tsuki

Then you have not experienced what I'm talking about and thinking will not get you anywhere closer to what you are looking for. I understand how this seems backwards, but truth has no regard for our narrow-mindedness. This is a good starting point for a deeper trip. These are all valid questions, but they can only be answered from direct experience and not from hearsay, so I will refrain from answering them for you. What would you do if you truly were complete and not lacking anything? Would it be possible for you to be anything other than love itself? Open up to the consequences of fullness of God. This is hearsay for you and it is demonstrably false. What the body is, other than a contraction in consciousness? It is literally a concept in the universal mind. "Shoulds" are within the relative domain and arise from the person, the purpose of which is to persist. What you are presenting here with this question is a false alternative. These two options are not contradictory.

@Nthnl The idea that you need a reason to not do something comes into the picture when reason to do it exists, and yet, is rejected. Instead of looking for counter-reasons, I'd suggest investigating why would you want to commit acts that are conventionally considered immoral in the first place. When you investigate deeply into this matter, there are none. In fact, reasons for violence exist only because you are not investigating them deeply enough. When the person is an illusion, killing the person does not free it from illusion. It simply kills the person. What is pointed at is that you are not the person. It does not imply that the person should be disposed of as trash, killed, or belittled. The person feels, thinks, breathes, has hopes and aspirations, and a purpose. Why would you ever want to stop that? You cannot love anything other than the dream, for reality itself is love and is your true nature.

That won't happen if your're not willing to let beliefs go @PurpleTree . Just experience the fact that you don't really know all of the things that you want to believe in. Don't think "I don't know". Experience it. Wake up.

What do you truly want from this conversation? It seems to me that you are aware of the fact that there's a lot of things that you don't know and are trying to fill these gaps by believing things that I say. Do you think that it will ever satisfy you? Watching other people achieve the things that you want for yourself?

It seems like you would enjoy that, so why don't you go ahead and commit to mastering it?

You as pure consciousness have no purpose, you are already complete and fulfilled. That is why you created separation and clouded your view of yourself, so that you can experience yourself. This is the point of the person. It is to expand the contraction of consciousness that you are and experience yourself more fully until you die. Death is absolute truth that is experienced as astonishing perfection and life is a dream that you create by choosing what you experience and master (how you expand). You are totally free to do either because there is no escape from love, your true nature.

Beliefs keep you stuck in the dream. What is the truth?

Expansion of consciousness is always inclusive, it never removes anything. The dream is still here, but it is seen through as entertainment. There is no point in manipulating the dream other than making way for truth. I've had experiences and the person is open.

You keep asking this question and the answer is still the same: the question is nonsensical. Matter is a concept. The thing that you think that you are is a concept. When there is no matter and no you, who is there to manipulate anything? Enlightenment is a concept until it isn't. Then it simply is itself.

It seems to me like you don't know what concepts are. Do you?

Matter is a concept. When you let go of concepts, what is there to manipulate?

"People" are never enlightened. What people learn during awakening is to make way for the truth. When they do, enlightenment simply is, prior to all that. You are confusing the true mind with the false, personal, mind.

Sounds like they (and you) use "new-age" as a label that disregards something that is being communicated by someone. When you see this, there is not much point in dwelling on it.

@Raven1998 read Surangama sutra. The chapter called "Wiping Out the Five Aggregates & Eight Consciousnesses to Expose the Unreality of Ego" answers your question.

I'd expect academics to be close-minded in these matters, but studying late Jung may be of help. When it comes to regular psychotherapy, I'm perfectly capable of talking about my awakenings with my therapist and she is able to recognize that changes are positive.

Isolation is conducive for looking into your depth, but it is easy to delude yourself and develop megalomania. True friendships are a good counterbalance to that because it is trivial to see blind spots of others, while it takes true openness to hear about yours. When you establish a trusting, honest relationship with another person, literal magic happens.

Seeing the truth and manifesting in accordance with it.

Probably the most important song of my life: I once decided to familiarize myself with Hendrix' music and downloaded his whole discography. I started to listen to the whole playlist and fell asleep. This is the song that woke me up and I was like "what the hell is this?". It grew on me over the years and I now consider it to be the most important song that I ever discovered. Too bad it gets shut down quickly every time it gets posted on youtube.

