ego itself that has to realize it doesn't really exist... it has to realize "hey, this is just an experience, and I am not that" ... Or we could split you up into 3 parts: x: ego (conceptual illusion created through internal language/thoughts... an experience happening in consciousness) z: The finite part of infinite consciousness (Pure being / "soul" / the True Higher Self/You that is capable of being aware of the ego and see it as an experience) y: Pure infinite empty consciousness (God) Now, you are not an ego. If you believe you are x ( a person/ego ) then you believing in a hallucination, and labeling this hallucination as "Truth". ... This leads to suffering at some point or another... obviously... Because this hallucination can easily be hurt by other egos. Are you y? Well... No you are not God for christ sake (:D). But you can find this "y" (God) inside you. But it's not really you, yet it is what you are part of, it's the essential part of you that makes it possible for you to exist, it's the "proces" that has created you. So you are basically "z" which is created out of y. z is the link between x and y. If there were no z, there would be no x or y. ... z is what creates the ultimate duality.. the duality of "finite" and "infinite". You are this z... It's not a thing.. It's more like "Pure being"... A "spirit of God" so to speak. "z" is the "individual" awareness that you are... Its the thing that is aware of ego.. Now, it's very important to differentiate between x and z... .. Z is eternal BECAUSE it has the same properties as y EXCEPT it's FINITE. x is an experience happening inside of Z, and Z is a part of Y. You can't KILL "z" because it's eternal. You CAN kill "x" because it didn't live to begin with. But x will always be there during normal life anyway. .. Because it's x that is the: - talking - emotions - thoughts Etc.... You become enlightened if you as an ego, identify yourself deeply as z (and not as X), and thus you become in direct contact with y (the divine/God). So basically when all the emotions and thoughts instead of telling "z" that it's "x", begin "to tell" "z" that it's "z" (and thus a "product" of y, then you are enlightened :-) So for most people, "x" (which is just happenings/experiences) tells "z" that it's "x". For the enlightened persons, "x" (which is just a happenings/expereinces) tells "z" that it's "z". But it's all "God"'s doings of course,... It's full circle of course. So: Average dude: y makes "x" tell z that it's "x" Enlightened dude: y makes "x" tell z that it's z. Free will is an illusion of course ... It's all done by God's/y's doings. So reality/God/Absolute Infinity plays a game with itself where it tells itself (all the z's) that it's "x" ... It tells itself a lie... It takes on a mask and acts... plays a silly little game with itself ... Yet sometimes, Absolute Infinity wants to see itself (through z of course), so it makes it tell itself (all the z's) that it is actually z (and thus ultimately y). Why do Absolute Infinity do all this? Well, you guessed it.. it's infinite, so it does ALL kinds of wierd mystical stuff. The fact that you exist is one big mystery... all we can say is that God is infinite... and remember, infinite beyond time and space. I have to get to work, I could sit and talk about this for years. :D:D

You have to become aware of the difference between: - Understanding "I am nothing/I am everything/We are all one/etc" conceptually and logically. - Feeling it in your 'heart'. Understanding enlightenment through language is fine, but it's just 1% of the path. To become enlightened, you have to BECOME one with the Truth... not just understand it through language.... cos ultimately, the Truth cannot be put into language... It has to be directly experienced... And that ain't so easy And even... Directly experiencing Truth, through a breakthrough dose of 5-meo for example, that is often not enough to give you constant enlightenment.. You saw the Truth in the 5-meo experience, but it most of the time does not stick, and the "I exist as this person"-feeling comes back quickly... .. The "I exist as this person"-feeling is EXTREMELY hard to get rid of for more than just momentarily awakening-episodes... However, sometimes, you are "ready" for it, and when a very deep awakening-experience hits you, it transforms you, and you are enlightened. Most of the time, it takes work to get "ready". Work = meditation, self-inquiry, reading about it, understanding it deeply through language, being aware of your actions, thoughts, emotions, etc during live, etc etc etc

