Moksha

Only because your hilarious quips and insightful antics have made everyone laugh so hard that we are exhausted into slumber.

I'm referring to dissolving desires and aversions which are so distracting that they close the portal to awareness. You have to dive deep into the ocean of yourself, and face the darkest, murkiest fears. There's nothing complex about it, but it requires absolute sincerity. When you do, these mind creatures release their grip, and you are free to live directly. Not all attachments are distracting. I enjoy New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. I can do so without losing awareness; in fact, awareness makes every bite tastier.

If you're spiritually mature enough to see beyond words to the meaning they represent, I highly recommend "I Am That" by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. It's available as a free PDF download.

The spiritual journey allows the absolute to see more clearly. The absolute realizes the real vs. the false within its dream. It begins to experience its imagination lucidly, without losing itself within it. Openness requires letting go of your desires and aversions. It isn't about analyzing, desconstructing, or solving them. It is about dissolving them by deepening awareness.

The spiritual journey begins with realization, but deepens with integration. The complexity that you see is caused by learned patterns, which have to be unlearned. Focus on clearing the portal. Let go of thinking and allow life to unfold unconditionally, within the awareness that you are. When awareness passes the event threshold within its dream, phenomena begin to lose their gravitational pull. There is deepening distance from thoughts and feelings. They are immediately seen for the transient phenomena that they are, and instead of demanding your attention, they converge as pointers to this.

The conditioned mind is a cluttered portal that creates a false sense of separation, and blinds the absolute from itself. The clear mind is its direct conduit.

@Javfly33 @Bazooka Jesus ?The mind confides, "I serve you well", while stoking up the flames of hell.

Direct realization dissolves the "I" that thinks it exists. Apparent boundaries fade, and awareness is within and beyond everything. There's still the bare portal of a perspective, but instead of identifying as a person, the absolute sees the portal as a window to its imagination.

The treachery of words is that they so easily misrepresent awareness as something to be sought after, discovered, or explored rather than directly realized. Concepts are entrapping, rather than enlightening. Unfortunately, words are often a necessary medium for the absolute to indirectly communicate with itself. They are best abandoned once direct realization occurs, except as a rudimentary tool for continuing the expansion of awareness. After awakening, the spiritual journey is about integration. Instead of trying to conceptually solve the unsolvable, it becomes the deepening process of clearing attachments, and living directly. If thoughts are increasing rather than decreasing, awareness is losing itself again, within its siren song.

Outer ring: Categorize reality as simple (i.e., absolute) vs. complex (i.e., relative). Inner ring: Categorize reality as incomprehensible (i.e., the paradoxical mystery that is beyond attributes and dualities) vs. comprehensible (i.e., conceptualizations about the nature of the cosmos). Bullseye: Release the need to categorize, recognizing all thoughts, models, and conclusions as dross of the conditioned mind, and directly realize reality.

The name (absolute, god, whatever) is only a pointer to reality.

All qualia are imaginary, including the appearance of sensations and perceptions. If it begins or ends, it isn't real. If it moves or changes, it isn't real. If it is separate, combinable, or divisible, it isn't real. If it is describable or definable, it isn't real. Reality is the absolute appearing as unreality, and essentially being beyond appearance.

Since there's no difference between you and me, it's immensely reassuring to know that I'm as AWAKE as you are. Tossing my Gita into the fire ?, cardboard box here I come! ?

The absolute has the capacity to forget and realize itself, through apparently different forms. It can realize itself within one form, while appearing to be oblivious in another form.

@Someone here Depends how you define existence, but if you mean absolute reality, phenomena only appear to exist. They are the real pretending to be what it is not. Realizing that transience is unreal, directly beyond thoughts, is cataclysmic to the ego. Everything you have identified as, developed relationships with, pursued and fled, transforms from a super-immersive VR experience into a jittery film silently passing across the screen of your awareness. At first it is shocking to the absolute within the form, which to this point has identified with the mind. The film rolls on, but no longer has meaning. Eventually the absolute recovers and tries to make sense of being beyond the mind. It's an impossible task. Inconceivable. The brain can't compute its unreality. The absolute may vehemently deny what it has realized, turning away from the inevitable implications of its misidentification, but it can't unsee what it has seen. It is tumultuous, terrifying, and takes you deeper than any paradigm shift. People wanting to pursue the spiritual path need to understand this. Awakening tests your sincerity to the core. It's critical that the mind is intact enough not to break under the weight of its unreality. If it does, lucidity within the dream no longer becomes possible. Awareness becomes trapped again within the labyrinth of the mind, possibly for the duration of the form. Don't trifle with ego death. This is one reason I feel the spiritual journey is healthiest when it unfolds naturally, without shortcuts. Of course, the shortcuts are also attempts of the absolute to realize itself, and they may facilitate the process, as long as the mind doesn't entirely unravel in the attempt. I don't see it as shameful that passing through the gate usually requires a sharper goad than curiosity. Suffering has the power to drive you forward, but only if it is leveraged to deepen your surrender. Otherwise, suffering only entangles you more deeply in the dream. The love of truth can also bring you through the gate, without needing to suffer so deeply, but the love has to be so sincere that you are willing to sacrifice everything, including yourself, to realize the truth.

I agree, it's stunning when you take a step back and realize the transience of the cosmos. We sometimes take for granted that everything will continue as it currently appears, especially personal experience. I remember being in my 20s and writing in my journal that I felt at the pinnacle of life, and nothing was beyond my power to achieve. Life teaches you the lesson of transience. If you pay attention, and allow its implications to sink in, the search for the absolute, which is beyond change, becomes increasingly sincere.

Extremity is easier and more dangerous than moderation.

Even if it means hiking for a while through the abyss, take the inner path that leads to absolute light.

On your behalf, allow me to say you're welcome to yourself, and also thank you for being here with yourself.

A wise guy once observed: Those who drink to intoxication are digging up their own roots.

Have you ever made an informationless decision? What about direct wisdom, which illuminates the mind without being informed by it?

Yes, it is the realization that you aren't doing anything at all. The mirage of separation between you and everything you experience disappears as you approach it. Beyond the duality of the seer and the seen, you are the seamless awareness in which all phenomena arise and dissolve. It sounds like nondual dogma, but as you break the surface and dive into the deep ocean, it becomes increasingly direct. The I that thinks, feels, and acts is not the true I. You are.

I non-dualistically second this proposal, "Here, Here"!!! Best boxing party ever, I'll bring the punch ? @Bazooka Jesus @Benton @Breakingthewall @gettoefl @Javfly33 @Kuba Powiertowski @Water by the River @Yimpa

Realizing that enlightenment is itself part of the story is the reason for the buddha smile, but let's not peek at the last page just yet.

@Water by the River @Javfly33 ? Feeling stuffily serious all of a sudden...time to summon @Bazooka Jesus @Kuba Powiertowski Thanks for sharing, I read a good part of it and wholeheartedly agree.⚡ It's not unique to westerners, but the rajas focus on rapidly returning apparent value with minimal investment is sadly quintessential of our culture. Since we're discussing Ramana: Q: Is it harder for westerners to withdraw inwards? A: Yes, they are rajastic [mentally overactive] and their energy goes outward. Q: Of what nature is the realization of westerners who relate that they have had flashes of cosmic consciousness? A: It came as a flash and disappeared as such. That which has a beginning must also end. Only when the ever-present consciousness is realized will it be permanent.