Moksha

@Water by the River Bodhi originally has no tree, but me. The mirror has no stand, save where I stand. The Buddha-nature is always clear and pure, beside myself there is no more. Where is there room for dust, to entertain myself is now a must? Amazing how much space there is here on the other shore, all boats welcome!

I'm not sure, but it seems to have a bald head. ?

@Breakingthewall I'm glad to hear that the absolute within your apparent form is beginning to spontaneously realize itself. Has it started to realize the absolute within and beyond other apparent forms yet? It's a blinding field of light.

@Judy2 By turning your attention inward, I don't mean thinking about thinking. That only entangles you further, like struggling to free yourself from a Chinese finger trap. Have you tried meditation? It's about focusing on something other than the mind, rather than trying to control the mind. For people that struggle with hyperactive thoughts, meditation can be a helpful step toward realization. It trains you to allow thoughts to come and go, without identifying or engaging with them. If meditation isn't helpful, mantras and physical yoga can be a useful starting point. Regardless of what takes you inward, realization is sinking into the stillness of the absolute. It is pure blissful silence. Sometimes spiritual insights will spontaneously arise when I meditate, which is beautiful, but then awareness returns to its source. Eventually, you reach the point where abiding in awareness becomes your default state. It sublimates the experience of life.

@Water by the River Saving one sentient solipsist at a time

Do you see that the idea of you is equally a barrier? Yes, the absolute is seamless. It is within and beyond everything. Mystic 101. The problem with solipsism is that it crumples this realization down to the myopic perspective of the observer. He is unable to see the absolute in everything, only in himself. Everything else in his perception is dismissed as empty illusion. He forgets to dismiss himself while he is at it.

I'm the angel on his shoulder ?

Who did you have high hopes for again?

@Razard86 It's true that where much is given, much is expected. Truth and accountability are correlated. When the absolute realizes and then denies itself, the karmic ripples spread farther than when it remains asleep. Had he not been a son of the morning, Lucifer wouldn't have fallen so far into the abyss. Still, this is at the relative level. Only the absolute is accountable, and its path unfolds as it wills. I understand the purpose of telling people they have free will. It is a shrewd way for the absolute to wake itself up. Although people don't actually have free will, the absolute within them, which is who they actually are, does. Regardless of the granularity of will, the actions people take will always have consequences. For the record, we are fighting for the same side. Ego ahoy! ⚔️

@Breakingthewall No ideas are what they point toward, but some point to the absolute more directly than others. The idea of solipsism is a poor pointer. Although also incorrect, the idea of others outside of you is still a better pointer than the idea that only you exist. At least it keeps open the way for seeing the same absolute, not only within your form, but within all forms. Sometimes a half-truth is more deceptive than blindness. Few people go directly to the source, and few are likewise enlightened. Still, it is the best path if you are able to take it. Otherwise, find whatever method takes you inward, without calcifying the concept of perspective. @Yimpa You would if you were God within the person using the banana as a pointer @StarStruck Ah yes, the mystic seeing beyond the trappings of Judaism to the glittering truth within its depths. ?

@Judy2 Yes, a moral compass is a good analogy. Judgment is the steadiness of the needle, but it is only useful when an accurate map is being followed INFJs tend to troop off in whatever direction our current level of awareness tells us to go. It may be toward an oasis or off a cliff, but we march with determination to the inevitable end. The "N" in us can be honed to ensure we are carrying the correct map in the first place. As you have realized, behaviors that help us feel safe often cause more harm than good. Of course, we need form survival to continue experiencing the dream, but the truth is that most of what is required can be sustained on autopilot. This realization is especially poignant for people like INFJs who tend to maximize everything, including the suffering of misguided navigation. Instead of losing yourself in attempts to feel safe from external threats, or to secure happiness through external desires, the secret is to find yourself within. When it happens, the light of the absolute will burst through, and you will laugh at former attempts to protect that which can never be harmed. My advice is to find whatever tool that turns your attention inward. Maybe it's meditation, guidance from an awakened teacher, contemplation of writings like the Bhagavad Gita, or ideally direct self-inquiry. It's less about the method than about leveraging whatever method helps you enter the gate of absolute realization.