That's the nature of reality, isn't it Leo? It's infinite beyond language, space, time. Even an enlightened master with 100.000 hours of practice and wisdom can still go infinitely deeper. Sort of scary to think about, but then again, also amazing. Hehe. - Every humans deepest desire is to feel content. Happiness is everyone's goal. Yet how we reach happiness differs a lot. Most people do it by attaching themselve to external things (relationships, sex, money, "success", respect by others, big house, cars, having kids who you want to be as you, etc) - Yet the only way to find CONSTANT happiness is by looking inwards and finding it in your true self... discovering your true nature. - When you become enlightened you intuively identify everything "you" experience as "you". You have found constant happiness inside the mind/body you're currently in. But since you see everything as you ("we are all one"), you will want to eliminate pain where you see it. You want other 'ego's' to become free and to find the inner happiness. And that desire right there, is uncondtional love. A true understanding of all reality. Another way to explain unconditional love is from the opposite statement which is also incoporated into the enlightened persons "heart", and that is the statement "I am nothing". By having this feeling natural in the heart (not feeling one self as an individual ego) no persons can hurt you anymore (expect physically maybe). So because you can't be hurt, naturally, all you can give in return is love to all of reality. You see everything from the highest perspective, and from the highest perspective, everything combined is in total harmony. Everything that happens, happens ... you don't fight it. You embrace reality. That's unconditional love. I have briefly experienced this, but I'm nowhere near to obtain unconditional love for all of reality, yet. There's a long way to go, and I think the way is infinite. That is to say.. ABSOLUTE 'unconditional love' all the time is maybe impossible to achieve. But it's possible to get approximate it and get very close to the state all the time. And when you are so close, that 99% of the time you feel love to all of reality ... that's when you are enlightened. Obviously your ego now comes up with all sort of stories like the one "The concept of unconidtional love is just as real as Hitlers thought about superiority". This is one big pile of bulshit created by your ego. You haven't experienced unconditional love, and you somehow also currently lack the logical capabilities to understand it on a conceptual level, even though conceptual is always subpar to direct experience of course. That is to say, if you some day experience it, then logic doesn't matter anyway Let me briefly experience the difference between "your limited view on what love is", and what "True Unconditional love is".... When you love someone in a relationship, most of the time it's a dependent relationship, and you only love the image you have in your head of the other person. So if the person suddenly does something that doesn't match with your image of that person, then you suddenly hate the person. For example if your girlfriend kisses with someone else to a party... You hate her, and probably want to break up with her... See that's false love, you only loved her when she acted like you expected her to act... You loved the projection you created of her. You didn't really love her... Two great videos on 'false love' vs 'true love' (in a relationship-context though) : Yet, again, we're just talking on a conceptual level. It's good and all, but it's great to have experienced linving in a dependent relationship...you learn. You develop. Experience is key to self-development in all areas of live. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also totally off-topic. About Athenes Logic nation stuff. I think his idea about integrating "logic" as a core value on an emotional level is a pretty powerful idea that can be very practical for many. Yes, it has nothing to do with enlightenment. I sort of understand Leo's critic of it. Yet I would say that Leo already has logic as a core value on an emotional level. It depends on what you define logic as. Athene defines logic as the "patterns that govern reality"... Well, hey - one of those patterns is that it's not possible to use logic to become enlightened So Leo is very logical, so logical that he knows where logic's limits are, which Athene apparantly doesn't. But regarding self-development -- and not enlightenment --... like understanding projection, emotions, where they come from, etc.. basically understaind simple cause-and-effect (=logic) is a powerful tool to understand your self on a conceptual level. It can't go deep enough to truly find your true self, but still, logic has its uses. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About choice: The more mindful you are of your ego and how it functions, the higher level of awareness you possess, the higher degree of previous subconsciouss programming that you have become conscious of, the more you are in control, and the more you do have a real choice. If your awareness is low, if you arent mindful, if you haven't studied yourself, if you haven't become conscious of any subconscious programming at all..., yes then the degree of 'real choice' is low. Yes, absolute "real choice" does not exist. But you can approximate it, that's for sure It's a balance. Yes, you have to embrace that you ultimately have no real choice, but at the same time, you have to approximate real choice... Hehe, ... This is two opposing thoughts: - Realize you ultimately have no real choice. - Realize that you can approximate real choice. Yet, both of them are true. The same with the "I am nothing"- and "I am everything"-feelings. ... If you only follow the "I have no real choice", and forget the opposing statement ... then you will become delusional, obviously, and you cannot reach true nondual enlightenment. ---- "And frankly, if you've had enough of the bullshit and the suffering, all those carefully weighed and nuanced nice-to-have ideals of yours, of a properly brandished badge of enlightenment, will go straight out the window, and anyone who insists on standing in your way will do so at their peril." I really cannot follow your perspective NTO. Or I mean, I can see what you mean, but I just can't follow it.. It doesn't align with my nature. For me, enlightenment should be done with love. If you've had enough of the suffering, then start loving yourself. That should be the first step to proper enlightenment.

