Moksha

As a kid, I had a strange dream that I still remember vividly. I dreamed that I dreamed that I was dreaming. My dream character dreamed its own dream character. It still confuses me, but somehow it made sense at the time ? Consciousness casts a stone into a still pond and creates ever-expanding ripples until they finally de-concentrically resolve back into the pond. It feels like there is not just one layer of creation, but layers upon layers. The creativity of Consciousness is limitless.

In its ultimate state Awareness, or Consciousness if you prefer, is aware of and conscious of nothing but itself. It is absolute, raw, unfettered awareness with no object to be aware of. It is the eternal Self-aware subject. The cosmos, and every object in it, is created by Consciousness to experience the phenomena of sensations, thoughts, and feelings which don't exist in ultimate reality. You can directly realize this, even within the dream. Have you never been Consciousness, in this moment, with no object to focus your awareness on but itself? That epiphany is the point and purpose of meditation. The Self, pure awareness, shines as the light within the heart, surrounded by the senses. Only seeming to think, seeming to move, the Self neither sleeps nor wakes nor dreams. - Katha 4.1.7

Exactly. This is why spiritual bypassing doesn't work. To awaken within the dream, you have to go the full gauntlet your ultimate Self demands, before it shows its face. It is easy to claim enlightenment, but it will never happen until you have drunk life to the bitter dregs.

Well said. The ego is not the enemy, only identification with it, which always leads to suffering. When Consciousness chooses to awaken within, you realize there is nothing the cosmos can do to harm you. You take life less seriously. It is dreaming lucidly. You realize your ultimate nature as Consciousness, but choose to enjoy the dream through the character you create. It becomes the most beautiful, creative, abundant part of the dream. You also realize the avatar, and every other avatar within the dream, is simply an expression of yourself. They have no free will of their own, so how can they be judged?

Who is aware in the present moment? If there's no external world (and ultimately, there isn't), then the person claiming to be aware as Consciousness is no more ultimately real than anyone else. Why would that person's POV be any more objectively real than another person's POV who has had the same realization? Whatever you are perceiving in the moment is whatever Consciousness chooses to perceive through your particular form. That may or may not be the same as what Consciousness chooses to perceive through other forms. It is all Consciousness, playing the game of awakening to itself within the dream. Solipsism is blindness to the Consciousness that imbues every form that it creates. It is the false idea that Consciousness only has the capacity to realize itself within your form, but not within other forms inhabiting its dream.

@michaelcycle00 Only whose POV exists? The POV is bound to the relative nature of each being. Ultimately there is no POV, just as there are no separate beings. It is all Consciousness dreaming itself into apparent differentiation. Within the dream, your being is no more real than the being of anyone else. It is only a relative seeming of separation. Awakening is like lucid dreaming. It is the realization of the seamlessness of Consciousness, even from within the dream. The limitation of solipsism is that Consciousness is still binding itself to the POV of the character, and is unwilling to realize itself throughout the cosmos.

Separation is an egoic concept. Imaginary lines are necessary for the cosmos to exist, but aren't ultimately real. Consciousness appears to be separate from itself, but it is only an appearance. Solipsism is a partial awakening to your ultimate nature, but fails to realize that every being in the cosmos is no more real or unreal than you. Consciousness is in all beings, and all beings dissolve into it. It is all the same Consciousness. They see the same Self in a spiritual aspirant and an outcaste, in an elephant, a cow, and a dog.

Does Consciousness have knowledge, as if it is a precious possession to cling to? Consciousness is awareness dreaming of knowledge, existence, and experience but these are only a dream. It observes the unfurling of its creation, but when it chooses to realize its true nature, apparent knowledge dissipates and there is only attributeless awareness. Awakening is Self-realization as the unjudging Witness of the cosmos. In the depths of the ocean, there is no knowledge, only non-conceptual being. A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. - Alexander Pope

I feel that in a way, all minds are on the spectrum. Awakening is not falling below thought, but realizing your ultimate nature beyond thought.

@Razard86 Well said. Judgment is always egoic. It separates rather than unites. My personality was shaped by a fundamentalist faith, and still sometimes struggles, especially with self-judgment. The deconditioning continues, and is the grace of Consciousness. How liberating to realize that you are not your thoughts, beliefs, or experiences. Ultimately, you are the awareness behind these phenomena, observing with equanimity.

I have felt the void terror you describe, but then realized it was only the conditioned personality that desperately seeks permanence in an impermanent world. As Consciousness, observing the waves on the surface of myself, there is only stillness. The deep I is love, creativity, and tranquility. As long as it doesn't identify with its creations, there is nothing to fear. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. - A Course in Miracles

Direct realization is more meaningful than the collective library of every teacher, guru, and sage. If you are able to realize without requiring a pointer, all the better.

Yes, personality only exists in a relative sense. And yet, Consciousness creates beings and resides within them, even in relative reality. It is an incomprehensible interaction of the ultimate with the relative. Neo-Advaita dismisses the relative as meaningless, but if so, why does Consciousness create it? If God is not only absolute, but in the relative as well, by definition the relative is also holy.

@Thought Art All good Go with what resonates with you, and don't be surprised if that changes over time. I remember reading Eckhart Tolle for the first time, and tossing the book aside as woo-woo trash. It wasn't until years later, when I had suffered more, that I picked it up again and couldn't put it down. Same words, different readiness for their wisdom.

