tsuki

@Mikael89 The fact that it is a simple realization does not diminish its value as something incredible. This realization is so simple, that you can listen to your mother scolding you for not doing your bed and become enlightened. You can listen to the sounds of the forest and get it. It is so basic and simple that the fact that everybody seems to miss it is the most incredible thing. What I was referring to when I said that no description can amount to what is revealed is the fact that enlightenment has something to do with escaping description. With making yourself perpetually confused (in a sense) by making meaning balanced. Balanced in a sense that all perceptions occur in one field in which phenomena are not ordered with respect to significance. Everything is equal (in equilibrium). Words/stories about enlightenment are a double-edged sword, as they are heavily imbalanced with respect to significance. We tend to treat them as primary phenomena. It can be useful however, when the effect of the words is equalizing. For example, deconstruction/self-inquiry is a very powerful equalizing tool. It is not to be treated as the truth (the primary significance), because it will undermine its own strength. The same thing applies to other tools, such as psychedelics, meditation, and in my case - dialectic self-inquiry (which I'm doing right now with you=me).

@SoonHei Sorry, I got carried away. It seems that my reading is what was lazy The problem with seeking enlightenment is that the stories about it that you are given by the scriptures are more like riddles. You are supposed to work on them yourself and in solving them, wake up. They are true in the sense that I can map what I experience onto them and see that they fit, but enlightenment has something to do with making everything fit with everything else, so in a sense - everything is true. It is more like an effortless activity that is happening. I'm saying this because I can sense that you are looking for an answer that confirms something that you know. What you are asking is true, but that will not help you enlighten. There will be a new you once you get it, but the point is not to replace the old you with a new you. The point is to see that any you is replaceable and in fact, it is not something constant, but constantly changing. The point is not to experience one awakening moment, but to awaken each second, letting go everything that happens. In doing that there will be deep realizations available, but they will be unusable in a sense. They can manifest themselves only if there is no you to benefit from them.

@SoonHei Are these legitimate questions, or you are simply being a smartass? The guy asked a question about something that he has not yet experienced. How am I supposed to answer it other than trying to express it in terms of his (presumed) current understanding? Pointing out that my answer is self-contradictory is lazy (assuming that's what you did). It has to be self-contradictory, as it tries to express something inexpressible. It's like trying to express Klein's bottle in three-dimensional space. It can't fit, so it intersects itself.

None. There will be no you once you get it. Not in the same sense you currently have about 'you'. It is a form of self-transformation. You just have to see it for yourself. If you can stop yourself from pursuing it, then go ahead and do so.

@BramscoChill Yep. Use of logic is illogical. Do not reject logic prematurely though.

@Sockrattes To address your original question (in the topic name): turquoise people are not infallible. Stages of spiral dynamics have nothing to do with being successful. They are a measurement of the degree of complexity you can deal with. A turquoise person lets himself see the world as much more complex and nuanced than a blue person sees. That doesn't make that person any more effective with dealing with it. It makes that person's solutions more complex, or far-reaching in response. It can obviously backfire when you cannot gauge the importance of the problem and over-analyze it, via various tools. A turquoise person can 'solve' any problem by detaching from it, so that can also backfire on you really badly.

@Sockrattes Sadhguru knows that the democratic system can be broken (he even mentions that in the talk). What he is stating is simply that the other alternative is bloodshed. Electing Hitler has led to the second world war with millions of deaths. That is true. Did people stop him with their protests? No. That is because there are loopholes in the democratic system that allow people like him to win. The people did not stop him, because once he is elected - he is the one that has the power and will defend his rule, even if it comes to bloodshed. The question is: why was Hitler elected? Because of larger socio-economical reasons combined with his charisma. He was able to convince people that he is the right ruler and in doing so - he exposed his own methods so that the public is more resistant to them today. We haven't had any Hitlers since. We haven't had any world wars since. That is because we have learned our (very expensive) lesson. When it comes to Trump - he is also a product of larger socio-economical reasons. He is able to manipulate the public to the degree that allowed him to win the election. He is the product of exploitation of the mass-media, but he has exposed his methods and hopefully - we will learn our lessons. Electing idiots by the public is the strength of the democracy, because electing idiots makes the public wiser the next time. To deny the idiots' right to learn is idiotic. America will be fine. It takes more than one 'idiot' to bring it down.

