Breakingthewall

The main factor that makes real meditation impossible is the need for self-definition, for identification. This need is inherent to the human being; it is a mechanism of social cohesion that allows the group to function as a single entity. Real meditation is not achieved through techniques, but through stepping out of the psychological matrix of identity. The real work is not in the practice of meditation, but in self-exposure, coherence, and integrity. Loyalty to yourself as absolute value. When the psychological axis shifts from the need for self-definition and validation to integrity and transparency, the mind becomes silent. Only then does meditation make sense, as one gains access to the primordial layers of the psyche: the drive for permanence, the fear of harm and disappearance, the need for control and other bases of the human psyche Directly perceiving these underlying patterns is what eventually allows the psyche to open. “Openness” means the absence of limits. Limits define, and create a sense of control and security. The absence of limits is initially terrifying, unsustainable for more than a few seconds. The system automatically contracts again. Anyone seeking liberation must seek this rupture. At some point, it becomes more tolerable, until it is perceived as freedom. Identity is then replaced by effortless openness, as it is revealed to be a mental process. not false, but not fundamental, not absolute. Openness is not an “open mind,” but the fact of being perceiving itself without mental limitations. It is something simple and, at the same time, complete. Not definable because there are not limits. This is the state where life becomes beauty, perception becomes deep and the heart becomes open.

Perhaps consider that all these thoughts are an impulse to real meditation, and what is an obstacle is speaking from the need of appear special. Real humility is needed for this work.

I understand what you're saying. I was commenting on it mainly because modern spirituality, like Spira, Mooji, Ralston, and non-dualists in general, say: you are consciousness. You are the screen where forms appear, not the forms themselves (quite dualistic for a non-dualist). They say: enlightenment isn't something special, it's simply realizing the nature of reality, which is consciousness. This is completely and obviously, let's say impossible. If reality is consciousness, what are the forms that appear in consciousness? Dreams. And who dreams them? Consciousness. So, is consciousness not just consciousness, but an entity that produces dreams? They'll say: don't get confused, let it go, forget the mind, you are consciousness. Ah, so I forget the mind except to know that I am consciousness? Yes! You're enlightened now. Well, no. Enlightenment is being open to that which has no limits, to what is, which is what you are. Not knowing what reality is. That what has no limits, and having not limits is, is not a screen nor something trivial; it is the source, the Tao, the light, the life, and the total glory of being without limits. These are subjective statements, of course, but not therefore false.

Ok, but the ego is not only your human identity, thoughts, but the primal fear to dissolution that is programmed in the human psyche. The identity is it's manifestation Then we are speaking the same language (what is very rare). The dead void is the last door, there is a very subtle movement, a shift where the void opens and reveals itself as the unlimited that is. This is the movement that I'm talking about and that is so difficult to do for me. I think it's something that happens when your psychological structure is aligned in some way. If it happens now, and you are open to the unlimited for example during one week, but then in some moment it's closed again, very fast you will forget that reality and you will start to think that was a fantasy to scape of the obvious nihilist void that reality is. Exactly, nothing in life worths more that this. Without this openess anything is just suffering, at least for me. Every human has a closed structure in some degree, there is always a great work to do to align yourself enough to allow the openess.

Also a mind that doesn't deceive itself to feel better

You could say that awareness knowing is included in reality arising, but not the opposite, then if you say that reality is awareness you are making a closure. Just my opinion, because all the authors talk about consciousness and that. I see it as a very obvious mistake, but who knows If there is fear you could identifícate With it or not that there is still fear. If you are in silence, that of be what you are or not has no meaning. There is fear, period. If you think that this fear is not you, you are introducing an enormous structure of thoughts that implies that the fear could be you or not, then the notion of "you". If there is no mental activity, you or not you means nothing, but fear means everything. The idea that if the thoughts stops the mind is free is not real.

