tsuki

Like I said - there is no difference between the two. If you change yourself enough, you won't even recognize your "outer" problems anymore. If you solve your "outer" problems, you won't see them. Fixing is fixing. I feel you. The most profound, mystical, experiences are found in everyday experience, unbeknownst to everyday people. Seeing the world transform in response to your stillness is the best thing that happened to me so far.

@Joseph Maynor @egoless Finding a new exterior to be in harmony with your interior is no different from changing your interior to harmonize with your exterior. There is no need to embark on a physical journey if you can venture within. Some people prefer to move the outer, some prefer to move the inner. Movement is movement.

Thoughts come and go. If you wish them to come, you regret that they go. If you wish them gone, you regret that they came. Thoughts wish and regret.

@EmptinessDncing Keeping the vacuum empty is like building a dam - a damn tiring way to live! What you need is to be a river that flows, yet its bed is still. It fills the ocean, but the ocean is never full and the river never gets empty. Hey! We're here for you if you want to talk. Have a seat with us .

Believe me, or not, but you will feel this each time you awaken. Yes, there will be further awakenings and each one will show you how immensely ignorant you ("I") are. Don't throw away too much, as one day you may see things you threw away as things you could use.

I can relate to this experience. The "I" never goes away. The more you try to empty it, the more empty it becomes. What is emptiness other than willingness to be filled?

What sort of experience do you expect to live once you are enlightened? Over the course of your 10-year journey you left the world of polarities and experienced the state of oneness by (presumably) seeing how polarities are alike. There is no polarity to be pointed at to show you what enlightenment is. The more undifferentiated the world becomes, the more enlightened you are. The paradox is that noticing the progress of oneness is rooted in differentiation. To hinge on what enlightenment is, is to introduce fragmentation. In my personal opinion, the fact that you need to quench your thirst is enough evidence for being thirsty.

Hi @Sirius! Here is my advice: If you want to surround yourself with wise people to follow, then monastery may be a good idea. If you want to run away from your past - your past will follow you wherever you go. You won't run away from yourself. If you feel sick, your city will be a diseased one. If you feel fucked up, you will see that people are fucked up. You want to bury your past. That's radical. I advice you to sit on this idea for a few months and see if it sticks. You may feel like it couldn't possibly get any worse, but trust me - it always can. You know the suffering you're facing now - imagine swapping it for one that you don't know. When everything is truly meaningless, so is having meaning in life.

I would start by acknowledging the reason why I did it. Then, I would acknowledge how it made sense to do such a thing at the time. Lastly, seeing that I reject what I did at the time would hint to that I am a different person. If I rejected it back then, It wouldn't have happened. The only reason to willingly hurt others is that they reflect a part of you that you reject. Rejection of self is self-hurt, regardless of whether you lash out against yourself, or against others. Rejecting what you did only serves to perpetuate the cycle. Instead of hating yourself for your own stupidity, see yourself as your own victim. Don't be like people that want to murder the murderer.

@Ether No, not really. The world is a mirror, so is the art. All we see is a reflection of ourselves. What led me to the conclusion of author's disillusion is this fragment: The freedom entails possibility to become a slave. Either willingly, or ignorantly. What the author does in my opinion is to show us that once you look deep down into yourself - you see that all there is is society that is composed of individuals. That society is so intangibly insane that it doesn't even matter if you are insane by following it, or rejecting it. That the ultimate freedom lies in total conformity. After all, we are living in the society that promotes individualism. Isn't that crazy? To be normal is to be abnormal. Ha!

Beautiful. What I really like about it is that the author does not seem to be deluded into splitting the world into good and bad. The people in suits take the suits off when they return to their homes of cards.

Mastery of control is to know when to let go.

That's way easier to write than do, isn't it? All that is really happening is totally inexpressible. Once I write it down, it no longer is! This state of total presence is sometimes so agonizing that it really feels like you are trapped in the eternity of now When it comes to letting the ego play out - it is sometimes scary to think that the ego may play you. Don't get too caught up in that. Let it play you if it must and trust that you will wake up one day again. Being asleep is not THAT bad.