"And you may not have as much choice about it as you think you do." I think it can be dangerous to go with that mindset. I mean. Yes, obviously ULTIMATELY, we don't have free will. From the highest, highest perspective, the body and mind of "yours" are operated by "God's hand". God plays dice and move the pieces (bodies/minds) around on the board (board game analogy). Ultimately, thus, you are God. You are the hand of God, you are the dice, you are the board itself ... in a way. However, believing "I don't have any choice" is also a belief, it's also a choice to believe that. So... My point is.. You have to live life as you're free. Truth is, you are also free from the highest perspective. From the highest perspective you are infinite and free. So again, my point is, yes, you don't have free will as the ego running around here on earth. But .. even though you dont, you should absolutely -- if you want to live truly -- live as you do have free will. From the highest point of view, you, yes you, do have choices in front of you, and you can pick whichever you want Sartre believed in free will. He was delusional in many ways. However, I like his quote: "Humans are condemned to be free" ... The feeling that we are free to do whatever we want -- because of our minds -- -- unlike animals who don't really have a mind -- is both a gift and a burden. Use the gift (the mind) wisely Don't become delusional.

Great stuff in this thread. Didn't see it at first, so I posted some ambient tunes in this thread, enjoy:

No value to what things? Everything can have a value if you give it a value. Single-minded pursuit? What the heck does that even mean? Which center? hey... Does a mind choose which thing to pursue/fixate its attention on ??? What if... everything ... litterally everything ... one experiences ... in it self ... is the so-called 'source' you're talking about? To me... Enlightenment includes the realization that whichever perspective one might have is limited. The paradox is... To have that realization is a perspective itself. To harness as much as what reality has to offer, one must absolutely consider that every possible perspective one can have, may contain some part of Truth. And exactly because 1 perspective can only contain 1 part of the Truth -- Truth is Infinite -- every perspective is limited. Becoming enlightened is the stopping of attachment to ideas/perspectives/concepts & instead becoming completely open, pure, empty, loving in heart. You must be open to every perspective. And open doesn't mean believing in it. Open just means "this sounds interesting, at least a bit, hmm let me think about it... I feel resistance to it because it conflicts why my current worldview (which I subconsciously see as part of "me"/my identity), hmm okay, at least I'm aware of this fact ... Okay, it sounds somewhat absurd to me,, but hey, what the fuck do I know... I won't start a debate whether it's true or not ... it might be true, it might be bullshit ... depends on perspective... I'm gonna be open and might do more research into the matter if I feel like it... If I don't feel like it, that's also okay..." As I write this, I become aware of the fact that it's absurd to label ANY experience/perspective/belief/idea as "not-interesting/nonsense/bullshit". It's absurd ... simply ... because ... you saw/heard/experienced said experience/perspective/belief/idea ... and why did you do that? Because it was created for you... By infinity... aka God ... Don't be too quick to judge. Who are you to judge God's doings? But then again if you judge it anyway, then the fact that you judged it, is also God's doing See everything of reality as love. See it as mystical. See it as something beyond your doings. Become fully present and open. Surrender to reality. As Azreal once said, you can even see the beauty of a baby crying in a crowded bus when you sit there and listen to it. Everything depends on perspective. And there are infinite perspectives. No perspective is more true than any other. Every perspective a person has is part of the Truth. Some of my friends are not interested in non-duality at all. I am. Thus, sometimes I have viewd my self as superior to some of my friends. Now I see... Theirs perspective on life is by no means any lesser or any falser than mine. From my non-dual perspective I might be tempted to label my perspective as more True than a random dude's perspective. It's not truer. It's maybe more wide you could say, and thus more open. If you drop attachment to all perspectives´, to all false identity projection,..., fully surrender ... then you can become one with infinite Truth, not just part. But consider this: Life is like a theater play. Everyone are actors of God playing the game of life -- on an seemingly large, yet apparant finite scene, yet truly infinite 'scene' -- so engulfed in the playing that most actors forget that they are actors of God, but instead in the heat of the moment fully believe that they are the fictional character they each are playing. Most actors complete the enitre theater play having the entire time forgot that they were just actors of God. But someone might suddenly remember...