@Stretch That is a big mystery for me as well. First of all, unless you are enlightened - you have no idea what you are looking for. No description can amount to what will be revealed once you get it, even this one. Therefore - the only reason for searching enlightenment is ignorance. The real question is: why would persistence in being ignorant grant you wisdom? All of us are already enlightened from the moment we were born, so the seeking is really a way to understand our true nature that we have access to RIGHT NOW (not to confuse with an idea of a being present). To me, it seems like there is this seed, or idea of 'enlightenment' that we accumulate at some point and as we naturally expand, it becomes apparent that what we experience matches up with what has been described in various ways. This expansion is what enables us to gradually let in more and more things at once and see a universal pattern. This universal pattern is what is the Realization. Absolute relativity. Śūnyatā. Wisdom. Ignorance gives rise to wisdom, because ignorance and wisdom are an expression of one 'thing'. From the point of view of enlightened person, everything is one and therefore - nothing exists (in a sense).

Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time". It may fuck you over big time, like it did with me.

Asking questions about total, universal, substance is pointless. No answers can be given in this realm of generality. That is because there is no way to create contrast to something else (not-consciousness) and in doing so, reveal properties of consciousness. Consciousness has contradictory properties because, by definition, everything is made of it. It is a way to conceptualize a world in which there is no perceiver, but only the perception. By inventing imaginary substance that everything is made of. Unless you can observe this phenomenon yourself, no amount of talking can reveal it to you.

@Nadosa There are no answers to your questions and that is what the mind cannot accept (yet). If meaning-making is all that you know, it will take a while to reorient yourself to see a new kind of being. Funnily enough, what gave me most comfort in my several experiences like yours was aspiring to be like a tree. A tree needs no reason to grow. It simply does. As you continuously die, I'm sure that you can relate to a wish of simply being, undisturbed. Try looking up to a tree and treat it as a role model. Let the mind do its things. Work, sleep, eat and meet. When you have spare time in which questions arise, it is a sign that that you have solved all of your problems and now the mind has nothing to do. If the suffering of emptiness becomes a problem somehow, then the mind will try to solve it. Do you understand what is the solution for having no problems? Creating them. If you let yourself be a problem, then the mind will turn on you and do all kinds of things to keep itself occupied. Do you know what is the best solution to a restless, problem-seeking mind? Sitting. Just sit and grow like a tree. It is the best thing to do when all problems are solved. Problems will come to you on their own, without your guidance. Sitting is the greatest luxury, really. You can call sitting meditation, but do not try to still your mind. Let the mind do its thing. Let it chase itself. This is what it is supposed to do. Solve problems. Let it try to solve itself until it finally sees what it is - whatever is the conclusion. If you have truly seen though the mind, you will know what is the value of that knowledge.

An ocean has nothing to do with molecules. It is not an emergent property of molecules, but of your perception. You see something, dissect it via theory into atoms, and then wonder why is there an ocean. There is no such thing ego out there. Ego is a word with a structure associated to it. You can apply this structure to various aspects of your experience and decide whether it fits. This does not mean however that whatever you call ego is out there, because where it fits is predicated on the structure that you gave it. Theories are a description of the world, as much as they are a description of you. They are empty in the sense that you can mold them into fitting various things because they are ultimately ambiguous. The same thing applies to emergence, properties, physicality, body and a universe. Therefore, a question: should ideally be answered with silence. (Which I failed, btw.)

@Uchira Mental illness is inability to translate your experience to others. The moment you think that you're mentally ill is the moment in which your experience vastly exceeds whatever you've experienced before. You can recollect your mind if you create a story that links your identity with this disjoint experience in a constructive manner. Contacting the doctor will let you create meaning for what happened, but it will mean that you are broken and need fixing. Medicating yourself will never let you decide whether what you've felt was valid or not. It may make it go away, however. The eleven seven thing cracked me up as well . Why did you run away from it?

