Moksha

@spiritual memes @Consept Well said, and I agree. The pursuit of truth is worthy in its own right, but awakening is healing. If suffering is not reduced, and attachments are not frayed, the conditioned mind is still at the helm of your life.

@thisintegrated Do you feel the stereotype you are presenting is universally true, or even helpful? I've never tried weed (probably will at some point), I used to collect rocks as a kid but not any more, and my spiritual journey has reduced identification with and trust in the credibility of my thoughts. Any personality type can benefit from spirituality, although maybe people go about it differently. Ultimately, Self-realization dissolves the opacity of any personality type and allows Consciousness to shine through more clearly.

There are many examples of enlightened people who attend church (John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Meister Eckhart). As long as spiritual practices don't get in the way of Self-realization, there's nothing detrimental about them, and you might even see them more deeply as the symbolic spiritual path that they are. I still find a lot of wisdom in the bible, although I no longer see it as the sole expression of truth.

I agree that religious people can awaken at a certain level. They may not be fully awake yet because they are stuck in the worshiper-God duality, but spirituality is still possible. At one point in my life, I was quite religious and had spiritual experiences that were realizations of Consciousness, which I called God. Letting go of my beliefs was a step toward awakening, but it still took many years of suffering before I was dissolved enough to see.

Funny enough, when I first joined the forum I took the Myers-Briggs and scored as an INFP. First time in my life, every other time (including probably now) I was an INFJ. I don't feel there is a perfect correlation between spirituality and personality type, but there does seem to be a correlation.

I agree. I used to wonder why gurus offer spiritual teachings, or why practices like meditation and contemplation are of any value if people have no free will. We at the relative level can't choose to awaken. Then I realized that these are in the toolbox of Consciousness, allowing it to mold the human mind until Consciousness sees itself within the dream.

Yes, it is an assumption until your identity is directly realized. If you are not your thoughts, who are you? I like Sadhguru, but trust Tolle and my own experience more. I haven't had a single meditation session where there wasn't at least some brain activity, but I don't consider myself an advanced meditator. I feel the purpose of meditation is not to suppress thoughts, but to allow them to come and go without being distracted by them. It is the stillness of pure awareness.

Eckhart Tolle said that after his awakening, his thoughts reduced by 80%. As long as you are experiencing life through the lens of a human being, the mind will continue to think. The difference is that you no longer respond to your thoughts, as if they had any ability to save you from suffering. You realize that they are actually the source of suffering, and are sustained by it. Like you, I have found refuge from my mind in meditation: Meditation enables them to go Deeper and deeper into consciousness, From the world of words to the world of thoughts, Then beyond thoughts to wisdom in the Self.

@Jehovah increases Incomprehensibly true. It can only be directly realized, beyond concepts. Another passage from the Upanishads, which speaks to the inability of the human mind to understand or describe ultimate reality: Words turn back frightened.

@inFlow So true It's only when I'm awake that I realize I never truly fell asleep, and only pretended to be an individual I. We are the same Consciousness, talking to itself in a forum of dreams.

The irony of enlightenment is that you realize there is no absolute you to be enlightened. It is the self dissolving into the Self, like a grain of salt in the infinite ocean. It was the Self all along, appearing to be separate from what it actually is.

The most radical thing you can do is to Self-realize that you are here not to die but to enjoy this phenomenal moment, seeing through the dream-prism that you created.

Nothing is a better solvent for insanity (i.e., individuality) than suffering. It will grind you down until there is no you left to grind. Thank God for suffering ?

They are two sides of the same coin. Consciousness is in them, but is also beyond them. The space between these words is nothing and the space between these letters is nothing still. The appearance of these letters is something and the appearance of these words is something still. Consciousness is the ultimate dreamer of both. I love this passage from the Upanishads: That which is above heaven and below earth, which is also between heaven and earth, which is the same through the past, present, and future - that is woven, warp and woof, in space… In what is space itself woven, warp and woof? Tell me, Yajnavalkya. The sages call it Akshara, the Imperishable. It is neither big nor small, neither long nor short, neither hot nor cold, neither bright nor dark, neither air nor space. It is without attachment, without taste, smell, or touch, without eyes, ears, tongue, mouth, breath, or mind, without movement, without limitation, without inside or outside. It consumes nothing, and nothing consumes it. In perfect accord with the will of the Imperishable, sun and moon make their orbits…Nothing other than the Imperishable can see, hear, think, or know. It is in the Imperishable that space is woven, warp and woof.

