DecemberFlower

Life is a dream from the point of awakened being.As you probably like 99 of people see yourself as an ego or separate entity apart from the world that dream is and feels very real to you.Like ordinary dream when you sleep feels very real until you awaken.Waking up from the dream of life means seeing through the illusion of the ego and seeing your true nature(Consciousness,Self). Ego is seen as unreal and life lived from its point of view seems now like a dream. Full awakening should be collapse of all duality including the duality of duality and non duality.

@winterknight Are you(you-The Self) conscious in deep(dreamless) sleep?

@winterknight What do you advise as a best way to talk with materialists when dealing with spiritual topics such as consciousness and awakening which most of these people consider woo woo nonsense?

That is the point of self inquiry...to dissolve mind in its source(awareness) When you find it "rest"or be that

@winterknight If awareness(Self) is always present why when i feel lethargic and tired it is really hard to notice it?

Thanks What would happen if person with multiple personality disorder tries to awaken..would he/she had to dissolve each of present egos? That always intrigued me

@winterknight While i was driving in bus and walking on street i started noticing how stuff moves including me(body) but if i stay as a awareness it always stays immovable and unchangable..is this a glimps into the Truth? Is it useful to do this as a form of walking meditation? I had a sense as if i enter into a timeless realm if i would have to describe it

There is no thinker of thought. There is no separate entity called the voice. The real you is awareness where thoughts occur.

Ok so in last few months while doing meditation or even in times when i dont but my mind is silent and consciouness is raised i can see a shadow figure appearing in my consciousness in my room. First i thought its just some perception in peripheral vision when i defocus my gaze but now i m sure that it happens only when my mind is silent enough and mindfulness and consciouness is at high level and yesterday when i was trying to become even more and more aware beeping noise started to happen which never happened before and i got scared and stopped with increasing awareness.So now am i really confused what is happening

Great explanation..thanks man

Depends how benevolent or useful spirit world is

Usually it creates it by mental chatter not like this

I know this might be just pointless speculation which doesnt make much difference to us but still for sake of my curiosity do you think animals might be enlightened?I mean most of them dont posses an ego and cant see themselves as separate individuals from rest of the world.Illusion of the ego doesnt need to be seen through and they live in a sense of going with the flow even though its instinctual.They dont worry about the future they dont regret of the past, they live in the now.

Well sure enlightened beings can experience moodiness but they dont resist present moment as it is..being enlightened doesnt mean life without "bad" emotions isnt it

Of course I m just realization didnt occur yet

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS -mankind has understood what consciousness is for over 5000 years(small percentage of people at least) -you know you are conscious but you are not conscious of what consciousness is -neuroscience cannot answear problem of consciousness cause neuroscience is occuring within consciousness -neuroscience assumes that consciousness is an epiphenomenon and not fundamental to reality -consciousness is fundamental and irreducible, more fundamental then atoms energy time space the universe brains even life -counterintuitive to materialist paradigm which is main obstacle to grasp it -consciousness is not emergent property of brain -only way to grasp consciousness is to become conscious of what consciousness is by having awakening experience -consciousness is not brain activity -consciousness is not reason or intellect -consciousness is not emergent phenomenon -consciousness is not biological or exclusive to life -not a subjective experience -not a perception -not a private thing what you own or have -not occuring within space and time -all this is assumed by materialistic science -consciousess is not a thing it is actually nothing but not in a way that it doesnt exist -consciousness is the only thing that it exist..existence itself existing as nothing..pure existence without content or attributes -consciousness is substance of everything everything is made of it -consciousness is emptiness it needs to be empty cause it has to be able to take on attributes of every possible thing -consciousness is not localized it is universal and universe can be compared to one giant mind instead of dumb collection of atoms and molecules -hard to assume for materialist cause it feels solid and consistent while minds are more "mystical and magical" even though reality itself always was magical but we got numbed and used to it -you are the universe that is conscious of itself and its thinking(through ego) that it is a human being separate from it -good analogy of consciousness is an infinite clay cause everything can be made of it except unlike clay consciousness doesnt have properties which doesnt limit it and they wont interfere with creation -we can call consciousness a shape shifting substance -consciousness is not software running on hardware(brain) instead consciousness is software which can run without using hardware -unsolved problem of mind-body how can dumb matter can give rise to mind its subjective experience and qualia -body is a feature of mind mind doesnt arise out of matter -nothingness is not dumb empty space its "alive" intelligent conscious of itself -distinction between first order and second order reality -dream paradigm-first order reality is mind space where dream is hapening and second order is content of dreams -tv paradigm-first order reality is pixels on the screen second order reality is things which pixels depict third order reality is story told by the movie made out of this things actors and dialogues in the same way first order reality is consciousness and second order reality are objects in the world made by consciousness and third order reality is "story" occuring in the world between things in it -consciousness cannot be pointed to cause it hold all the pointers -analogy of charachter of tv screen-can mario use his fingers to point at the pixels of the screen which he is made of?Obviously not. in the same way consciousness cannot be grasped by mind concepts or words cause all of it is in it -nobody can show you what consciousness is you can only become to be conscious of it..models will never work cause they are occuring within it

Consciousness is reality.Mind creates models(maps) trying to conceptualize reality.

No i m not attaching enlightenment to the ego..i understand ego is seen through as an illusion when enlightenment happens and there is no one who got enlightened

Yeah from the absolute perspective of the enlightened master but from point of view of a seeker who is not enlightened its different isnt it?

So someone who failed to realize enlightenment in life of this body mind doesnt have another chance?

Ego mind tendencies are existing in the brain and some of our personality traits and mind tendencies are highly genetically determined and correlated with certain neuron activities in the brain.So after this body and brain death what happens with ego tendencies if person has not yet stopped identifiying with them..do we reincarnate in another human body with brain similar as ours? I suppose we wouldnt get completely different mental tendencies

Good pointBut what happens if identification is not stopped in this life? Does ego(mind) tendencies continue after this body life?

Well someone can have an ego death like plenty people probably had on psychedelics or consistent self inquiry but ego later returns and it surely didnt faded away.And some spiritual teachers like Rupert Spira say that even after full liberation or enlightenment there are leftover ego tendencies or mental habits which wont go away immediately.There wont be any more identification with them but they will still remain for some time

The bigger question to me is what happens with our minds after death..ok body will die and consciousness has no beginning and no end but mind is tricky to me..cause some parts of mind are in my opinion genetic like some personality traits and some are habits of thinking which are partially based on genetics also but also our environment and conditioning..

From what i understand Leo and others who teach enlightement say that life and death is an illusion and consciousness is eternal with no beginning and no end so how can something which hasnt been born die..life and death of body is another story..i guess our body is just a vessel for consciousness in this life.And if our essence really is consciousness then we really are immortal..we just need to realize thatYou need to question materialism philosophy which is underneath what current science operates