Thanks Leo. Just what I needed. Just as I thought my open-mindedness was already high enough you show me this, which is normally some stuff I would classify as utterly insane crap (people claiming to have contact with ET-beings.)... After reading some of it and thinking deeply about it + some of my past consciousness-altering experiences (meditation + LSD-trips) + questioning my actual open-mindedness ... i'm starting to get confused again... which I might have been missing a bit. Just as you think you've got reality all figured out ... well trust me, there's always more deeper layers to unravel

If we stopped all cow and pig-meat production today, we would 1. massively lower the total CO2-output to the athmosphere 2. massively lower the amounts of fresh drinking water spent on meat production 3. significantly reduce the amounts of rain forests getting wiped out because of livestock-production 4. have huge amounts of soy- and corn-food which we could use to feed the enitre human population many times. But of course this would also imply that my family cannot get their pork for christmas, and they would cry big time, especially my grand mother, for that, so ...

I speculate that the only way that the human race can sustain itself for more than a few hundred years is if the vast majority of humans realize that it doesn't matter the slightest if we blow up the Earth with an atomic bomb. Only by realizing it ultimately doesn't matter if we eradicate ourselves as a species, then maybe - by realizing that - we may avoid doing it and chill the fuck down and go away from this phony materialism-worldview we currently posses.

Captain Fantastic (pretty new film) is very good and inspiring.

Mate. I honstely couldn't care less if you keep eating meat or not. To be enlightened is to become as aware as possible of how your ego functions. If you are fully aware of your ego - that is, if you manage to get all the unconscious ego stuff/beliefs/mechacnics into awareness/consciousness, then you are free. because now "you" can react to that and re-arrange the mechanics so they align with your inner nature. I saw that it was arbitrary that I had eaten meat all my life. Arbitrary in the sense that it's what society/culture told me was "the right thing to do". I was programmed. Now I have contemplated my deep inner nature, and I see that my inner nature doesn't align with eating meat from animals mass produced in livestock-forms. I don't even crave eating it anymore. It's so natural now. Naturally I know nothing about your inner nature, and I know you're doing just fine, what else could you do? hehe.. cheers And btw, of course - the fact that I now don't want to eat meat anymore is also just another programming. But somehow I feel it's a more natural "self-"conscious form of programming than the one I had before (in regard to this eating meat/or not-dillemma ... I'm sure im still "unconsciously"-programmed by a lot of other stuff... and that excites me..I wanna go to more -not-knowing-states- and see what answer the universe gives me. cheeeeeeeers everyone. Eat whatever you fucking want as long as you don't eat me:)