I'd say It's deeper than something that disappear if you relax. Maintaining control has many layers, the most obvious being comparative human identity, what is usually called the ego, manifested in thoughts. But once that means nothing to you, and you can be fully present in the moment in total silence, without questioning anything or defining yourself, you are still maintaining control, closing yourself off with the need to be you, not as an ego but as an individual. This is innate; you might say that if that's the case, let it be, but we are playing the game of total dissolution, and that door isn't going to open by itself. You have to open it, paradoxical as it may sound. The way to do it is by first seeing it. In total silence, perceive the contraction, the fear of dissolution. Then you have to do something. It's not enough to let things be as they are; you have to fully feel that fear and surrender, open yourself to dissolution, want to be absorbed by reality, stop being you, renounce the individual truly. That's not easy, you have to feel exactly the resistance, the fear, and let the control go. The control is the center, the self, that encloses you in a shell. Yes but for me the problem is that you can't surrender to fears and barriers that you don't perceive. The point of meditation is the real perception of your deep movement. Fear is powerful and always makes you move the attention to another plane, then you have to do the action of deciding stop avoidance, look directly. But what is God? How do you know that there is something instead a mechanic process that happens in the absolute emptiness because they are possible , without any God, absolute, divinity or anything? You have to surrender also to the absolute nihilism. That's not easy. You could had a lot of moments of openess when you was totally aware that you are one with the totality, blah blah, but if now, exactly now, you are not open to it, you would think that maybe all was just an illusion and the reality is dead emptiness without bottom. You have to surrender to that shit again and again The point is that when you are closed, you are closed. Our minds could elaborate a lot but the landscape is dry, in black and white, dead, closed. In that landscape openess seems a remember that maybe was just a naive illusion. You can't remember the openess because you are closed (I'm talking about me not about you, probably anyone have different experience), you have to open the door, release the barrier that's closing. It's not easy, in fact usually it's impossible, you have to do a long work of alignment

The tao. It's very difficult to open that door. In my case, any psychedelic has a very similar effect. 5-MeO-DMT and NNDMT feel exactly the same, as if they were the same substance. The effect is always this: everything blurs, and at a certain point, something very difficult to remember or represent happens. Reality completely loses its foundation, its contrast, and what remains is absolutely nothing. A boundless, undifferentiated, absolutely empty ocean. This experience is not fun at all. The first time is horrible, then you get used to it. If you do it again and again, at a certain point, everything opens up. This is absolutely impossible to think about or remember. Reality was dark because something was veiling it; the veil falls, and the total light is revealed. It's just being , what is. Nothing else, but it's everything.

@Never_give_up I don't know if reincarnation is real or not, and I guess nobody knows. The point is, you have this one life, so you can try to live it as best you can. What's important isn't IQ, but authenticity, courage, and perseverance. These qualities can be acquired if you're truly committed to yourself. Just don't give up never. That's what life means

Experience is deceptive because it implies duality: the experiencer and the object of experience, what appears. The word "experience" refers to that, however you look at it. Therefore, if you say that experience is absolute, you are saying that something inherently relative is absolute. You should first say that experience is the fact of being appearing in an apparently dualistic way, and that if you collapse that apparent duality, what remains is the fact of being, which is absolute and doesn't necessarily have to appear as experience. This point is essential because if you don't understand it, you will believe that reality is consciousness and you will be trapped in a duality that you will call non-duality. Experience is the reality being conscious of itself, not the reality. The reality is absolute and it's beyond consciousness.

According to him, Claude is conscious because he writes coherent responses. This would imply that, according to him, a human who writes incoherent responses would not be conscious. He bases his claim that an AI is conscious because it performs refined processes. A car also performs refined processes, only it doesn't speak. Cats don't speak either, and they are self-aware. Cars aren't. Neither is Claude.