This is precisely the limitation of the meaning-seeking paradigm that you're missing. There is no life road. People that claim to have a story, have it only in retrospect and even that story misses half of events to make itself coherent. This was one of many realizations that came after writing my experiences. Wrong. Dead wrong. Imagine the most fulfilled, peaceful person to ever exist. That person could sit and do nothing for hours because he would be perfectly happy with whatever happens. Interests, passions and drives are a form of imbalance. Imbalance that comes out of meaning-making that pulls towards goals and pushes away from suffering. The fact that you are disinterested in most things is an expression of your good mental health. What bothers you is the relative lack of greatness because you (mentally) surround yourself with titans of success. These titans of success only got to the top because of their titanic imbalances. People always compare themselves to others. As you are more successful, you compare yourself to more successful people. When you are at the top, you compare yourself to God and curse your mortality. Don't go there. It will destroy you. Learn to suffer peacefully. Then, you will be free to go to the top at your own pace. Your suffering when you're bored is a plea to influence your frame of reference. You can either change your material wealth (achieve success), or change the people you look up to. Admire ordinary life. It has more to offer than you can imagine. I bought into that paradigm of planning and achieving when I was ~20 years old. Now I'm past that. I'd much rather look at what I have right now and combine it somehow to produce unexpected outcomes without pre-planning. Instead of pulling myself towards a goal set in advance, I play with whatever I have right now and propel myself forward. There are various ways to achieve success, despite what mainstream self-help may tell you. I also barely read. I mostly listen to youtube interviews/lectures out of curiosity. Applied philosophy is my passion. Be careful with that. Jung used to say: beware wisdom you haven't earned. I have never tried psychedelics, but from what I've gathered - they are a powerful tool. A dentist doesn't use a jackhammer, so be sure what kind of worker are you.

For me it was more of an automatic, intuitive process. At some points in my life I read things that deconstructed various aspects of reality and by trying to make sense of them, they deconstructed me. Heidegger's Being and Time blew my identity away. Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-philosophicus blew the language away. Self-inquiry into the nature of emotions revealed that what I thought I was, was simply an interplay between thoughts and emotions. In case of Being and Time, the rip of identity was instantaneous and deep. Integration of it took me a few years. Tractatus L-P ripped the language in conjunction with Leo's video about deconstruction after a few years of puzzlement. Observing the interplay of feelings and emotions was a process that took a few years of mindfulness and arrived at meaninglessness. Only then, after facing deep meaninglessness I arrived at the point I am now. Meditation (do-nothing) technique was very helpful after I started to reconnect to the original experience of ego death after a few years of integration. I did not know any of this at the time, I got into spirituality only recently thanks to Leo. It all took place over my last 4-6 years, but the root causes run much deeper into my adolescence. You can read some of my stuff here:

Yep. I wouldn't conflate that with brain, though. The objective-materialist paradigm in which brains exist is one of many aspects of your meaning-matrix. Deconstructing that will show you amazing things. Generally speaking, the more basic a concept is, the more fireworks you experience when you deconstruct it. Fireworks being intelligence swirling meaning all over the place, trying to orient itself. It feels like madness. When it settles though, your intellectual/perceptive capabilities increase. There is nobody to benefit from that, though so you carry on like nothing happened . The internal difference is vast however.

Sorry. I'm an engineer, so it comes naturally to me . Yes. It is not that meaning has limitations per se, but you have limitations when you are preoccupied with seeking meaning. These limitations are related to your identity (identification) and your notion of suffering and desire. Meaningless meaninglessness makes your suffering enjoyable in a sense, but don't take this enjoyment as the same kind of enjoyment when you engage in meaning-seeking. Yes. Meaning-seeking is superimposed with meaningless meaninglessness. Like two simultaneous layers. Deconstructing meaning-map is equal to deconstruction of the self. The point is not to arrive at the empty, deconstructed self, but to observe how one meaning that is being deconstructed is replaced by other without your intervention. This way you become detached from meaning. It becomes something like vision, or hearing. A way to perceive things like colors (vision), or pitch (sound). There is no you in that. Right. If meaning-making is your primary direction in life, then you in fact do need a why to go into that. Most spiritual teachers give you promise of nirvana, but it is nothing like you may imagine from within your current paradigm. When you read descriptions of nirvana, it really is the greatest joke of all time. Joke at our expense. It is true, though!

