Consilience

This entire reply really illuminates how tricky identification with ego/sense of self can be. There’s an entire self fabricated out of this neo advaita like philosophy you preach on the forum. In actuality, the ego doesn’t want to meditate, or find truth. It thinks it does, until truth starts “finding” the ego, at which point the path is like a gravity well pulling in on itself without control or without the ability for this process to stop. At that point, the work begins to grow like an acorn growing into a tree, completely naturally. There is no choice but to continue. In actuality, the ego loves avoiding responsibility and work. It loves telling stories about how awake it is, about how it’s liberated and sees selflessness. This is the common mark of spiritual ego, a fragile state and trap indeed. Pray life never tests your “realization.” In actuality, this is a conceptual movement of mind from a mind too untrained to notice, a mind too caught in conceptual falsehood to see the lack of depth to its realization. Perhaps not the case for *you* specifically, but a common trap from those caught in the sales pitch of Neo Advaita. The real irony from this whole Neo Advaita movement is there is something to find, something so profound and subtle it could never be communicated. There is something available that can be discovered. For those that have discovered it, it is self-evident, selfless, and seen as that which is truly sacred about life.

This would only happen with very poor meditation instructions, very poor effort, no teacher or community, and no real consistent extended retreat practice. As one develops their practice, these things naturally align. I have no clue where this idea that one could meditate for 40 years and nothing happens comes from on this forum. No idea where this attraction to polar ends of the spectrum on this forum come from either: 1) Meditation is useless - Psychedelics are the way 2) Meditation is useless - THIS is it. Meditation is just ego. Interesting how both diminish the value of sitting. There's pretty much 2 premises one needs to start with to understand meditation as a path to Enlightenment. If you don't accept these premises, you're screwed. 1) Reality has the capacity to shroud itself in illusion and ignorance. - In its infinite capacity, it has the capacity for existential self-deception. 2) Reality can be seen more clearly through paying attention. - As magical as this may seem, if we pay attention, we understand more deeply; you don't accept this, again you're screwed. Craving, aversion, and attachment push and pull on perception, creating this mirage and illusion. Craving, aversion, and attachment are how perception *appears* when one's mind and by extension, infinite consciousness, doesn't have the capacity to deeply pay attention. Perception appears to fight with itself due to a lack of existential clarity. The great news is we can train ourselves, or rather, consciousness can begin to pay attention. As it pays attention, Truth is revealed. As Truth is revealed through this purification or cultivation of perceptual non-interference, suffering is uprooted and an underlying happiness, the only invulnerable form of happiness (spoiler - it's formless), is seen. The paradox is that this Truth was always so, hence why it is THE TRUTH. Yet, this Truth is so grandiose, so infinite, so paradoxically twisted, it even has the capacity to appear as not truth. Meditation is simply the path by which we're revealing what has already been so, a clear seeing through all delusional movements of mind. If you think you're work is complete, you're living a very privileged, comfortable, life. If the harshness of reality were to reveal itself, the Neo Advaitan would crumble. One's capacity for suffering is a true mark of how much one is actually conscious of truth. Meditation is the path by which this fundamental conundrum is no only uprooted, but by which one's mind is transparent enough for consciousness to awaken to itself.

“If you don’t seek an invitation to hell, never slander the Tathagata’s teaching.” - Shodoka, Song of Awakening Buddha’s Zen Buddha said: "I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes. I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil on my foot. I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians. I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one's eyes. I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, Nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons." - Zen Flesh, Zen Bones The Neo Advaita message and “enlightenment” is pathetically half backed compared to true Liberation, true Freedom, true Enlightenment. The nothing and non-message of a Zen master is in an entirely other dimension compared to “Uncompromising Non-duality,” which is just fast food for the spiritual ego eager to cling to false attainments, and partial awakenings. The conceptual map may sound so good, but to truly embody what is being pointed towards takes relentless purification of mind and authentic awakening, both of which don’t happen mentally masturbating to “non-messages.” So many traps, so many traps. As one develops in their practice, it starts to become increasingly obvious who’s the real deal. Ive yet to find any of these Neo Advaita teachers who is. Bottom line - keep going ?