I don't think that they arises in awareness. Awareness is something that is happening, an structure that reality is taking now. Nothing defines what you are, only the fact that you are defines you as what is. What exactly is identification? You mean defining yourself as someone who can die for example? I think it's impossible to cease that identification by observing the thoughts, at least for me, and I have tried it thousand of hours, the only way is dissolving the barrier between you and the reality. For me the way to achieve this is first, recognizing that as a form im a process that is going to finish and disappear. Impermanence is total, everything that defines me now is going to disappear totally. Total death, accepting this in your heart is the key. It's a movement of humility. Then you open yourself to what is, you are what is. Death is perceived as the opening to the absolute unknown, you open your heart to the black hole of death and your mind loose it's limits, you are now in the mystery, death and life are not different, what you are is the unlimited happening, there is nothing to grab, nothing to know, all the barriers fall. But if you observe the thoughts and you let them pass without identification, you are keeping the separation between you and the thoughts, and that separation is a barrier. Maybe you don't identifícate yourself with the thoughts but you identificate yourself with the observer

It's a threat to the individual, your body can be harmed, etc. That's a reality, any living being is programmed to avoid suffering by evolution. Yes more or less. The point for me is to achieve the dissolution of the barrier that separates the individual. When this barrier is active, which is the default state of a human being, you perceive yourself as an entity that can die. You can use mental tricks like reincarnation or transcendence, but it's always transcendence as an individual. When the barrier falls, the individual reveals themselves as non-essential, as a facet of what is. Death is perceived as dissolution into what is, the dissolution of your form into your essence. The permanence of consciousness as "you" is irrelevant, even the permanece of consciousness. Unconsciousness is the same than consciousness in the sense that both are what is; there is nowhere to go. It is always this, what is. At a certain point, being in a closed state is perceived as suffering, and the only viable state is the state without barriers. It must be your natural state; anything else is suffering. When you say self maybe you mean the reality, without center, and really without self.

Yes, any conversation, like this one, is made by thoughts. Thoughts are the structured expression of what we are, then it's very important to be able to understand clear where our thoughts come from and how they are a tool of closure or openess. For example, it's important to see in oneself if the flow of thoughts is defensive, oriented to keep a self image and transmit it to others, or open, oriented to expression of the reality that you are without filter. Also, oriented to real understanding or to defend some structures that your psyche needs for it's stability.

Yes, that's what's usually said when talking about meditation, but I see a separation there between you and your thoughts that will always close you off, create a limit. There isn't a separate "you" that observes the thoughts and decides whether to take them seriously or not; rather, that "you" that seems to observe the thoughts is part of the mental process. The key is to dissolve the separation between you and your thoughts. If the thought "I am anxious" arises, as you said, it's because the emotional structure that you are right now is manifesting as that thought. The fact that you try to ignore it is also part of how that emotional structure manifests, and it won't take you out of the process. The key is to be fully aware of yourself as an emotional structure, to perceive how you are vibrating right now, your subconscious fears. To make the subconscious fully conscious. Thoughts are not the cause but the consequence. If I think, "Oh shit, I could get sick and die," trying to ignore that thought will only increase the gap between the apparent center that believes it's in control and your reality as a whole, which is expressed in that thought. The key is to enter the emotional current that causes that thought to arise, to look directly at the fear of death, rejection, and loneliness, without a filter. Then you see that mental activity is the expression of that emotional structure, which also includes creative desire, openness to life and others, and a desire for deep and real connection with others and life. If you don't look directly at the yin, the yang remains dormant, buried. If you look your fears without filter, eventually you will integrate them little by little, then in some moments your mental/emotional structure gets totally aligned and limits fall. It's useless to try to evoque being unlimited being limited because, precisely, you are limited. Then you would construct a limited version.

As I see it, having a completely silent mind doesn't necessarily mean the meditation is as deep as it could. The barriers the mind creates by default manifest not only in thoughts but also in contraction, closure, separation. This contraction is primarily fear, and this fear exists because reality is, in many ways, a real threat. For me, the difficult part is getting that barrier made of fear to dissolve. Being totally present is a point, really it's the state that should be by default, but the dissolution of the barrier is a challenge, not easy at all for me. Even if I'm totally aware of it, it persist

Imo If you are really detached of your thoughts they stop. Thoughts don't appear and you follow or don't follow them, thoughts are you in the form of a thought. If a thought appears it's because you create that structure because you need it.