@Bizarre With a non-judging filter I just meant not judging people negatively I guess. I never said anywhere that enlighentment has nothing to do with Truth. Obviously enlightenment = being one with Truth. When I sad you shouldn't pursue enlightenment, but instead Truth, i just meant exactly that ... i.e search for what is true, whatever that might turn out to be. All the Advaita Vedanta-stuff is probably really good to get an accurate understanding of reality. But just remember, any 'understanding', any concepts are only tools, analogies to what's going on. What's really going on, can't be explained in words/by logic. Whats ultimately True can't be said - there can only be said things about Truth - and here some things are relatively more true than other of course.

psychedelics = deconstruction + raw awareness combined = most effectiveee...... but i guess meditating and learning to accept the present moment before doing psychedelics is pretty advisable to avoid bad trips.

I just wanted to say that the keyword is to accept. Feel that word. Accept. Acceptance. Accept whatever comes up. You can feel miserable for whatever reasons. You might have taken LSD and feel horrible scared/angry/sad because of what you experience. Fully accept that. It's perfectly okay to feel bad/horrible/sad/fear. Allow yourself to accept whatever comes up. Accept everything. In the end of the day, all we can do is to accept the present moment. Yes, sure in the loooooong term, we can change the direction of our lives. But in the short term, you have to accept the current reality you experience. Accept all of it. If you feel sad/fearful/depressed ... sure, you can try to resist it and internally fight it with the "I don't want to feel this way, why am I feeling this, I want this to go away"-mechanism. In the end this doesn't help at all, this is just a denial of pure reality. And denying what _is_ only leads to more suffering. Instead accept the state you are in. Accept the fear. Accept that you feel depressed. It's perfectly okay. You can't change the present moment. The present moment just is. Accept it, no matter if it's pure bliss or extreme hell - accept it fully. Only when you accept it fully -- surrender fully to it -- you can actually begin to live in the present moment without denying it - thus you become closer to true existence without filters, without beliefs of 'how it should be'. Reality shouldn't be in any way. It should be exactly as it is. Exactly as it is experienced. Take LSD and become fucking frightened of what you see. Become extremely anxious of what a fucking douchebag you are. Of what a fucking closed, selfish person you are. And don't resist it. Accept it. That's how it is. Only when you accept the current state of your 'being', only then, you can begin to live freely and change truthfully. If you don't accept, but deny and resist and fight, you will keep denying, resisting and fighting for eternity, and not getting any further. So stop! And surrender to reality. Accept. Accept. Accept - whatever comes up - accept it. Accept the state you are in - and you will begin to flow in a stream of love down a waterfall into pure being. What does accept mean? Well, only you know. I think it means to fully embrace the present moment with love. What is love? It can't be explained. It's a property of God/nothingness/the absolute/infinte infinity/pure unlimited consciousness/your deep-down True Existential Nature -- allow it to come forward. Even if you somehow feel it's not appropriate right now. That you think it's not appropriate right now, is just you playing a game with yourself. You may feel extremely lonely. You may feel extreme fear because you feel like you're losing what you hold must dear: your sense/construction of self. Look. It's perfectly okay to feel lonely. It's perfectly okay to feel extreme fear because you are dying. Accept the feelings of loneliness and fear. Embrace them when they come up. It's perfectly okay to accept all feelings, because all feelings are ultimately arbitrary and have no meaning, no value. The only 'meaningful' thing to actually value is the ability to accept the present moment. If you value that ability -- because trust me, you DO have the ability to fully accept your current state, you just trick yourself into believing that you somehow don't (and that you instead need X or Y in your life to feel fulfilled/happy - look, you truly don't, it sure seems like you need X, but trust me, you need nothing (literally)...all you "need" is acceptance of whatever is) -- then you will be completely free; like a bird flying over the ocean on a clear sky day.

Pure consciousness has no properties. Struggling <--> Accepting are both merely relative concepts like everything else we dicuss on this forum. However, relative concepts are still helpful of course. Otherwise I wouldn't have written this. So yes, of course you can practice appreciating the present moment / accepting the state you are in.