@OldManCorcoran ⚡Who knew the insight intersection of psychedelics and suffering would be symbolized by a babushka doll @Breakingthewall Why settle for an idea that continues to mislead and confuse people, instead of diving directly into the source? When people read "you are infinity", they conflate "you" with their form perspective. They believe that only their awareness is real, and that the rest of the cosmos (even family members) is their imagination. They don't understand that their form is equally being imagined, and that the absolute is imagining itself through countless other forms, including those that they encounter within the dream. It is a false perspective that leads to a deeply egoic sense of loneliness and annihilism. I've never read the writings of a mystic that endorses this false idea, nor has it ever occurred to me. I may be mistaken, but solipsism seems to happen most often to people that have tried psychedelics. Not to say the idea can't eventually be dropped, but why perpetuate it in the first place?

Completely agree. This forum seems stuck in a perpetual struggle with solipsism, which devalues the dream and leaves people feeling lonely and feckless. It's an insidious snare, and needs to be called out whenever it whack-a-moles itself into yet another thread. The cosmos, including each form engaging with this forum, is here for a reason. Awakening doesn't diminish the beauty of the dream. To the contrary, lucid dreaming enhances the vibrancy of every experience. It is the highest and deepest adventure. Your quote from Ken Wilbur said it more eloquently than me, I can only fully endorse what he said.

I'd say you're right Suffering and enlightenment are opposite ends of the same stick. The absolute rarely manifests an anchored form. Apparently we prefer the oceanic adventure, first outward toward the enticing horizon, and finally back into the serene port of ourselves. Beliefs and even realizations are insufficient to stop the ship and reverse course. Only integration, which is abandoning the swashbuckler's song in favor of silence, brings us home.

@Schizophonia Religious dogmas were the source of my indoctrination. I was spiritual before religion, during religion, and after religion. Religious beliefs added an unnecessary conceptual layer that obscured rather than facilitated absolute awareness. I used to bother too much, but not much bothers me any more. @Judy2 I wouldn't be surprised, given that "J" personalities are more likely to judge themselves or others, with the collateral damage that ensues in its wake. Judgment is a megaphone. Initially it amplifies the voice of misidentification, but after realization, it amplifies the inner voice. We are seers and prophets in the making In a nutshell, a couple years ago my suffering reached the critical mass necessary for me to break. I realized that the lies my mind had told me about what was necessary for happiness and peace (hyper-vigilance, perpetual mental processing, harsh recrimination for minor mistakes, etc.) had led to just the opposite. It was unrelenting torture that only became worse with time. I remember this image of white-knuckled fingers clinging desperately to the ledge, and willingly letting go to fall into the void. I didn't know what would happen, only that anything was better than the hell I was in. My awareness plummeted deeper, and the absolute within caught itself and kept it safe. That was my awakening. There are more chapters than that, but it gives you a glimpse which I hope is helpful in some way.

@Water by the River Beautiful quote from Ken Wilbur, thanks for sharing. ? We sometimes think of the human form as a single-layered container, but it is more like a babushka doll: It is a composite of nested forms, progressing in refinement from the gross (physical) to the subtle (mental) and finally to the supra-subtle (soul). Each of these forms is also made of maya, but progressively brings awareness closer to its formless state. When realization goes deep, even beyond the soul, there is only pure awareness. The witness and the witnessed conflate into the absolute reality beyond both.

@Yimpa @CARDOZZO @QQQ I'm happy it's helpful. Even though the journey is unique, sometimes the absolute sees itself more clearly within a form by sensing itself within the form of others. @Razard86 You began by agreeing that everyone is sincere, and concluded that people must take accountability for their actions, with which I also agree. What is accountability, other than the absolute beginning to direct its awareness inward toward itself? It does this through various spiritual practices and teachings, which gradually clear the haze of its confusion and return it to the clarity beyond the inner gate. @Breakingthewall Who is choosing to be stupid, the human or the absolute within the human form? It seems that the more complex a form becomes, the deeper its capacity for both thought-entrapment and realization. It's like a swinging pendulum, between the extremes of external and internal identification. Simple forms are nearly still, or move in narrow arcs. The more evolved the form, the larger its arc becomes. To deeply realize itself within the cosmos, the absolute must also grapple with the intense gravity of misidentification.