What do you mean with lack of interest in your direct experience? Sure you must want to perceive as deep as you can, but not conceptually or structured ideas but see the process that are happening now. To be able to start to see those processes you should empty your mind of ideas easily

Sure, when humans drop the identity and everything is love, and history would finish. Before this moment seems difficult

It seems like the only way to normalize the situation in your country, doesn't it? But it seems that many people would see it as sacrilege, to give up sacred land. An the Palestinian neither want it, they would ask impossible demands. The situation in your country seems without solution

I don't know what Enlightenment is like for others or what levels there are. For me, it's about achieving the complete dissolution of emotional contraction and the total dissolution of mental structures during moments of meditation. The essential difference is between never having done this and doing it once. Your entire mental/emotional configuration changes, but the change doesn't happen in a single moment; rather, it initiates a chain reaction. The human mental-emotional system is dynamic, constantly changing, and experiences of openness direct that change toward openness. At first, having a moment of total openness is very challenging, brief, and strange, a mystical experience. Later, it becomes normal, but that doesn't mean pain doesn't hurt, business doesn't worry, or conflicts don't destabilize. The difference is that nothing is seen as essential, not even life itself, so emotional intensity becomes manageable. Identification weakens until it becomes irrelevant, self-image takes a back seat, human relationships become deeper, and new fields of perception open up. The point is that living in a closed state is very limited because there are a lot of dark points, you can't really face death, you absolutely need acceptance, , then your system construct a lot of barriers , projections, identities, that encloses the perception, makes it superficial. About the baseline, its usually limited, but the limits are perceived as relative, just something to operate. It's relatively easy to have a moment of openess, but if there are stressing circumstances i get absorbed in the emotional reaction. It's something programmed, I don't see the point in becoming a monk that doesn't suffer. There is no problem with suffering, it's just a human impulse to move forward. About practices, I did a lot of meditation, psychedelics, but the point is not what you do but understanding what you have to do, what is the change that you are looking for. It's not about knowing, realizing, having mystical experiences, samadhi, anything. It's about removing barriers, and for this you have to see those barriers, understand what they are. Its difficult when you are inside them.

Enlightenment is something very simple yet very difficult. It is the dissolution of the inner boundaries of the psyche. Boundaries are defenses, created by evolution given the reality of life in general and human life in particular. These defenses are especially subtle and powerful in the social game, where acceptance equates to life and rejection to death (when humans were tribal). Their force is enormous, and facing them head-on without fear or avoidance is a challenge. The barriers of the psyche are not thoughts; rather, thoughts emanate from them. They are real neurological structures that activate when they connect with the situations for which they were created. Behind them lies the primordial barrier: the fear of death, the need to remain. Gazing into the great abyss of total dissolution and opening oneself to it is the ultimate challenge. Enlightenment is not about knowing things, realizing what you are, being consciousness, etc., but about opening your energetic configuration by releasing all barriers and being without limits. only for a moment at first, gradually building up to sustain that openness until it becomes your reality

Sure that there are certainly differences in the nuances, but essentially, the real difference would be if a party had the formation of a Palestinian state as a principle. This would clash head-on with the far right. It wouldn't be a normal ideological clash but a potential cause of civil war. But on the other hand, if a Palestinian state is never established, what's the point? To continue like now forever?

Yes, for example your memory can die, and it's real when it is. You could say that reality it's always what you are, with or without memories, but would you renounce to all your memories? Don't seem easy

When you awake after sleeping there is continuity, but when you die, you die. Reality remains, but you, the human structure, doesn't. Well, some talk about different dimensions, you never know, but it's not relevant imo, the point is the openess now.