Rest in peace https://youtu.be/WuepYo3dRa8

I recently made this video for my YouTube channel. I know self promotion is a tricky line here on the forum. I typically keep my content to myself and personal social media channels, but this one felt appropriate for the forum. This is a community I am apart of and I personally think there are more people here that would benefit from this message than any of my other social medias like Facebook or Instagram. I wanted to share not from a space of self-promotion, but because I genuinely believe in this message. I believe in the rippling effect that would occur if more people understand the cascading qualities of serious contemplative practice (meditation) and its place with supporting humanity. Overall, this video and post come from the "relative" domain; i.e. this isn't an absolute perspective. But from a relative point of view, the planet is dying and there are still countless sentient beings suffering. This video and my decision to join a monastic training environment stems from this recognition and at risk of sounding egoic, stems from a compassion that acknowledges the unity of the second noble truth - there is suffering. Below is what I've posted on other platforms. If you're interested in discussing anything or have questions, I'd be happy to respond. - I don’t typically “believe” in much. But one thing I wholeheartedly believe in is the mass adoption of meditation would serve humanity’s collective flourishing. There are a growing number of existential risks we will be facing in the 21st century - Climate change, a mass extinction event, A.I., gene editing, horrible wealth inequality, bioweapons, drone warfare technologies, etc. Though our technological development is at an unprecedented peak, our collective capacity for compassion is severely lagging behind. Humanity doesn’t lack knowledge, technology, or intelligence for solving the many problems of our planet. We lack wisdom and compassion. Meditation, when practiced consistently and across a lifetime, facilitates these domains of human development to a radical degree. So again, though I don’t “believe” in much, it is it is my firm and unapologetic belief that wide-scale adoption of this practice would benefit Earth and all of her inhabitants. I believe that the mass adaption of meditation practice can dramatically support our collective flourishing both personally and collectively by providing a space for the effective responding to these growing existential risks. If you’re interested in this topic and why I’m going into monastic training environment, check out the video.

@happyhappy @BipolarGrowth @ardacigin Thank you ❤️

Really interesting. Thank you so much for sharing, and again just thank you for sharing your experiences with this post’s detailed responses.

Thank you man! ? Yes thank you for pointing it out. It feels like most everyone is in denial about how bad things are getting, mainly because it hasn’t stressed our societal infrastructure enough. But the effects are slowly seeping in. That’s really cool. If you have to calling Id highly recommend! Keep the forum posted if you find someplace ? And thank you for the support ??❤️

I know because of my personal experience with rigorous meditation. I wish I could communicate how radically my baseline state of being has shifted from before starting on the path to now. It’s utterly beautiful how much life has transformed and Im continually blown away by how deep meditation is. Every time I sit down it feels like Im microdosing on psychedelics, often times it feels stronger than a microdose. But this has only come after very intense practice. How do I know? By reflecting on my own experience. I mean seeking without the attachment of finding any answers. The joy of curiosity and the path is not in the breakthroughs, but with the pursuit of the path itself. For example, the hours upon hours one spends in meditation wont lead to breakthroughs or insights. Insights do arise but are the overwhelming minority. Yet those hours we spend will be some of the most fulfilling in our lives. Once it’s recognized there is no one actually seeking, the energy of seeking can fully flower in a relaxed, spontaneous, and powerful way. This seeking comes from the detachment of being anyone or anything at all. The belief in a separate self is what creates the contraction around seeking that some spiritual communities criticize. Something valuable is lost if one prematurely stops before full enlightenment. I can’t communicate what is lost. The only way you’d truly know is by gaining that which cannot be gained, attaining that which was always so, and contrasting its significance in your own experience. If your decision feels authentic, then don’t let me dissuade you. No judgements persay and certainly no fear. Ive just seen this type of rationale before. The possibility for self-deception and avoiding the work is rampant in many. But also, practice, the work, the path all have contractive periods. Sometimes we must contract before we expand. Sometimes an entire life is one of contraction. Im not saying that’s the case here, just sharing thoughts.

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I'm saying there's a difference between conceptually believing what your original post is talking about, and realizing it in one's own experience, assuming it's even true. The conceptualization of spiritual insight is what leads to nihilistic responses. Directly realizing these things leads to liberation from suffering. If we are still suffering as a result of a spiritual insight, there is still craving/aversion going on somewhere in experience, which is essentially the bottom most level of what creates the sense of separation, ie creates the sense of a separate self. The difference would be meditation is leading towards purification and embodied insight, whereas going about on autopilot may not be liberating. It takes a high level of mindfulness for the activities of daily life to start liberating one's view of reality into the objectivity of existential insight. It can be done yes, you are correct. But usually this takes an enormous front end amount of meditation practice and levels of mastery I doubt anyone on this forum has. To really answer your own question would require meditating all day and then comparing that with just living normally on autopilot. If you're serious about exploring the potential of meditation and what meditating all day is actually like/how the mind responds to such a practice, I recommend going to a meditation retreat with a teacher you resonate with.

@integration journey I've only done 1 and it was 14 days. Extremely intense work but stupid effective but also stupid difficult... I don't really think it would have been as effective online. Part of the transformative process was sitting in the presence of another face to face. Staring into another's eyes like that is extremely opening and transformative in its own way. I feel that some of the "juice" would be missing if it was online. That said, I've attended multiple meditation retreats online all of which have been phenomenal. I believe because meditation is more of a personal journey than the CCE's during a E.I., it goes more smoothly online.

