The0Self

Not that it matters, but I’ll add: enlightenment and consciousness are opposites, but there are no opposites. This isn’t spirituality.

When you judge literally nothing, you don’t “accept everything.” Although that can appear to happen, it’s only because you’re still judging. What would be the point of accepting something, unless you judged it first? What happens when you don’t judge or reject anything, is not that you start accepting everything, there’s just no one left that could accept or reject anything.

There is apparent logical evidence of a brain appearing in direct experience. Doesn’t mean it’s real. Doesn’t mean experience is real either. So it doesn’t matter. Stuff only matters in real experience.

Especially existential suffering. "Break on through to the other side." I see no reason for this to be ultimately true though. There are a million ways to get enlightened and all of them at the end of the day are just an every-which-way-confused upside down and cross-eyed swan dive into the abyss.

Permanent implies some "one" abiding in a state that it can find, know, have, and enjoy, forever. When the I/doer/beholder apparently dissolves, there can be glimpses of no-self, and the I can appear to return and then long-for its own absence -- though it can't seem to remember what it was like. When the I apparently falls away totally, there's nowhere for it to come back to, it was never there, and there are no more questions. And btw, what you think you’re seeking is not what you’re seeking. If it was you’d just kill yourself on the spot. I think some others are too polite to say that. Enlightenment is not you becoming something else. It’s the end of you, and (in a sense) the beginning of something else.

@Mvrs Now is a story if what is meant by now is "this now and not that now." There is only now, one could say. One could say there is only ______. Doesn't even matter what you call it.

Yes but not "now" as if contrasted with some "other" time. And it's not just what could happen. This is what's happening and not happening -- in fact, what's happening is what's not happening. If absolutely everything is happening, nothing is really happening.

Experience never ends because it never started. Forever is a story. Now (as opposed to some "other" time) is a story too.

Even assuming that we came from monkeys is you imbuing your experience with meaning — that this is coming from somewhere. Not that I wouldn’t do the same, but it wouldn’t come from any knowledge, it would simply be something this character appeared to do. With that said, the human, and only the human, as far as it seems, seems to develop an apparent me in very early childhood. Before this, they get by with regular sensorimotor function just as any animal would, and continue to when they’re an adult — the adult just has the added “me.” It’s entirely possible that in some people, the me never actually even apparently develops. (It’s not actually there in anyone...) No action really proves whether or not there’s an apparent me there, because anything can happen, there is only everything, and no one outside of everything that could know everything. “God” can perhaps pretend to forget that it’s everything, in order to know things; be interested; enjoy the ride... but animals are just life — everything makes sense; no room for meaning (“makes sense“ in that there’s no one to make sense of what seems to be happening; no certainty; no doubt).

Well at least we know where your sticking point is. The snake is in fact not a self. Neither is the human though, but the human experiences its surroundings with meaning and purpose imbued in it. The snake doesn’t experience meaning and purpose at all.

Fair enough, but this account was made a while ago. The title means nothing at all. Derived meaning from Ramana Maharshi at the time, or something. And it’s not an identity. It’s a character.

This is close but actually kind of the other way around. The snake is not alive as a self, it is just alive. The human is alive as a self, in its own dream, so yes in the human person’s case it has to avoid the realization to survive. The snake already has no ego, thus nothing needs to be done to survive.

“When ‘you’ are awakened“ is an oxymoron. To be enlightened is to be dead to any will whatsoever; to see no important substantive difference between the end of the world and dropping an ice cream cone on the ground — there’s just what is. Before the me apparently collapses, it’s recognized it was never there. It didn’t happen.

@SS10 Well, you seem to be assuming there are 2 options: free will and determinism. Neither needs to be true. Nothing needs to be true. There just is truth, and it can’t be described, because it‘s absolute. Determinism would imply everything has to be the way it appears — it doesn’t; it can’t, actually. And if a choice is apparently made, there might seem to be someone that takes credit for the choice after the fact. It’s very convincing. Actually not really even possible to hack, because who could choose to do that?

Well of course. There’s nothing else.

@SS10 Free will doesn’t come from anywhere. It’s just not there. It only seems to be. Choices appear to happen. They are what they are. Nothing does it. There’s nothing of substance in, behind, or beyond them.

Hesitant to respond because there's no way to tell whether or not it'll help. Is there a major fear component to the derealization? Derealization/depersonalization is what happens when you become aware of the unreal/empty nature of experience. This aspect is usually filtered out, and it's indescribable when it's not filtered out. It's what happens when you identify with experience rather than the unreal assumed-knower, but that still leaves unseen the fact that the knower is still not real, you just seem to identify with the unreal experience, which can often be terrifying. Meditation might help. Meditation seems to help just about anything.

You're awesome!

Free will is the understandable but rather silly notion that there's something else besides infinite everything.

It can, but it doesn't have to. Some states like (what could be described as) unity consciousness are unbelievably amazing, but the funny thing is, so is everything. Everything just is amazing, but that cannot be known (nor can anything). THIS is heaven, but it seems like something else if you insist on knowing it's heaven.

@SoonHei It's awesome!

DP/DR is simply emptiness + duality. Of course there’s only emptiness (liberation) but nobody knows that. There’s an aspect of experience that is usually ignored by the individual: the emptiness of it all. The person with DP/DR has merely seemed to become aware of this aspect. It’s actually a gain in a sense. A gain isn’t actually good, nor is it bad. When there’s nobody left to be aware though, there’s just indescribable everything — indescribable in the sense that it’s too simple to “get.“

The more conscious you are, the further you are from liberation. But that’s not strictly true (nor is anything strictly true, even though simultaneously and meaninglessly, everything is strictly true) there is no liberation because there’s really no you. You already know this and it won’t help. You seem to be “experiencing” the real thing, so I offer you what “you” need most: nothing whatsoever.

Me too. Let’s light this place up with love, for no reason. Why not? Seems like a good idea. Everything else seems necessary and unavoidable, not optional. So I’ll optionally love — the thing “I“ can’t do, but do anyway. There’s no problem. Death is awake. I can’t imagine imperfection, but maybe I can imagine someone who can — well, (humblingly and tragically) that’s perfection. Duality (untruth; everything “known;” nothing) is what apparently seems to (doesn’t actually) create evil for good to overcome. They’re both simply what apparently is & isn’t, “depending“ on the perspective. This is the end of the world. And also the beginning. Always is never.

Yeah it’s heaven apparently. Beyond comprehension. And even more beyond comprehension is the fact that even that experience is only apparent. It has no depth or meaning or substance or what-it-is-ness, because it’s just what it is. Everything.