I feel this is why Neo-Advaita teachings ring hollow for many of us. Platitudes about there being no you sound mysterious and wise, but are they useful? Each being is worthy of honor. You are unique and even holy, because of who inhabits you. There will never be another personality identical to yours, and the spiritual journey of Self-discovery through the lens of your personality is entirely special and your own. Celebrate and respect it. It is not that your personality isn't real, it is that it is only relatively real. The universe and every being in it exist, but they are not absolute. Einstein proved this. Relative reality is in the eye of the perceiver. Space and time are not ultimately real. This becomes obvious when we push space and time to their extremes, at the macro- or micro-levels of reality. Quantum and astrophysics reveal the fraying ends of the universal matrix that we inhabit. Science supports spirituality, beyond what most people realize. Still, science is bound to the laws of the relative universe. The thinking mind will never directly realize Consciousness. It can suggest what is possible, but awakening is inherently non-conceptual. If you have awakened, questions become irrelevant. They are the conditioned mind trying to understand a spiritual experience which is beyond the ability of the mind to comprehend.

You might even say we are beyond phenomenal

@Godishere Thanks for your kind words, I appreciate it ?

You are not the only Consciousness that exists. Consciousness is all that exists. It is you, it is me, and it is every being that it creates. It is also beyond the universe. Your direct experience is simply Consciousness realizing itself within your form. Consciousness is absolute, but you and I are only expressions of it like the waves of an infinite ocean. We are forms in a relative universe, inhabited by Consciousness. Consciousness is within us and is our ultimate identity.

@Galyna I completely agree, and your contributions to the forum are sincerely appreciated. Thank you for starting this thread. The value of suffering and surrender is a deep insight that doesn't get discussed often enough on the forum.

I hear you, and you are wise to be skeptical of all teachings. You can only see if they point you toward Self-realization or not. Once they do, let even those teachings go. Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don’t mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon. The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore. The raft is needed, but the raft is not the other shore. An intelligent person would not carry the raft around on his head after making it across to the other shore. Bhikkhus, my teaching is the raft which can help you cross to the other shore beyond birth and death. Use the raft to cross to the other shore, but don’t hang onto it as your property. Do not become caught in the teaching. You must be able to let it go. - Thich Nhat Hanh Consciousness creates the dream, and inhabits each character within the dream, whether Consciousness awakens to itself within the character or not. Sometimes it reveals itself to itself through other characters, but the characters themselves have no will. It is nonsensical, and trying to grok Consciousness will only create confusion. It is only directly realized, when Consciousness decides within the dream that the time is right.

Not only better, but the only way. Everything else is just conceptual entrapment, unless it points toward direct realization.

@Galyna ?Thank you, yes I wrote it during the dark night. Wanting it more than anything, even to the terrifying brink of annihilation, is the price of ultimate reunion. The personality doesn't have to actually die, just become translucent enough for Consciousness to shine through it as the true Self. Ironically, the attempts of the self to see the face of God, however apparently sincere, are never enough. True surrender is an act of grace. I like this quote from Tim Harrington: The central paradox of the spiritual path is that in striving to transcend the self, we actually build it up. Our holy solutions invariably calcify into grotesque casts of ego. The dark night is God's solution to our solutions, dissolving our best-laid constructions anew into the mystery of grace. It happens in spite of our best efforts to resist it. But thank God it happens.

Tough love It is easier to never see the face of God, than to realize it and then be exiled from its presence. You don't see the love in the banishment, but the torture of it is necessary to deepen the willingness to truly surrender. On the cross, Jesus cried out: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". When I first came to the forum, I had realized my true nature. It was like Charlie's adventures in the Chocolate Factory. My life completely changed, and my suffering was all but gone. Still, I sensed that awakening wasn't enough. I still needed to be purified, to the point where I so deeply realized the emptiness of myself, that I desired nothing else than reunion with God. I looked into the mirror, And saw the face of God. Besmitten by its beauty, I lost myself completely. With loving kindness, God Seeing through me, Breathed upon the mirror, Misting the reflection of myself. Abandoned to my terror, I searched the darkened mirror, Desperately reaching for Reunion. God continues watching, And sometimes, in the mirror, I see its face, my face, Gently smiling, knowing.

Beautiful, Galyna ? Reminds me of "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross. It is a desperate journey that moves you beyond the childlike euphoria of initial awakening, into the deep ocean of self-annihilation which is necessary for true God-realization. I love the commentary by Mirabai Starr: This is a path of annihilation of the ego. But we must first be brought home to ourselves before we can bear to see our nothingness before God…It is less for those who are struggling to find themselves than it is for the ones who have a clear sense of self and are ready to purify it… This is a path for those who use their suffering as a tool for transformation. In the dark night of each soul, we are simultaneously annihilated and immeasurably strengthened.

I see ego as the conditioned mind, which can't help but be egoic. You can still be awake to your ultimate nature as Consciousness, but until the attachments of the mind are entirely dissolved, there will still be some ego. Few have moved beyond the ego entirely, which is the definition of enlightenment. The collapse of the ego is the dissolution of the self. From the ultimate perspective, there never is an individual I to be enlightened in the first place. It is all part of the dream journey of Consciousness, appearing to be separate, back to the Self.