Ego is the phenomenon that localizes "you". You may be your body, you may be your mind, you may be your future or your past. The really sly thing is to identify yourself as awareness that supposedly does not identify with anything! Saying that you identify yourself as awareness is like saying that you attach yourself to non-attachment. By saying that, Ego antagonized itself and wants to get rid of an Ego! How is that supposed to work? How do you expect to let go if you hold on to letting go? Ego cannot run away from itself even if it sees itself as a problem.

No, I was just curious why should you mention my name here. Cool ?

Why?

You are not going to hear an honest answer to that question from a teacher. Teacher being me, your master, or @Faceless.

Isn't the "self" the greatest authority? The authority that tells to break from all others to attain freedom? The authority that tells to seek authorities to attain wisdom? One that is free does not fear enslavement, as freedom implies possibility to let oneself become a slave.

@Faceless It's very funny to speak of necessity of freedom. Freedom implies possibility to become unfree. @MarkusSweden "Ends" end with enlightenment.

@Ether Very strange. It's like coming to terms with uncertainty of existence by seeing that there is no reason to be certain of anything. It was a shift of perspective from: I know where I want to go, but don't know how and even if I did, I couldn't possibly execute that plan perfectly to get there. to I don't know where I am, so any path I take will take me to the exact same place. Too many things broke at once to say anything meaningful about it.

It all depends how you understand "practically". If you mean it as means to manipulate practical, everyday objects - there is none. You can't do anything new once you see the world as non-dual. If you mean psychologically, there is a vast difference. Once you see everything as part of yourself, you treat the world differently. Sure, you will die at one point, but you don't need to rely on heaven or hell to justify a "good" life. If you die - so be it. There is no need to fear death, or failure, as you embrace whatever happens.

"Norm" is the very same mechanism as "bias" and it is what we use to distinguish truth from false. It is a system of filters one applies to reality to "constrain" it and produce an illusion of control. Every conscious action can be viewed as a result of an (unconscious) bias, or norm. This illusion of control breaks down when one asks the question: "What norms are normal?", or to put it another way: "Which norms are good/true?". This cyclic dependency shows that logic cannot answer this questions and any norm is as valid as any other. For example: Is killing bad? Killing human beings must be bad, of course, unless we're defending something precious, like national identity. Is imprisonment bad? You can't imprison an unwilling person, unless he broke a law, or is declared insane by an expert and is a threat to the norm. Is stealing bad? Of course! Unless it is something that is rightfully ours, right? Even something as simple as self-expression can be seen as bias, as one may simply enjoy himself without presence or approval of other people. Even something as "accepting reality as it is" is a bias, as there is no reason to do so. Reason breaks down in real-world situations once one is willing to be honest with himself.

Coming back to your original definition, I think that there is agreement between us. There are no questions and answers, as what is gained by insight is space to make those. When one is ready to discard his simplifications of reality, he is open to look at what's left with more clarity and detachment. What I would add is that the process of thought is not fully experience-driven. Separate experiences are linked and the links are treated as something precious. As something to be expected in the present, or future. Care given to links distracts one from the present, as one tries to keep up with events that unfold and fit them into the expected scheme. This is ultimately grounded in distrust in ones ability to adapt. The Ego is scared, as it was hurt in the past. I think that the seeking is what heals the Ego. Not any specific path to Enlightenment, but the idea itself. The journey into the unknown with the intention to die. When one is completely ready to die, no links are necessary and the insight happens. This story, of course, is a link in itself.

Isn't wisdom enjoying things you need to do for your own good?

That is a difficult thing indeed. We sometimes even look back at our posts and see for ourselves that they didn't come off as we wanted them to . If I can't communicate what I think to myself, how am I supposed to communicate it to others? Haha What I came to realize is that there may be no end to illusions as we see no difference between them and reality. It may very well be what reality is made of. Ourselves! Deceiving ourselves that we are not making them up!