Consilience

Fair enough. Actually it’s not driven by hope. If one were to open up completely to the magnitude of collective suffering and logically examine how much more likely a life filled with significant amounts of suffering is compared to a life where one can be in a position to walk the spiritual path, hope in an afterlife is no longer tenable. It’s more like horror and deep appreciation for the preciousness of one’s current life. Anyways, my reasoning for there being rebirth comes from having direct experiences of past lives that held the same emotional tonality/familiarity of normal memory and therefore, ontologically, they would hold just as much authority as the reality of memory. In addition to these very palpable direct experiences, to think consciousness could not spontaneously appear again like it has for this life is a very odd argument (unless you’re a materialist). It already happened once, this is a data point. Why wouldn’t it happen again? What was the driving mechanism behind the spontaneous emergence of conscious experience appearing at all and why would this mechanism suddenly stop after the physical body dies? The logic holds no real power in my view. I already know conscious experience can appear, but I have no direct experience of consciousness permanently ending.

@VeganAwake what you’re describing is more like the nature of enlightenment, not what Im referring to in my post.

Anywhere from the next moment, to what occurs when the physical body completely decays and dies.

Or have arranged your life to be solely focused on contemplative practice. You pretty much need to monasticize you’re entire life and it will still take years. A lifetime even. However, the nice part about pushing manual practice to such an extreme is that it truly is good in beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end. Even if one were to fail at making it to the complete absolute, totally enlightened as though on 5MeO, their life would be exponentially more meaningful than what is “normal” AND, the training will have an impact on the karmic conditions driving one’s next life. Ie practicing hard in this life really helps in the future, and in future lives.

If you’re looking for a peak experiences that come and go, this. Otherwise, thousands of hours of meditation, working with teachers, meditation retreats. If you want even faster results, both simultaneously can be helpful.

I do. And that’s part of what makes this conversation so fucking wild. Regardless of the depth of my Awakening or lack thereof, it was Actualized.org that forced me to acknowledge myself as God. Please know you’ve made an impact and I would hate for you to lose hope for humanity because I’m being stubborn. This openness to the possibility of being God was perhaps the single most important gift I’ve ever received so even if I haven’t “got it” compared to what you teach now, the teachings have left a truly ineffable, permanent mark on my life and my life purpose. So thank you.

Touche. Btw, this entire paradigm Im speaking from is based on your teachings. - Regular meditation - quarterly retreats - radical openmindnedness - learning from multiple masters and teachers - self deception - recontextualization - not confusing content with structure - vision - direct experience is king - trusting my own authority - enlightenment being the most important discovery of my life All of the above I learned from you. And much more. If Im ever being a pain in the ass, you have only yourself to blame..

Your opinion of whether Im awake is as valuable as a transient God realized state. Im not writing responses to convince you or VeganAwake of anything. Nor am I claiming complete awakening. Im writing in hopes that those who read can see there’s another path beyond endlessly chasing states, and beyond falling into beliefs about enlightenment.

There is something beyond waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep and therefore independent of states. That is truth. Truth is not a state.

This is a great, well articulated response. It’s difficult to compare that which transcends states to the inquiry about which states are higher or lower, or which states are more wholesome or unwholesome, which definitely has its place in the spiritual awakening process.

You're still chasing states brother, spiritual materialism, unable or unwilling to see God in all, as God, completely and utterly. Truth runs across states in pure equilibrium, a Love that knows no limits or places any hierarchy on anything whatsoever. No state that passes and no orientation towards state chasing is it. Period. And yet here you are, deluding thousands, doing real damage to those who blindly follow. I don’t envy you or the mental gymnastics you’re caught in. Already everything includes the ignorance of the thusness of already everything. The irony is watching how the self clings so tightly to its belief that its enlightened, that it’s authentically seen the truth when the lack of clarity bleeds through the language and words. That’s part of the beauty of practicing. What need is there for things to be otherwise when this is already whole and complete? Why bother chasing after desires and pleasures which only propagate more suffering for the world when abiding in being is infinitely complete? There was never an individual to end, therefore no that’s not what Enlightenment is. Enlightenment is when the truth is realized, and finally, liberation. Part of the truth is such realization cannot occur for or by any individual, as there never was an individual. And yet realization is a genuine possibility and self activity still remains, and still has consequences. Exactly. This is the tragedy of the position you cling to. You think you’ve got it figured out. You think the truth can fit into this little box of beliefs. But it is so much more radical, incomprehensible, and simple than even this false simplicity. But what is THIS? When THIS is realized, truly be free. ❤️

You’re misunderstanding, deeply. It’s very clear your caught in delusion, based on these posts at least. You’re still trying to apply linear rationality to that which is totally beyond the intellect. Like I said, I wish you well on your path, and hope you can face both your life and your death with a sincere clarity about what is true.

