Moksha

There is no black without white. No joy without suffering. No love without hate. Do you choose duality, with its inevitable transience, or changeless, ultimate reality? Whether or not you understand it, You do.

It's not uncommon for people to have a conceptual awakening, where they understand that reality is not what most people think. This realization frequently leads to solipsism, a lack of purpose, and a sense of futility. Go deeper. You still need to awaken spiritually. You have understood what "you" are not, but you have not yet directly realized what You are. Relative reality is not purposeless. There is still love, happiness, and peace in lucid living. Consciousness created all of this for a reason. It puts parts of itself to sleep, because this is the only way for anything to be created, experienced, or enjoyed. When you recognize who You are, and that You are already infinitely abundant, you no longer need to suffer. You can celebrate the transience of life, understanding and taking peace in the realization that nothing that is ultimately real can be threatened.

Easier in some ways, but not in others. Eckhart Tolle admitted that had The Power of Now been a flop, he would have been equally happy farming tomatoes. Physical labor is simple, but it is back-breaking work. Certainly Tolle would have made less money, and lived less comfortably, as a tomato farmer. The upside is that he is able to help people suffer less, through the path he has chosen. From an absolute perspective, there are no "people", and there is no "suffering" to alleviate. Choose your own dream.

From a relative perspective, the role you play in life is irrelevant, regardless of how lucid you are. You can be an enlightened tomato farmer, or an enlightened global leader. There is a tendency for enlightened people to become teachers, because they see the unnecessary suffering in others, but being truly enlightened means seeing and living the reality that everything is already the same. "You" can live the dharma with equanimity and integrity, without having to be a monk.

I call it lucid dreaming. You realize ultimate reality, but are still bound by relative reality, within the dream. Even the dream deserves to be honored, and "you" can make it joyful, rather than a nightmare.

Realized like a guru, now be ⚡

Nice process. Next: At the Monk center, there is no Monk.

You got it, even better you are it

You don't need to be afraid of anything, and the ego has nothing to offer that you aren't already, with infinite abundance. Don't keep it in mind, let go of the mind. Freedom is being.

Welcome back. Hold onto your insight. Guaranteed: your ego will rise from the grave, and insist that you need it and you are it. It is a hydra that grows more heads with every defeat. Instead of fighting it, lay down your sword, and be.

Yes, which is infinitely unconditional.

@Mips ? The best trip you can take is into Yourself, enjoy the ride.

Get used to it The older you get, the faster time passes. If you want to die before you die, now is the "time" to do it.

@onlyOneness Another great first post, and welcome Free will only resonates in the context of ultimate reality. Anything that is created cannot have free will. Only the uncreated is free.

@ivankiss Thanks for sharing such a personally profound experience. If you haven't seen this yet, you might find the near death experience of the first two people in this video to be helpful in processing your own experience.

@Nahm Preach, brother ?

Trust your instinct. Letting go of your conditioned mind, and practicing one-pointed presence, is the path to freedom. Enlightenment isn't just directly realizing who you are. It is also developing the discipline necessary to swim upstream, against the current of your conditioning. This is how equanimity is developed. When you are resolutely centered, as Consciousness, you will be at the helm. Right thoughts, words, and actions will naturally arise, when you are present. A good guide can help you along the path, but ultimately it is a solo journey. It requires integrity, courage, and unrelenting commitment. That can only come from you. The rewards you reap along the way are well worth the effort. Unlike the false promises of the ego, you will discover the enduring peace and happiness that is only available when you abide in Yourself.

This forum is more evolved than most. It serves the purpose of helping humans realize their true nature as Consciousness, and of living lucidly after this realization. If Leo deleted the forum, Consciousness would continue its peekaboo game in other ways. It already does, infinitely, and beyond the capacity of any "one" of us to comprehend.

@Alscho2020 Nice first post, and welcome to the forum. There is no inherent disadvantage to determinism, if you understand relative and ultimate reality. Relative reality is nothing more than a cosmic pinball machine of cause and effect, being played by ultimate reality, which is Consciousness. It would be silly for the pinball to claim that it has free will. If you understand that You are actually the player, not just the pinball, the question of free will no longer matters.

Yes, but only temporarily. Eventually, the system seeks homeostasis. Look at human history, and you can easily identify periods of chaos (e.g., the Dark Ages), followed by periods of order and enlightenment (e.g., the Renaissance). That said, Consciousness has upward directionality, at least within the scope of human history. Evolution carves a climbing spiral of chaos and order, where nothing that is learned is ultimately lost. I recently heard Eckhart Tolle talk about this. He noted the 5 mass extinctions that have occurred on our planet, and that when life came back after each extinction, it didn't just start over again. It was more evolved. How long humans will survive as a species remains to be seen, but whatever comes after us will be more evolved than we are.

Conditioned mind = strife and unhappiness. Guess what means serenity and surrender?

In the dream dimension, everything is duality, and balances itself. Chaos and Order are equally necessary, and each ebbs and flows to achieve this balance. One cannot exist without the other.

In the ancient texts, the universe is described as infinitely creating and destroying itself. This is considered plausible, but not indisputable, by science. The Day of Brahma ends after a thousand yugas and the Night of Brahma ends after a thousand yugas. When the day of Brahma dawns, forms are brought forth from the Unmanifest; when the night of Brahma comes, these forms merge in the Formless again. 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. The universe is only relative reality. Ultimately, there is no time, no space, no change, and no motion. However, all of it, including relative reality, is still reality.

@Adamq8 Metaphysical discussions are interesting, but they are rarely enlightening. The subconscious mind is where it's at. I like Aldous Huxley's comparison to a reducing valve that restricts consciousness. There is vast knowledge under the surface, but the subconscious is reluctant to let us access it. I think one of the reasons our brains evolved this way is to protect us. If we had conscious access to everything we know, most of us would be completely overwhelmed, and unable to function. Especially when it comes to traumatic experiences, which the brain prefers to keep safely hidden, until we are ready to deal with them. On a metaphysical level, I think the locking of the vault, and jailbreaking it, is the game that Consciousness likes to play. There are vaults, within vaults, within vaults. Psychedelics can be a code to getting in. Meditation can take you even deeper. All of our attachments are tucked away there, and we cannot dissolve them, until we are able to reach them. A rare few, like the Buddha, have reached the deepest level, where identity itself dissolves, and there is only unconditional Consciousness. That is ultimate freedom.

@Adamq8 ? There are metaphysical levels that could be discussed beyond your comments, but overall right on.