Da77en

@James123 I agree, expanding my consciousness makes me very fulfilled but I never settle because there's always more. From my perspective, expansion of consciousness is extremely important and even if you have to go through immense challenges to do so. It's still takes work and is very vital to do, if we want a healthy world it's going to take a lot of collective expansion of consciousness.

I don't do the strong determination sitting but I do meditate and can meditate for weeks straight. When it comes to your idea of no consciousness, I don't agree. We are probably just defining things very differently.

@James123 You don't need thoughts in order to be conscious. When I am in deep sleep I am aware that consciousness is eternal, yes. If you expand sufficiently there will be higher levels of consciousness even in deep sleep. I can repeat a mantra or question throughout the entire nights sleep.

@James123 Even in deep sleep there is still consciousness. There's no such thing as actually being unconscious, consciousness is too fundamental, that's why death is an illusion. Consciousness has no where to go, it's the fundamental structure of reality itself.

Realization of your Self, I agree is Being where you are. That's why meditation is very effective for the realization of no-self. I don't really like the term no-self, I would just call it dis-identification from the illusory separate self. I don't agree on the Self or Consciousness being an illusion. You = Consciousness, Being = Consciousness, Existence = Consciousness. Non-Duality = Consciousness.

Can you be more specific?

I don't recommend the Neti-Neti method for letting go of fear. States of insanity are generated by high amounts of fear, I recommend laying off the other spiritual practices and only focusing on investigating into your fears. Do the investigations from a neutral observation, you don't need to engage very much in the investigations, just ask the questions and the answers and results come automatically. If the investigations into your negative fear based beliefs make the fear worse, I recommend just taking a break from all spiritual practice altogether until you re-stabilize.

Thanks for clarifying. Many people could interpret your last post as saying that the Self doesn't exist, I suggest being more specific. I've seen people on this forum talking about Consciousness itself being an illusion and using no-self to dissociate from consciousness itself.

@Yimpa I would argue that it's not beyond human comprehension.

Can you explain what you mean by saying the self is an illusion. Are you saying that Consciousness itself is an illusion? The importance of having a direct understanding of what you are saying on this forum is under stressed from my perspective. Anyone can parrot certain talking points but it's crucial for them to actually be explained if we want to fully support the evolution of the individuals on this forum.

I understand what is being said when it comes to these kinds of ideas such as, there's nothing to get, obtain, realize, etc. When it comes to dis-identification with the illusory, separate self, these kinds of things might be said by some Non-Dual teachers, although, it can be unnecessarily confusing in my opinion. It's also important to specify that these particular pointers are specifically targeting letting go of the illusory limited identity, not the entirety of the expanding of your consciousness. I want to remind everyone that once you start truly expanding your consciousness and getting in alignment with your true nature, it's not some small thing, it's a huge explosion of love, joy, ecstasy, knowing, etc. After such peaks you usually can't maintain such states but your job is to keep taking action in that direction and expanding your consciousness, and eventually you can maintain such states more and more. This is a continuous process and there isn't necessarily any end point to the expansion of your consciousness. Non-Duality realizations aren't the end to enlightenment and it's important to understand the context of what many of these non-dual insights are pointing to so you don't use them as excuses to not take action. Some of you are talking about no-self and seem to be using it to disassociate for consciousness itself. No-self doesn't mean no-consciousness, the self with a capital S is consciousness. No-self is just the realization that you can't pinpoint the Self to any particular form because it is both formless and all forms, it doesn't mean that the Self doesn't exist. Consciousness is Self. You are consciousness, not some limited mind, body, physical personality construct. The mind, body, physical personality construct is how you focus your consciousness into a physical reality experience but it isn't your fundamental self, just a mechanism of your consciousness.

Non-Dual Debates I see that many of the discussions and debates on this forum are specifically focused on the Non-Dual aspects of consciousness. When it comes to these kinds of Non-Dual debates, a lot of it can be summed up as semantics or different ways of defining things. Debates like this have been going on for a while on this forum and it doesn't really get us anywhere. How are we supposed to get to deeper and more nuanced understandings of consciousness if we insist on debating very one dimensional talking points? When we do these kinds of debates it can tend to in a sense "derail" a thread and lead the thread to exclusively focusing on non-duality, which then gets very one dimensional and doesn't explore anything very deeply. It is beneficial to discuss many of the Non-Dual talking points, but at a certain point it just becomes excessive and doesn't allow for deeper understandings. You are definitely free to do any kind of debates you want on this forum I just see an opportunity for the forum to start discussing more advanced aspects of consciousness. The Non-Dual aspects of consciousness are more of a fundamental groundwork and foundation for the overall raising of your consciousness not necessarily an end point, but that’s my personal perspective. Not all of the Non-Dual understandings are an issue. Here is a list of specific ideas that are sometimes used to in a sense derail higher level discussions: “There is only one enlightenment.” - often used to discount higher levels of consciousness. “There’s no one here.” - sometimes used as a justification to not interact and provide support to others. “Everything is already perfect” - often used to convince someone to stop their pursuit of something. “Free will is an illusion” - sometimes used to perpetuate a lack of responsibility. “Nothing ever happens” - often used as an excuse to not pursue things, because it’s “all an illusion”. ”There’s nothing to achieve” - often used as an excuse to not pursue things. “There is no doer” - often used as a justification to not take responsibility. Stating that what someone is saying is just a though, concept, idea, story etc. - this is often used to in a sense discount whatever was said. There are various other Non-Dual insights that are being used out of context, in a way that doesn’t really serve an individuals pursuit of higher levels of consciousness. It’s fine to discuss the things I listed above, just please don’t use it out of context to discount, derail, or devalue other discussions.