Dear diary, I've been going through a lot of stuff lately and I'm not exactly sure what is going on with me. During my last therapy session I understood that my father never loved me. I clearly saw that for myself, without believing anybody, but I didn't feel it. As I was writing that sentence, my eyes teared up for the first time because of it. During the weekend, I was desperately trying to hold on to various identities that I made for myself, but I felt empty and none of them fit really well. I understood that I don't know who I am, but didn't feel it. "Coincidentally" I picked up Peter Ralston's "The book of not knowing" and as I was reading through it, I experienced that I don't know what the I-concept means. It was completely hollow. It was a word that did not relate to anything that I could find. I recognized it to be the exact same state I was when I had my first awakening, after experiencing Heidegger's "Being and Time". The feeling is something distinct from anything I experience in my everyday way of being. It was simply wakefulness, openness, everything was not-it, fresh, new, unexplored. It was somewhat similar to tripping. I was exhilarated because this time, I experienced it consciously, as something I participated in. I did it, as something that I just remembered to do. I worked on the state of not-knowing for the rest of the week, and was able to sustain it (with varying success) for whole days. Mornings are the most difficult for me and I don't understand why. I have this association that the bodily sleep is the opposite of wakefulness of not-knowing, but I am not clear about what the body is, so it generates a lot of turmoil when I'm trying to overcome it. My wife also had a crazy week, networking for her upcoming business. She had a very unpleasant encounter with a business coach which was very draining on her. When I came home that day and listened to what she had experienced, I recognized the coaches' narcissistic behavior immediately and started unmasking it before my wife, connecting it with various narcissists she encountered. I also heard a story about a shady coach from my physiotherapist the next day and connected the two. Today, in the morning I started to suspect that my true self is the absolute truth, but I was not able to say this to my wife out loud. I only said that I can't say it because it sounds like heresy. We talked about these coaches and I unraveled narcissism before her, as absolute truth. We started talking about the trouble we had in our marriage and how I was creating it. After that, I experienced a lot of turmoil because the emotions relating to my father started surfacing and the story that I'm writing started to have cohesion. I started conflating narcissism with absolute truth and feeling sorry for having my conceptual self dead for the whole week. I feel that it's important to write that this story may sound very clear, but it only came about just now, as I was writing it. It all unfolded without my understanding. With love (to my conceptual self), I

"Surrendering" is a very misleading word. A better one is "presence", or "wakefulness", or "being alert". The gateway is through not-knowing.

My purpose here is to have my beliefs concerning my enlightenment confirmed. This is not what I want to do right now so I will be taking a break.

That is because you are not experiencing the things that your thoughts express. You are merely "having thoughts" about things and not "experiencing" them. Bring to your attention anything that is familiar to you, let's say, that girl you were dating. What do you truly know about her? When you are merely having thoughts about her, you are bringing about the things that you either believed to be true, or imagining things that you could have learned from her given enough time. Alternatively, you might have invented some new things and taken them for true. What you are not doing is, really experiencing what is true, absolutely, directly, with no concepts. You are not present to her beyond any knowledge or facts. There is a whole domain that is beyond knowledge that is sometimes called presence, or being. This is not about her, specifically, this can be seen in any aspect of life, for example - yourself. What do you really know about you? What are you prior to any beliefs? Can you be present to yourself? Don't get me wrong, you are not special in being deficient. Most people can't truly "be", even the ones that give this advice. Most of them don't truly understand/experience what it means to really be present. "The Book of Not Knowing" by Peter Ralston dives deeply into this subject, I highly recommend it. What is "over"-thinking? You are picking these labels from people and getting worried without seeing what is being said. What it truly means to overthink, to you? What do you truly know about that?

Choosing like what? Snap of the fingers and boom, fear/anger/etc? No, not really. Peter Ralston seems to say that it is possible though. How is that not having control over your emotions? You just have to think and act the right way! "Right" being the way that feels good . Bravo! You are a quick learner! You are being needy when you want others to regulate your emotions. You can take responsibility for them yourself! Just see the baby and get it what it really needs.

I had a difficult therapy session yesterday. Some turmoil is coming up today and I'm not sure who I am. I will be taking a break from the forum for the weekend and possibly longer. I need to ground myself and understand the need that I'm trying to satisfy here.

I'm sensing a curveball here, but I will do my best to clear things up This idea that you are somehow smarter than your body, so that you know better what you are supposed to do right now, is false. Once you start practicing feeling into your body and truly understanding yourself, your need to invent mental crutches such as this will lessen. It will feel good to learn things when they will interest you. It will feel good to exercise when you will need it. It will feel good to work because you get to express yourself. It is exactly right - if you played all the time, you would not do any work, but who said that these things are mutually exclusive? Ultimately, it all boils down to false stories, but uncovering them starts with feeling. Look at this way. You have a sense of touch with which you can feel shape. You have a sense of sound, which adds direction. You have the sense of taste that tells you the food you need. You have the sense of sight that can tell things that lie ahead. Then, you have reason that creates past and future. But all of these relate to the shared space we conventionally call "objective". There is another sense, which is the sense of self that allows you to perceive, well, yourself. Emotions are your sense of self. Only wanting to feel good feelings in life is like always wanting to see things that are red, or hearing things that have high pitch. It is ridiculous if you think about it. What you want is to see things that are really there so that you can see a car that will hit you. The same applies to emotions. You want to experience what is really there, so that you truly know what you are. Emotions do not arise in response to something that happens to you, so chasing things that make you feel good will never work. You are creating your emotions. Right now, they are hoisted by the circus trainer as a whip to get you through the day with minimal effort. It tells you things that feel awful so that you have no strength to oppose him. Start choosing your thoughts deliberately by feeling which thoughts are right for you. What I'm advising is: think about what needy really means. Right now, it probably does not mean much to you. It probably means: stop being this way, you are not okay. And I bet that it feels awful. Focus on this word and try to find its true meaning. Not just any meaning. Try to be honest and find what it means so that it does not feel this awful to be needy. This may sound like a big task, but it is important.