Michael Paul

@Nahm We can know what our desires are. We just can’t choose them, because all choice is governed initially by desire (doesn’t matter if it’s conscious or unconscious). This would include any hypothetical choice of desire. If you were going to choose your desires, first comes the desire to have that specific desire. It doesn’t matter whether these desires are unconscious or consciously known, and most desire seems to be unconscious at face value. @Synchronicity True free will, the way libertarians (the philosophical school, not political ideology) generally pose it to people, would require a will alien to us (as beings influenced by undeniable causes outside of our conscious control). This will would not even necessarily appear to us to be our own will... we would be acting against our desires for no reason. Even this description is hypothetical, because free will is a nonstarter that doesn’t actually exist, hence why there are numerous definitions of free will. It’s hard to define something that is not a real part of our experience and does not exist.

Over the past several months I’ve been going in and out of understanding and awakening. It’s like I have these profound insights into the nature of Love and reality then completely lose touch with it, only to quickly regain consciousness of it. Several days later. How can I make awakening more stable? Is this common ego backlash? This is a very jarring and confusing process.

@Temo Mystical experiences tend to open up your so-called “psychic channels” which allow you to understand reality conceptually and nonconceptually (beyond the mind and ego). Hallucination typically distracts one from finding deeper truths about reality and instead leads them down a deluded path of egoism.

The ultimate surrender to the Self is the surrendering of your personal will as a body-mind-ego complex. This means that the God/Self’s Will will be done through you permanently, and your ego finally steps aside to allow the Godhead (which we all are) to operate through the body-mind organism. This can only be accomplished through Grace, which means that it will only happen if the Self allows it to happen. But when you experience this ultimate surrender, you simultaneously realize that the God/Self’s Will has always been done through you —you never actually had control as an ego. Of course, you as the Self have total control. But the body-mind-ego does not.

@Jkris It’s more of a pointer toward the realization that you don’t actually have a personal will in the first place. Of course there is no “you” (at least not as a separate self) who surrenders anything, the surrender happens through the real Self’s grace. @WelcometoReality Yes, exactly. I find it hard to convey some of these concepts through language, but that’s ultimately correct. The Self controls the surrender, Self being existence beyond ego.

@MuddyBoots The Self will guide you through the trials and tribulations you face in your human life. You just gotta trust that whatever happens is for the best of not only you as an individual ego, but “everyone and everything else”. Struggles still happen after enlightenment, but you are no longer attached to the outcome of your thoughts and actions.

@SoonHei The actor and the director are the same being experiencing life through different egos, and they don’t control anything from their vantage point in waking consciousness. Only on a higher plane of existence... ?

@AlphaAbundance No, it solves many of your problems on a spiritual level. But you still have to integrate the enlightened state into your life in the world and actualized your potential as a human being on the planet. You can still feel prideful and esteemed after enlightenment, the difference is you no longer identify with it nor do you feel as attached to it.

@AlphaAbundance Enlightenment gives peace of mind, but it doesn’t (immediately) solve all of your Earthly problems as a human organism. You don’t lose anything with enlightenment, that’s a misconception. What you gain is liberation from the illusion of doership and the misunderstanding of and misidentification with the ego.

@MAYA EL Ego is the identification mechanism with the totality of the body-mind system. You cannot get rid of the ego, that’s not what I was talking about. It’s still “there”, but you realize the Self beyond all identification with an individual organism-mind.

A few years ago I was doing some esoteric studies and came across this article from the Summit Lighthouse: https://www.summitlighthouse.org/purpose-of-resurrections-flame/ When I meditated on what they call the Resurrection Flame, I felt this overpoweringly Divine presence that balanced consciousness. It felt like I had found a sacred artifact in a video game or something. I highly recommend meditating on the Resurrection Flame, which is one of the Seven Sacred Flames. I think it’s real based off of personal experience.

