The0Self

? @Someone here For example: destroying the teacher is really destroying an inner aspect of your self that you’re seeing as other (or outer). It’s all you. All you ever see is self. If you see an other — anywhere — you’re still seeing two... i.e. untruth. Ask yourself if you really want to go where this truth-seeking leads, or whether you want to stop short once you’ve reached “good/far enough” — not even necessarily on purpose; you’ll just think you’re done. Because you’ll likely want to stop short if you’re not absolutely focused on the truth alone. And there is no self, so the truth is your own death — you will have gained absolutely nothing. You just won’t be a lie. If that even slightly deters you, good — at least you know. If it doesn’t deter you in the least, good. It’s all Good.

? I really appreciate you letting me know. (edited) Checked gender, didn’t find anything, and there’s a lot of men here. My bad.

@Loba ? Right on sister! And about the fear of non-being... I wasn’t describing it to exclaim that it’s far worse than anyone thinks. It’s infinitely less bad than anyone thinks. I was merely reporting how dualistic experience operates. It operates simply via the fear of non-being. It’s the root of all drama. So it’s a very, very good thing, in a sense... In fact, unimaginably so.?

@Loba As far as paths... I particularly enjoyed Buddhism and Law of One and Rob Burbea’s book, and TMI by culadasa. I didn’t enter the enlightenment point of no return until after stopping all practices — stopped out of equanimity... the paths I listed above definitely seemed to make me really, really happy I will say that.

It’s the end of all significance. Non-relative awareness. Seeing through everything forever in every way. No reality. That will almost certainly be misleading. It can’t be described in the least but suffice to say it’s the very last thing anyone is looking for, literally. And yet, nothing compares.

Honestly, no one really knows anything until they’re done. And that’s only if one is absolutely laser focused on enlightenment. It’s all a dream until then. I wouldn’t say that if it had any chance of waking anyone up, because I do not prefer that anyone does, and you’ll probably hear it at some point here anyway. There are all sorts of other non-enlightenment paths though, all disguised as enlightenment. If it aims to help you, it’s got nothing at all to do with enlightenment. Enlightenment progress: how intolerably inauthentic you feel, as you’re increasingly seeing there’s no true self. Consciousness progress: how fulfilled your unceasing activity is. I guess? ? Oh and by fear of death I really mean fear of non-being. Not fear of body death — you can simply patch that with a little faith in reincarnation or a deep trust in a loving god plus a genuine desire to do good. Fear of non-being is the true test and it’s insurmountable by anything, other than facing fear, all fear, head-on. You can love everyone and everything to death and it will barely even put a dent in this fear — in fact it might not even show its face because you’ll be hiding it at your deepest core to keep from even encountering it. If you ever do awaken, if you remember this, you’ll see why fear of non-being (no-self) was always the big daddy of all fear. Other fears basically serve to distract from this fear — that’s how pervasive it is. And no one knows it. That’s how deeply it is hidden away, and for good reason.

For enlightenment: degree of disgust or embarrassment with how naive you were three days ago, on any given day. Until you’re done. Although it’s highly unlikely you’re even on that path. Many who think they’re done literally haven’t even taken the first step in that direction. For consciousness work: degree of freedom from fear (of death).

That besides 'consciousness is' (also can be phrased as 'I am' or 'truth is' or 'self is'), nothing else can be known to exist for certain. Pointing away from solipsism as defined here, is pointing away from awakening and into a dream -- however, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Colloquial uses of the term, however, I am completely unconcerned about, and it's not what I'm talking about if it's not precisely (or at least essentially) the above definition.

What you are aware of, you are controlling. What you aren't aware of, is controlling you. Yet, those aren't two. But what are you? You see what comes out of you, and what goes into you, but never what's inside you -- in this way you are an unknowable black box. So what is "you" anyway?

Is it God who calls it a suck-ass-life? Or someone that does not think they're God?

You don’t visit awakening from a dream. You visit a dream from awakening. What starts, ends. What does not start, does not end.

Try the latter. Sounds more fun. But it might eventually be recognized that the answers are actually distracting from the true answer, which is only ever to be found in the questions themselves. Perfect your questions, and you’ll get the real answers — but you don’t need to go there yet... you can actually focus on the answers for a while at first but just be aware that the answers are not where the truth is to be found. It may seem that writing notes and “showing your work” is a waste of time and distracts from meditation. Or maybe that meditation is a waste and distracts from working through answers intellectually. Neither are true.

In one sense, you’re either awake or you’re not. But we wouldn’t really be talking about what you think of as you. But there can seem to be degrees of understanding of and openness to awakening, and a good depiction of that is the 10 ox herding pictures. As to how deeply one can awaken? All the way, of course.

At the most final of all “why” questions, what could really be expected other than “is.”

Why not? It’s either start and end, or never start and never end.

The answer is not what you’re looking for. The question is. Answers would all be distractions for one if it were possible for that one to want to know the true answer. “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.” - Meister Eckhart

You sure it's not some form of kratom use doing that or at least contributing?

Solipsism, if defined as the view that nothing can be known aside from what seems to be, whatever that is... is basically a correct view. Solipsism as it’s colloquially defined distracts from that reality, as it seems many define it in terms like “I am the only human being that exists,” or “my mental state is the only one and there aren’t (even just apparently) others like me.” So if people speak as if solipsism is true, maybe don’t aloofly out dismiss it out of hand. They might just be referring to unknowing, which is the truth. I don’t know though. From the perspective of liberation, even the belief that you actually live as a human being on a planet called earth, in a universe... would essentially be seen as: as deep an entrenchment in delusion as someone who believes and apparently knows they’re a fundamentalist Christian.

If there is no actual separate soul, then anything that involves it is a dream. There aren't any limits to what can be imagined to happen in a dream. Therefore, reincarnation can be real while not being absolutely true.

@Nadosa @RMQualtrough Yeah mindfulness and steadiness of attention can be very powerful against mental disorders. But sometimes, spirituality as a whole, and viewing society itself as one big conspiracy (which it pretty much is), can perhaps be exacerbating of such conditions. Although if taken all the way, it leads to a very radical form of sanity.

@gettoefl The thread is manly pointing out how many people don't use the actual definition. Solipsism is the view that nothing more than the self (or consciousness) can be known to exist for certain... Which is both falsifiable (just prove that anything exists) and hasn't been falsified (nothing has been proven to exist apart from consciousness). The whole self inquiry process of unknowing or holding onto the clue of 'I am' is basically just holding onto the clue of solipsism. But I think we'd agree the strawmen of solipsism are certainly just more beliefs -- some might actually believe it though, so it's not even necessarily a strawman for colloquial solipsism... But if we take it to be the view that nothing more than the self (or consciousness) can be known to exist for certain, I'd say that's pretty obvious. It certainly doesn't mean that only one person exists lol. There is no actual person.

Unconditional-happiness as well as uncontrived-compassion are concepts that point to the unrecognizable perfection that is everything already.

Hid a comment that seemed incongruent with the discussion upon seeing posts that I’d missed. Thought I’d be able to unhide them but apparently not lol.

Guess I should’ve included the phrase “so to speak.”

It’s all good. The further context, however, is that I already discussed this with him earlier in PM. So it’s already too late on the one hand, and on the other he didn’t seem to be exhibiting any serious existential rumination. At least nowhere nearly as bad as I did or as badly as it would have to seem for me to shut up about it. At least not at the time. I’m certainly not saying I’m right and you’re wrong though.