They don’t claim to. They teach that which is beyond God Realization. Well, certain schools do. Not every school.

Truth is needed. And if what is true is that truth is not realized, then that is what‘s true and therefore truth is what’s needed. Deluding yourself has serious consequences, these consequences are seen particularly if rebirth is integrated and understood. And no, no one is reborn, yet life and suffering remaining until ignorance is actually uprooted. I wish you well on your path.

The Absolute is paradox.

That‘s a huge misconception. There is most certainly a path, and there is most certainly no one walking it. When this is seen, deeply, it is understood why we should keep walking.

Why do you think that? I havent looked into it actually. Im open to the possibility but as always, self deception is a huge risk.

This is not correct. Neo Advaita and the legitimate Buddhist contemplative path are incomparable. Infinite consciousness and God is discussed ad nauseam in Mahayana Buddhism. Look into the 10 stages of a Bodhisattva in the Avatamsaka Sutra. God realization is still not Awakening, real Awakening is so far beyond what this forum talks about it’s both hilarious and depressing to read. Real Awakening demands lifetimes, lifetimes, of practice and purification, both of which cannot be substituted with using psychedelics. At the moment of death, all of the past God realized states will be worth less than dust compared to the consequences of karma.

It‘s true, and yet actions, behaviors, and even thoughts of others do have consequences. When all beings are seen as one, one sees the gift of realization for another.

The point of awakening is true happiness, peace, love independent of phenomenological condition. This is not only the most precious gift you can give yourself, but it is the most precious gift you can give all beings.

@Breakingthewall And again, reference any enlightened master that didn’t have teachers.

That’s not how the successful teacher student relationship works. As you yourself mentioned, there is no other. So the teacher is merely lighting the latent possibility within yourself, reflecting back what is possible as both you and as no one at all. The teacher is a pure emptiness embodied, which is why they are trust worthy enough to teach. When there is no one behind the eyes of the guru, there is literally no one to give your authority over to, which is precisely why you can trust them! Finding the right teacher is difficult, often only appearing until the student is actually ready to wake up. You are not trustworthy unless you have complete integrity in the relative domain. Don’t confuse absolute trust with relative trust. Relative trust is the metric you can use to measure whether you’ve actually realized absolute trust. To truly trust, you must be completely fearless. To be completely fearless, you’d need to know what you are. To know what you are would mean you are awakened. Are you awake? Are you actually trustworthy, or are you just bullshitting yourself by conflating absolute and relative truths?

Finding the right teacher is almost a requirement to actually make it. Find any enlightened teacher that made it all alone. It’s true only YOU can become enlightened, but the support of a teacher or community is extremely powerful, especially given most minds are utterly untrustworthy, even minds that have the drive for awakening.

This is complete hubris This is complete bs

100%. There’s a video where he talks about a 2 month Mahasi retreat where there was a 4 hour strong determination sit everyday. Imagine 60 days, 4 hours of SDS. Unimaginable. Actually quite dangerous to the body, but still. The mind that comes out of those 2 months will be on a completely different level. Glorifying pain is not the objective, Buddha intentionally taught the middle way. But considering how much aversion the modern mind has towards pain, the modern mind that’s addicted to a myriad of endless pleasures, comforts, and distractions, working directly with pain is enormously powerful. No other teacher talks about how to work with pain strategically/effectively. The only other teachers I know who’s worked with pain like Shinzen are Soryu while he trained in Rinzai or Ralston through his martial study. The goal is not pain for the sake of pain, but learning the ultimately reality/nature of pain, which is done by paying attention to it, deeply, ie mindfulness.