@Viking Because your life (as I read from the way you frame your questions) is such that you are convinced that you are actually making choices. That there are reasons for doing things and that you compare them and pick the best ones depending on the predicted outcome. That you have control over your life, even if it is only by making informed choices. From the point of view of meaningless meaninglessness, asking a question: 'why should I pursue it?' is absurd. A 'why ' asks for meaning! Even if I understand where this question comes from, there is no honest answer to it from the place I am at. I can give you a reason to abolish reasoning, but that would be a form of deception. It would be a deception because I cannot correlate the state in which I am with any practice that I did. This state however is the best one I have ever been in. It does not mean that you are a puppet on strings however. This total, complete determinism is parallel (orthogonal) to total, complete freedom. You are both enslaved and free from the perspective of meaningless meaninglessness. Meaninglessness is not about stopping your enjoyment. It only looks that way from the point of view of meaning-seeking. You think that you pursue enjoyment because it is meaningful to you. Abolishing meaning is not a rejection. It is exhaustion of it. It is a place in which a new way of being opens up for exploration in parallel to the meaning-making way. It is an orthogonal way of being. It is not a either meaning or meaninglessness but not both kind of thing, but meaningless meaninglessness. When you get it, you will see it as a completely disjoint thing. You can still have meaning or meaninglessness AND meaningless meaninglessness. Sorry if it is confusing. I'm doing my best to explain it. It's a way to enjoy life unlike any other you know. Your question looks like this: The problem with your question is that we're talking about life (instead of skis) and life is the only thing you know. In this sphere of generality, the only other thing is death. You have experienced death before you were born and the memory of it you have (which is a non-memory) is what you have to do in order to arrive at what we're talking about here. Meaningless meaninglessness does not subtract from life. Death gives you a new life each second if you give it a chance. Seeing the world with the eyes if a newborn is the greatest gift you can give yourself.

@Viking Different stages of development require different stimuli for growth. If mindfulness has no traction for you, then go ahead and find fulfillment in whatever you are doing. At some point you may (or may not) find that it doesn't get you anywhere and decide to try something else. This something else may be mindfulness, or some other spiritual practice you've not yet come across. When it comes to inquiring yourself out of all meaning, it is an exercise that lets you see that you do not actually do things for any reason in particular. The idea that you construct your own meaning is a preliminary bait to get you interested in this phenomenon, but it is not actually true 100%. When you talk about constructing meaning, it implies a purpose of said meaning (such as fulfillment or happiness). This fulfillment is meaningful because of what, exactly? If all meaning is self-constructed, then who constructed your meaning of fulfillment? Chasing meaninglessness is not really about that. It is about arriving at meaningless meaninglessness. Only then you can be free to be enslaved by your desires. Stripping yourself of all meaning is nothing other than arriving at consciousness, as everything is meaning, just like everything is consciousness.

From my perspective, the only meaningful way to talk about consciousness is to say what it is not. There is no way do describe it positively. To say that 'it is a universal substance of reality' is to produce a sound that seems like a sentence but contains no information about it. To cling to a positive description of consciousness is a misunderstanding. To try to understand it via symbolic manipulation of such descriptions is a waste of life.

@pluto Great read. Some interesting insights came as I read it. I have one question, though: Do you differentiate I, THE ONE and ALL THAT IS? The I is what is before discovering THE ONE, or is it synonymous to ALL THAT IS? Or is it that ALL THAT IS identifies with both self and other, as opposed to I that identifies only with the self?

@Zweistein Yep ,

To me, beauty of this journey lies in its completion. It's like a man that wants to learn martial arts to be unbeatable. In the process of learning how to fight, he has to understand the desire to conquer others and in doing so, he conquers himself. The conquering of himself however, makes him understand that fighting is unnecessary. So he carries on with his life peacefully, being a martial artist unbeknownst to anybody. The reason for the journey however cannot be taught by stories, or reasoned into by stating the benefits. The man thirsty for power is not satiating it to gain something, but to prevent his suffering at the hands of fate. As he embarks on the journey he is ignorant of his ultimate peacefulness and this persistence in ignorance is what makes him wise in the end. Others that see the completed, peaceful, master may try to emulate him, but now they are in a double bind. At one hand, they want the master's power, but also need to be peaceful to emulate him. It does not occur to them that the master has exhausted his violence, not rejected it. To be a master yourself you need to exhaust your thirst for power by being powerful and seeing its limitations. To me, this is what makes it beautiful. Its cyclic and paradoxical nature.

I think that you shouldn't concern yourself too much with judgments. All statements are judgments. By saying anything you judge reality to be such and such. This is why I prefer to answer questions by asking more questions. I think that questions are much more honest to what we experience.