@Shane Hanlon If we agree that transcendence cannot happen without inclusion/integration I don’t really see why you are being critical of people who talk about transcendence. It’s the same overall process. It seems like you’re making including into some sort of action. Inclusion is the natural state of life. Separation is an illusion that is artificially created. If you become fully inclusive you will experience everything as yourself and thus transcend the limitations of the illusory separate self, which is why I see both words as being pretty much synonymous in spiritual contexts. Usually if something needs to be integrated it’s because there is some sort of fear/negativity that you have attached to it, and thus that’s why I talk about the letting go of fear being the main thing when it comes to integration in that context. You said that there is more to inclusion/integration than letting go of fear, can you expand on that idea?

@Shane Hanlon Your post implies you’re making a pretty big distinction between transcendence and integration. You can’t transcend without integrating, I see the two as being almost synonymous. You said there is more to integration than just letting go of fear. You were talking about including so I was explaining integration from the context of letting go of the vibration of separation. If there is no illusion of separation then you are all inclusive within yourself and reality as a whole. If you are talking about integration from the perspective of becoming more in alignment with the energies of your true nature; joy, love, bliss, passion, ecstasy, etc. then yes, of course there’s more to it than just letting go of fear. You made it seem like you were speaking about integration from the context of it being something separate from other aspects of the spiritual process because you contrasted it with transcendence, god, and enlightenment.

The way I see it is that in order to transcend you must include/integrate. Any kind of separation you create within your consciousness prevents expansion and the transcendence into higher levels of consciousness. Compartmentalization, dissociation, avoidance, suppression, denial, ignorance, or any kind of separation doesn’t allow for transcendence. Fear is a vibration of separation and constriction, the vibrations of your true nature are all about integrating and expanding. So transcendence doesn’t necessarily contradict integration, at least from my perspective. It’s just important to understand that integration is of your state of being. It’s about integrating your consciousness, which basically means letting go of your fears. If anyone wants to learn how to let go of fear, here's a post I made:

Yes, well said.

You are consciousness. If you need an anchor point to understand consciousness, just bring yourself back to the understanding that I am consciousness. Consciousness and experience is the same thing. If you weren’t conscious there would be no experience. Consciousness itself is fundamental, it’s just that there are more expanded states of consciousness and less expanded states of consciousness. Joy, love, bliss, passion, excitement, ecstasy, and other positive states are expansive states. In expanded states you are more receptive to gaining higher level and more holistic understandings of life, which can lead to profound benefits. Perception is pretty much just another way of saying consciousness. People use these kinds of words to describe different things. Using different words might allow someone to better explain certain aspects of consciousness.

The spiritual path is all about becoming more aware of higher levels of consciousness and expanding your consciousness. If you want an experience of higher levels of consciousness the easiest way is to take a psychedelic, just be cautious because it’s can be extremely profound. In order to understand that life is consciousness you have to become aware that all of life only exists within your consciousness. All dualities collapse into one thing and we call it “consciousness”. There is no such thing as an “outside” physical reality, it’s all happening within consciousness.

Anything we say on a forum or speak about is conceptual and thus is of the intellect. The point is to turn the conceptual information into a direct understanding of whatever is being said. The intellect isn’t the fundamental issue, its mistaking concepts with direct understandings. You know consciousness exists by the fact that you are experiencing it right now. Consciousness is what you are experiencing, life is consciousness, you are consciousness, and there are higher levels of consciousness. intellectual concepts themselves aren’t sufficient when it comes to expanding your consciousness. Direct experience and direct understanding of life is what is necessary.

I can see how someone could make that argument. The intellect is one dimensional and surface layered. Consciousness is multi dimensional and multifaceted. If someone wants to determine whether they are making their spirituality overly intellectual or not, they need to look at their results. If it’s bringing them into more aligned, healthy, self empowered, and expanded states they are are progressing. That’s my perspective.

You’re welcome!

I had a pretty insane ayahuasca trip and it left me in a pretty much a perpetual existential crisis for about 2 years straight. Afterwards I confronted each of my fears and got to a point where 95%+ of all my fears are gone. Fear is no longer an issue in my life. I define any kind of negative emotion or negative frequency as also being under the category of fear. The process I used to confront and let go of each of my fears I described in my post titled, letting go of fear. As far as I know, all you really need to do to let go of fear is investigate into the negative beliefs that are generating it.

If the severe anxiety still hasn’t gone away I recommend laying down, closing you eyes, and asking yourself, “What would I have to believe is true in order to be feeling this fear?” . Ask yourself that question like a mantra as quickly or as slowly as you wish, while gently observing the anxiety/fear. While doing this you don’t need to try to find any answers, the answers will come automatically and create the effect of dissolving the fear. Dissolving the fear may take 10-20-30 minutes or longer depending on how severe the fear is. The reason this works is because the more aware you become of the negative beliefs/definitions that are generating the fear, the more aware you become that they don’t actually make any sense. If this process makes the fear any worse I wouldn’t recommend continuing it. There’s a visualization you can use where when you breathe in you imagine breathing in a cleansing energy and while you breathe out you imagine the fear/anxiety dissolving, this is very effective for me. If you are talking about the severe fear you have in reaction to the contemplations, yes, you can get to a point where nothing can generate any kind of fear within you. It’s just important you understand the mechanics of fear and specifically how to let it go which I have described in the post I listed above.

@Javfly33 Might as well bring yourself into some profound states of love and ecstasy, if you haven’t already, before/if you end up leaving.

@Ishanga I agree. What I can say is that you can also tap into states of Devotion where even though you made it into the profound states of enlightenment you still have enough Love to devote yourself to helping anyone else who is still in the extremely limited states of consciousness. Such states can enable enough devotion to the well-being of the people in your reality to last 1000+ years. So even though the father in that account no longer cared much about his children, he must not have tapped as much into the devotion aspect of his true nature then he could have.