This seems really conceptual. You’ve seen enough to intuitively know? Conceptually intuiting these things is distinct from directly experiencing them. For the ego mind, yes these “insights” will feel dark and scary. But when their actuality is realized, there is no ego to interpret the realizations as dark or scary. Therefore, the possibility for happiness independent of conditions is there. Id recommend more serious meditation, listen/learn from actual masters (Samanari Jayasara Wisdom of the Masters YouTube channel is a great resource), and be weary of the ego turning psychedelic breakthroughs into beliefs. Peter Ralston calls this the Lava Syndrome. Turning breakthroughs into beliefs.

This ^^ A couple of points - Whether reaching the thoughtless state is necessary or unnecessary I cannot say. Im simply pointing towards an insight into the nature of thoughts that can be described as a stillness that is more absolute than the transient movements of mind. - I am not afraid of attempting to still the mind, Ive done it many times in meditation and have failed many times in meditation. Thoughts always return. A still mind can be very powerful for purification and insight, but is not always necessary. - Yes self inquiry will silence the mind eventually. Ive had experiences with such deep self inquiry the entire self structure has collapsed into a void of infinity where there is no longer the psychological ground for thought to exist. Yet thoughts return. The goal of self inquiry is not to silence the mind, though that can happen. The goal of self inquiry is to become conscious of the nature of self - this nature is true even in states of mental stillness or activity.

Thank you man Ill keep everyone posted for sure

Well I'm not claiming enlightenment nor do I ascribe to the Neo-Advaita perspective. What I'm pointing at is the stillness out of which thoughts arise. When this stillness is palpably experienced, it doesn't actually matter whether thoughts are active. This IS NOT the same as being addicted to thinking. Thoughts arise spontaneously due to karma. There's a saying from the book Wu Hsin along the lines of permanently attempting to still the mind would akin to trying to stop grass from growing by screaming at it. It's foolish. There's a vital difference between being addicted to thinking, and recognizing the origins of thinking as thoughts arise. There is no "I" to control whether the mind is active, but there can be a palpable awareness of the stillness within the literal substance of thought. And as @Shambhu pointed out, this is a truer stillness than the gross mental activity of mind. Furthermore, as one deepens their practice, it will be seen that there are layers of mind activity that are going on even as the surface manifestation of mind is "still." It's crucial to begin recognizing the nature of mind rather than getting lost in its content. Typically this is easier to do when the mind is still, as Ramana points out. But ultimately, the insight can occur without such stilling with enough metacognitive awareness, as defined in the book "The Mind Illuminated".

Lmao. Keep fighting the good fight @Salvijus Yeah @Sugarcoat this post is potentially a HUGE trap on the path. Tread carefully. For those reading, know there is most certainly progress, attainments, and radical transformations available for those who persist with their practice. The goal should be striving and seeking from a position of infinite detachment, imo.

True stillness is recognizing the stillness within thoughts, the silence within sounds, the space within physical objects.. Recognizing THAT stillness is way more satisfying than a still mind. I would describing it as a formless womb that is in a perpetual state of creation, moment by moment big bangs birthing the arising and passing of all experiences, all sensations, all form. To tap into this stillness/silence/space is like going home.

yes it is possible to have genuine insights that haven't fully sunk in yet. That's pretty much the mechanism with psychedelic breakthroughs. I think to some extent we're all bullshitting ourselves, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just being aware of the possibility and taking it seriously is a huge step towards bullshitting less. My advice would be explore different techniques, find a technique or techniques that resonate more deeply. I'd also recommend meditating in intervals and switching techniques up mid sit to add novelty. For example: 60 minute sit: 0 - 20 minutes: TMI Mindful Breathing 20 - 40 minutes: Vipassana See Hear Feel 40 - 60 minutes: Silent Illumination/Do Nothing The increased novelty not only helps settle the emotional stress of sitting and essentially doing nothing for 60 minutes, but we're actually also training different parts of the mind with different techniques. A double win! But yes, sometimes there's a place for just diving into a long sit without any intervals or technique changes at all, facing the void of time breaking down and not knowing how much longer the sit is, returning to our object of focus. But there's also a place for supporting ourselves, and being gentler with our approach. Yeah that feeling better/worse simultaneously is pretty indicative of the process of purification taking place. The mind is literally burning through its bullshit, which is both cathartic, but also painful. Kinda like how when we workout, our bodies are experiencing pain but we also feel really great. However, if we overdo it, we end up just crashing and burning physically, sometimes injuring ourselves. We feel worse even though exercise can make us healthier. It's a similar dynamic with meditation. Because meditation is a practice partially aimed at purification, we should expect the purifying process to get a bit painful at times; if we overdo it we can end up just feeling worse. With patience, persistence, compassion though, we not only begin to increase our tolerance for this purification process, but we begin to acquire a taste for it as well - we literally can begin to enjoy how the mind is, in a sense, burning up as we sit down to practice. Once the taste for purification is acquired or as we begin cultivating the taste for it overtime, our "progress" with practice begins to really speed up.