Very important insight, good work! I just posted a topic similar to this, talking about surrendering the illusion of personal will. It just expands upon the details of surrender.

There is a limitation to the human experience, even in the highest states of enlightenment possible for the most spiritual of us to reach. There are simply things that no one can actually know while experiencing life through a human body. That being said, you can have glimpses of transcendental reality while alive in the human form, but to go beyond a certain point and be permanently enmeshed in these states is not (currently) possible. You can experience the One Self (God-Self) as literally all of existence in all dimensions, all forms, etc. You can realize this. What you can’t do is break free from the ultimate limitations placed on human consciousness permanently. They’re there for a reason. Attempting to do this will drive you legitimately insane.

@Neph It’s an unlisted video on YouTube, you have to click the link in the description if you want to watch it. It just takes you to the Sat Yoga website.

@CreamCat I like the metaphor used in this video because, well, what is gambling? It’s a game. It makes you see life as a huge game full of smaller games that ultimately benefit the whole.

@Wow You’re welcome! This is my favorite video on the internet right now.

@Consilience Powerful insight, beautifully articulated. I’ve recently realized pretty much the exact same thing. Something I recommend meditating upon is, “what in me is unborn? What am I prior to the birth of this body?” You will soon realize you were (and still are) pure, undifferentiated Love and Light, which is being.

@Jed Vassallo Speaking as someone diagnosed with Bipolar 1 Disorder... very bad idea. He shouldn’t even be drinking or smoking pot, let alone dabbling in the most powerful psychedelics known to man. They could severely destabilize his mind and cause him to go into a manic-psychotic state that he may never recover from. I’ve done moderate dosages of mushrooms prior to my diagnosis and although they were positive, formative experiences, I believe they brought out latent symptoms of my disorder (earlier, they probably would have come out anyway at some point.)

Sat-chit-ananda. Being-Consciousness-Bliss. The Self. I’ve realized that at least one aspect of Enlightenment requires the Self-realization of the pre-birth (pre-life) existence of which we are all One. When your third eye opens, you see the Self in all of its glory. It truly is remarkable to know Yourself as the Divine Nature. It is the Light.

Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna, Ramesh Balsekar and many other sages have stated that we are not the doers of our actions or originators of our thoughts, but it is the ego which believes that it controls these things. They state that it is Consciousness/God/Self which utilizes our body-mind-egos as tools through which its Will is done. I personally used to think this meant everything was predetermined, but now I see it more of being a spontaneous “happening” in the moment which Consciousness fully controls. Synchronicities in my life tend to reaffirm this. This, of course, means that human organisms which experience the body-mind-ego complex do not have “free will”. However, since we truly are the real Self (our true divine nature), the Self’s free will is done through us. Does anyone else agree with this understanding or wish to share a perspective on it?

@Beginner Mind Living as if we are the doers is so significant. We just have to keep in mind that our body-minds don’t actually control anything. We are being lived!

@rnd You see your true Self as everyone and everything in existence, and it’s this true Self which controls and guides everything. This is God. This is You. You will no longer identify with the body-mind/ego and instead become Self-realized in the Truth of Consciousness.

In 2014 I tripped on psilocybin mushrooms for the fourth time. A week after my trip I had a very paranormal and/or supernatural experience occur while high on a very strong sativa strain of cannabis: I was walking around my neighborhood and as I stared at my friend’s house it completely melted and dematerialized before my eyes, only to reform itself immediately afterward. I was understandably in shock. I assumed it was some form of HPPD but I think it might have been God’s (the Self’s) way of showing me this reality is entirely immaterial. Thoughts?

@Leo Gura Haha good first point, I had been experiencing the hallucinatory nature of reality after my third mushroom trip thinking it was HPPD but after the fourth one I saw some crazy shit like the house melting completely that blew me away. It was just so far out of my paradigm at that point in my life that I basically just shut it out of my mind for awhile. But it’s all starting to become clear to me, thanks Leo.