This interaction, and every other experience you have, is the absolute preparing itself for awakening. The sooner you see this, the easier it will be when the time comes. To the extent you can, prepare for it without preconditions. The soil is fertilized, rain falls upon the tree, and when it is finally ripe the apple falls. Awareness goes where it is needed. It responds when it is called. It enlivens, ripens, and savors the fruit of its garden. The careful Gardener grows us with its light, until we are heavy and sweet for harvest. When we are ready, like a full apple, we release our attachment from the tree. Thudding into the earth, we spill our seeds into the soil. Awareness is here, tending the seeds with its light. The shoot of an apple tree erupts from the surface, new life in the abundant garden, and Awareness is here.

Memory will not help you be awake, nor will anticipation. Either you directly realize the absolute in this moment or you are lost in the labyrinth of thought.

@Breakingthewall The purpose is the journey itself. Beyond the journey, there is no need for purpose, only effortless effulgent being. The absolute is the well of light without dimensions. Eventually each of our apparent forms dissolves as we awaken to the limitless love and glory which we actually are. We spend so much of our lives in fear; seeing your true nature is so joyful that it banishes fear and sets you free, even while still within the dream. Enlightenment requires the deepest sincerity, and often the absolute cultivates this sincerity by causing its form to suffer. With each challenge, the roots grow deeper. There are no shortcuts, only patiently following the inward path that must be followed. No reason to worry about getting there faster, the absolute within is fulfilling its design in its own way through each form, and it will not be denied. The part of you that hopes there is more game will receive what it desires. It's only when you have flown through the dream long enough, and your wings grow weary, that you will be ready to let the game go and return home. @CARDOZZO Too many to list, but in rough order by milestone each of these has been luminous in its time: Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach Genesis/Psalms/Proverbs (old testament) and the teachings of Jesus (gospels in the new testament) Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl Stages of Faith by James Fowler The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant Eckhart Tolle Tao Te Ching Bhagavad Gita The Mind Illuminated Alan Watts Mooji Being Ram Dass Upanishads Dhammapada Dark Night of the Soul Untethered Soul Nisargadatta Maraj Ramana Maharshi Next on my list: Rig Veda I don't follow many contemporary teachers, and tend to dive into the original mystic writings. It takes me a long time to work through pondering a book. I savor and integrate every insight. It's more about the unconditional light flooding through as I contemplate, than about any particular realization. It dissolves and sinks me into the absolute. As I said earlier, each of us has to carve our own path, but I hope this helps in some way.

It's been a journey for sure. Seeing through the lies of my religious beliefs was helpful early on. It liberated me from the shackles of indoctrination, but not from self-judgment. I've always had a deep intrinsic desire to align my life with truth. The ego is so insidious that it perverts even a pure desire like this into perpetual shame, in the pursuit of perfection. It took decades of suffering before I finally realized that my desire to be good wasn't doing any good. I had to be prostrated by own karma of continuous anxiety, OCD, guilt, depression, and seeing how my suffering was causing those I love to suffer, before I was finally ready to surrender. If only I had surrendered sooner, but better late than never. @funkychunkymonkey I stutter as well. Just one in a trail of easter eggs that I hid within this character's life, as a pointer to deepening awareness.

@Breakingthewall Exactly right. The spiritual journey is a rocket launching into outer space. Its initial engine takes it to a certain height, and then the rocket body is released to plummet back to the earth as the capsule continues its ascent at even greater speed. Eventually the absolute breaks through the sound barrier to deep realization. When that happens, resistance shifts and the minimal form is free to travel by its own momentum. Enlightenment is moving through the dream and enjoying experience, while remaining anchored in absolute awareness. Form survival becomes a whispering automatic process in the background, and there is no longer the distraction of doing anything at all.

@Holykael It's true, the only will is the absolute, which is the only reality. Everything else is the dream, or the absolute in disguise, which also dances to absolute will.

@Breakingthewall Seeing through the gate is different from abiding beyond it. When surrender is deep enough, the mind is no longer at risk of returning to the burden of its conditioning. Until then, suffering continues to serve its purpose. @CARDOZZO Spiritual paths are as diverse as the humans that take them. They are informed by each person's unique predispositions, but they all lead to the same absolute destination.

Weakness: Self-judgment, which has been my deepest source of suffering. Strength: Spirituality as the natural state.