Moksha

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.

Most people aren't ready to climb to the summit of perpetual awareness. They may temporarily see it from a distance, through psychedelics or other spiritual experiences, but the peek is not the peak. They lack the stamina to make the spiritual ascent. It's not because they are insincere or inept. They are staggering under the accumulated burden of destructive habits. This burden always returns after the peek experience, by contrast even heavier than before. Each of us walks the trail of life, collecting rocks (physical and mental habits) along the way. These rocks are formed from fleeing fears: mental trauma, physical abuse, broken relationships, etc. or chasing desires: pleasant experiences that entice us, or have come and gone, or are clung to in the desperate need to keep them from ever leaving. We carefully place each rock into our ego backpack. We believe that by containing each rock, we can control it, but it only adds to the weight we are carrying until it becomes unbearable. How do you sustain an arduous hike under such a burden? It's impossible. You can only ascend when you realize that the rocks must be removed. They are not only the source of your suffering, but are the reason you have not been able to attain the summit. This realization is the turning point in your spiritual journey. Usually, it only happens when you become so self-exhausted that you cannot go any farther. Life slams you hard enough and long enough that you finally open your eyes. You realize that all this time, fleeing fears and chasing desires has been the cause of your own damnation. Suffering, when leveraged, is the greatest grace. Initially it only adds to your burden, but when applied to the spiritual journey, to deepen your surrender of external pursuits, it will ultimately set you free. Whatever path you take (self-inquiry, meditation, yoga, renunciation, devotion, service, psychedelics), it can only bring you to the inner gate. Passing through to the other side, which is being absolute awareness, requires surrender. The ego, with its bulging backpack of lies, must be dropped to the ground, so you are small enough to fit through the narrow way. It is the final step of trust, which is the deepest love, that reunites you with yourself. The absolute realizes that all this time, it has been fooling itself by casting awareness externally, into the cosmos of its imagination. It has completed another night journey away from and back to itself. Awareness has traveled from twilight to darkness, and finally to dawn within the dream. Now, just before the sun ascends to its full glory, you are free to enjoy the receding stories of the dream, no longer being bound by them.

@KGrimes You're right that the mind is tricky, and are wise to be wary of it. It takes deep inner insight, yoked with sincere integration, for the mind to become domesticated. There are good therapists out there, but you have to keep looking until you find the right person for you. It's true that most therapists aren't awakened, but all you truly need is someone that can provide a safe space and ask questions that help you find the answers within yourself. There's a reason one of the traditional paths of awakening is bhakti, or devotion with the guidance of a guru. It is all the same summit, just different paths of getting there, based on the individual dispositions and strengths of the aspirant.

@Carl-Richard Spiritual spelunking You have to face the darkness and descend into the dragon's lair before being granted access to its hoard.

The prospect of such a sacrifice can scare people into dropping the pickaxe and running back to the entrance of the spiritual cave. So it goes until they finally tire of running, and strike gold.

Exactly. Love is you trying to realize itself, and it is others trying not to realize itself. Regardless of realization, it is still inevitably Love. When you understand your essence, you can't avoid understanding the essence of others. The apparent boundaries separating you from them begin to dissolve. It is all the same essence. Realizing this, how can there be judgment? It is all the absolute, losing and finding itself within its dream. It's ok to distance yourself from toxicity, until you are no longer defined by it. When the absolute awakens itself within you, it will work through you to awaken itself within others.

Loneliness bound by perspective is the lie of solipsism. Love beyond perspective is the absolute truth.

Einstein did

@KGrimes Good for you. Spirituality is therapy. We all have traumas that eventually dissolve in the light of unconditional love, which is your absolute nature. The best therapist walks cowled at your side, encouraging your progress along the inward path, until eventually you arrive at the gate of yourself. You pranam as you leave them behind, enter the gate, and realize that all along the face beneath the cowl was your own.

Every step of your path requires judgment. Eventually you realize that not only are others following the inevitable trajectory of their existence, but you are doing the same. Love is the absolute resonating with itself, within and between the apparent forms of its creation. When this is realized, there is no judgment of the self or of others, only unconditional grace.

Here and accounted for

Yes, the absolute source is always unconditional, but its journey through the cosmos is the experience of cluttering and clearing infinite perspectives. The absolute creates a portal, which is the seeming perspective of the self, through which it explores its dream. It's like a river running outward, and accumulating debris by its undercurrent. Gradually the opening is clogged, creating the sense of separating the river from its source. The river reverses course, back along the dry bed of its suffering. Flowing inward with increasing pressure, it breaks through the damn of its exploration, until perspective is clear and the river again flows freely. There is no judgment of selfishness or selflessness, only the absolute exploring the phenomenal circular path within its dream.

Whatever spiritual path you take, pace it. Retain awareness of form limitations, and remain within them even as they fade. If the kite gets too high, too quickly, beyond the control of the hand that flies it, it is at risk of being lost in the wind.

Everything is different, nothing is the same. Beyond everything and nothing, the extreme states of the dream, is the incomprehensible mystery of the absolute, which directly realizes itself in silence.

It happens as it must. Realization doesn't necessitate dissolving the dream, only seeing it for what it is. It is the peak experience of flying unconditionally, without fear of falling. Eventually, even flying takes its course, and the absolute returns to the still solace of itself.

The wicked irony of pursuing fame through spirituality (or any other attempt to mistake spirituality as a means to an end) is that when you finally strike spiritual gold, whatever was being pursued with such greed is discarded as the worthless distraction that it is.

He was a mystic who directly understood not only his true nature, but the preciousness of each apparent form.

At deeper levels of awareness, the you perspective is so ephemeral that it nearly ceases to exist. A portal is still required for the absolute to realize itself from within its dream, but the resonance of light becomes so brilliant that the apparent details of the cosmos seamlessly resolve. It's still a perspective, but from such spaciousness that the absolute is in the pure state of itself, free from misidentification with the actions or results of its apparent form.