Love your posts Arda! Thank you for your contributions to the forum man. ? This tends to be my default technique with SDS, but mainly because the pain eventually gets to a point where all pleasure and positive sensation production just stops functioning… All that I can do is surrender to the pain. However, what happens is my mind will go through cycles where equanimity slowly starts ramping up, eventually enough sensory clarity of the pain occurs where I begin perceiving the arising and passing nature of the momentary sensations, which seems to “unhook” the aversion - there’s no longer any sensations for the aversion to hook onto because the individual sensations are too transient for the mind to attach. Then the pain usually reaches new levels, and the cycle starts over from a new starting point both with the equanimity and the pain. However, this is probably an indicator that my samatha skills are lacking… lol. And furthermore, this is unreliable. It seems rather random whether that level of mindfulness actually unfolds in an individual sds sit. On the other hand, Ive been able to perceive what shinzen calls “the taste of purification” even when surface level mindfulness seems low. I can tell any sds sit is deeply productive regardless of how much suffering is present. I believe this is only possible because of being more of an intermediate meditator, I do not think an overtly painful sds sitting would be productive for a beginner. A sufficient level of of metacognitive awareness seems necessary before sds can be productively explored. A metacognitive awareness that can skillfully ride the highs and lows of the mind, so to speak. Great job with the 3 hour sit! The only time I attempted a 3 hour sds I wasn’t able to not move and felt like I was traveling into hell realms… lol. The only reason I was able to finish just the sitting part was I was with a meditation group.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be on your channel man ? You're a great interviewer and I'd love to listen to further conversations if you plan on doing more podcast styles in the future. Your normal video graphic content and essays are also really great.

That's one one to frame it for sure. Awakening to what one is can also be quite mystical and becoming conscious of the nature of physical reality is an awakening when the lack of separation between physical reality and self is seen.

One useful way to frame spiritual bypassing is when conceptualization, beliefs, and unconscious mechanisms of the ego mind have co-opted deep, existential insights as new forms of self activity. This can commonly manifests as the dogmatic position in the whole "there is no one here and nothing to do! This is it!" type of attitude we see in the Neo Advaita movement. Other common forms are the new age belief systems around spirituality and "oneness." When the ego co-ops these positions, the outward manifestation of mind and body are not actually aligned with authentic realization, but instead, still caught in the dream, but a pernicious version because of how sneaky it is. We think we're being spiritual, but the ego has simply manipulated the insights to fit its new survival agenda, all the while what we actually are is still unconscious to itself. The biggest danger is never having actually aligned with our highest desire, which is to self-unity, become conscious of what we actually are. The danger is particularly bad in the examples I've listed because the ego truly believes it's "got it" but the truth remains hidden. The work is falsely seen to be done, or the ego thinks itself much more advanced than it actually is. Thinking one is awakened while not actually being awake is tragic, really. Usually it's only seen in hindsight, once one has had legitimate breakthroughs and can examine retroactively. Clarity clears ignorance. Consistent meditation - meditation is like a bullshit detector. If meditating for long periods of time causes suffering, that's an immediate indicator you have not unraveled the mystery of self. You want to have so much conviction in your insight, you can look death in the eyes and smile. Cannot emphasize enough how important and how simultaneously grounding and mind blowing rigorous meditation is, especially long term and especially for helping us avoid spiritual ego. Nothing like a good strong determination sit to humble the ego, but usually much less intensity is required. One of Leo's old vlogs talks about the importance of doing quarterly meditation retreats. I wouldn't say that frequently is necessary; quarterly is pretty extreme. However, doing at least one retreat per year is also really powerful and making sure our insights are grounded in experience, rather than belief. Understanding the mechanism and extent of self deception. Leo's video series on this is insanely powerful and underrated, imo. Adopting principles such as - Integrity, honesty, humility, persistence, gratitude, patience Values such as - truth, love, self-actualization, wisdom, harmony Be extremely weary of those who promote or demonize spiritual practice. There is certainly wisdom in the "This is it!" perspective, but in my experience, most of these individual's level of awakening is shallow. After a certain degree of awakening, one begins to see when someone is bullshitting, and when one is authentic. Kinda like how it's obvious who's a virgin and who's not... The presence of a truly awakened being is radically more powerful than, for example, the myriad of Neo Advaita or New Age YouTubers out there. However, detecting this subtle transmission is usually only available once one has had legitimate breakthroughs.

Right here: “Best psychedelic for the next level? Even though I love meditation, psychedelics are what I need for the next level.” Was this interpretation wrong? All Im asking is do you think meditation doesn’t take you to this “next level”? By all means, explore psychedelics!

You think meditation doesn’t do this?