@Rigel It is provable, but only through direct realization. At best, people can point you toward the inner path. It's up to you to try it out, and determine whether or not it leads to Self-insight and equanimity. I can tell you that meditation has been enormously beneficial in my spiritual journey, but the words mean nothing unless they motivate you to try it for yourself. If you want the rewards of meditation, you have to earn them. Consciousness doesn't give up its secrets easily. It is always there in the deepest cave of the heart, waiting to be discovered, but only when it decides the time is right. Maybe encouraging others to practice meditation is a way for Consciousness to reveal itself to itself. Maybe not. Try it and see. @vladorion Do you feel realizing your true nature is a one-time thing? Maybe it varies, but for me enlightenment is elusive. Just when Consciousness reveals itself within and my thoughts seem to have receded forever into the distance, I am plunged back into the cold waters of the conditioned mind and forced to continue swimming to the next island of reprieve. I have seen a spiral of awakenings lasting for longer periods of time, but eventually they are followed by another dark night that drives the realization of my ultimate nature even deeper. I feel that when you finally stop falling asleep, and your attachments dissolve to the thinnest sense of a personal self, at that point you have attained enlightenment.

Can nothingness stand out? Can it be anything other than non-differentiation? If not, nothingness cannot exist. Maybe a more accurate word than "exist" is "real". Nothingness can be real without existing. Just more words, which inevitably lead to confusion because they cannot represent ultimate reality. The territory is only directly realized, no matter how accurate the map pretends to be.

It is the only evidence that you can actually trust: direct realization. At best, people who have awakened can point you toward the path, but it is meaningless until you walk it yourself.

It is a red flag to speak of something rather than nothing. Any distinction is just another duality. Solipsists claim that they are everything. Nihilists claim that only nothingness is real. Ultimate reality laughs at claims. Consciousness is beyond something and nothing. It cannot be conceptualized, only Self-realized. We are it, and everything and every nothing is it.

For me, contemplation only begins with a spark of thought. It is seeing beyond the words, and realizing the truth they point toward. It is joyful and nourishing, like rain seeping into the dry ground. I read a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, or some other spiritual source, and the words dissolve into a resonance with being. The fulfillment of contemplation is directly realized, and is entirely non-conceptual. As Longchen Rabjam puts it: Don’t dwell on the past, or fantasize about the future. Don’t engineer this natural, ongoing presence. Don’t direct the mind or draw it within. Just let it settle, without distraction, resting without grasping, or conceptually structuring this clarity that is vivid, quiet, lucid, illuminating.

Meditation has been a path to enlightenment for millennia. Neti neti is an ancient practice of deliberately diving into the mind, discarding what is realized not to be your true essence, until only you remain. When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation, the Self reveals itself. Beholding the Self by means of the Self, an aspirant knows the joy and peace of complete fulfillment. Having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed in the stilled mind, he never swerves from the eternal truth. He desires nothing else, and cannot be shaken by the heaviest burden of sorrow. - Bhagavad Gita 6:19

Thanks for sharing your experience. ?The enlightenment journey is about learning to let go of the mind's attachments, and thrive in the spaciousness that is who you actually are. I can see how living in a monastery where many of these temptations are absent may be beneficial, especially if you are able to sustain the serenity of presence after returning to the phenomenal world.

Although I haven't tried psychedelics, I agree that they can open the shutters of the mind and give you a glimpse of ultimate reality. Tolle mentioned Aldous Huxley in his answer, and interestingly Huxley concluded that his glimpses on psychedelics were only that: [The] things which had entirely filled my attention on that first occasion [chronicled in The Doors of Perception], I now perceived to be temptations – temptations to escape from the central reality into false, or at least imperfect and partial Nirvanas of beauty and mere knowledge.

The etymology of "exist" means "to stand out". So nothingness does not exist. Only phenomena exist. Ultimate reality is beyond nothingness and thingness, which are dualities. Consciousness is all there is, and creation/destruction is the eternal game it plays. This multitude of beings is created and destroyed again and again in the succeeding days and nights of Brahma. But beyond this formless state there is another, unmanifested reality, which is eternal and is not dissolved when the cosmos is destroyed.

@Zeroguy ? Thanks for sharing. I've only seen a few of Leo's videos, but it always strikes me how we arrived at such similar realizations along such different paths.

I see awakening as profound Self-realization, but it is only the beginning of enlightenment which is the dissolving of all attachments and perpetual, unswerving presence. It is the still flame that never flickers, even in the strongest winds. By that definition, enlightenment is extraordinarily rare. As Jesus said, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. I love this passage from the Bhagavad Gita: Good people come to worship me for different reasons. Some come to the spiritual life because of suffering, some in order to understand life; some come through a desire to achieve life’s purpose, and some come who are men and women of wisdom. Unwavering in devotion, always united with me, the man or woman of wisdom surpasses all the others…the wise who are always established in union, for whom there is no higher goal than me, may be regarded as my very Self…seeing me everywhere and in everything. Such great souls are very rare.