Preetom

That's the name of the game huh..

Already doing the practices but it doesn't hurt to know where one is at. Yes sir

@SoonHei Be ready to get your shit blown away

En event whose cause cannot be traced or understood in conventional sense.

It very well could be depending on how the seer sees and interprets.

I honestly don't know what a miracle means conventionally. I feel that it's totally dependent on the seer and how you look. From a certain perspective, everything is a miracle. From another, everything is pale and mundane. But if I am to answer if I ever experienced something that completely knocked my socks off, shifted the trajectory of my life in one major epiphany in an instant, then I would have to say no; I haven't come across such an experience.

Am I aware? yes. Where do I actually go in my experience to verify that fact? In other words, where is the source of this knowingness located? It's all just known, out of nowhere. This awareness of awareness itself, being aware of being aware is so simple and yet hard to continuously stay right there. As the direct path suggests, we start with the end and just stay there. This knowing of I Am or being aware of being aware, there is no process involved here. Right now, this very moment I'm either conscious of it or not. So what actually makes me overlook this basic fact about my experience? Thoughts. Especially thoughts where I am a character in a narrative. What is the purpose of this perpetual self referencing narrative? Is this the primary mechanism the ego convicts it's presence over and over again? Thoughts and tendencies can be so pernicious. The reminder I Am either puts a full stop to the stream of thoughts or dis-identifies the awareness from thoughts. The bulk of this Enlightenment work basically boils down to this. This I Am, this beingness has to be thoroughly understood and investigated. This is where self inquiry leads to. The dilemma ensues the moment when I come to the foreground of experience as a character overlooking the only raw, basic fact of experience. The knowingness or being aware of being aware. Emotions and tendencies to support the self image seem to be fueling this process.

Tough life, right? Anyway thanks for the answers so far guys

@Leo Gura I think I've found a better way to frame the question. Can conscious Enlightenment happen before the development of an ego? There seems to be no case of Enlightenment right from the birth. It seems that every conscious being must go through a series of conditioning, develop an ego and then comes Enlightenment.

@Noone Here Yes I agree that the primal beliefs about being human or something has to be uprooted. Enlightenment won't come from superficial spiritual activities while the building blocks of duality experience aka beliefs lie hidden and safe deep down. And the quotes are there for my reminder of my own tendency to forget about my mortality. Don't take it too seriously. I'm not making fun of Jed. His books are some of most real talk I've ever come across. The reason you don't see much mentions about Jed here(or anywhere) is probably because to hard to pledge and form an ideology around his message. You're either doing the work or not. Someone who really gets Jed's message won't be here in the first place imho.

Btw thanks for your post. It's really thought provoking. That's not a very pretty landscape you've portrayed. Where does all our vanity come from? Because we've invented fancy boxes to live in, HD porn and entertainment, unlimited cheese burgers at our disposal all the time?

That fella called 'like button' was kicked, beaten mercilessly and ostracized from this community long ago along with it's pal 'reputation system' and other minions by the man from upstairs. As Jed would put it, part of being matured is to know where we are all the time. It's maya's house and she is pulling all the strings. When you're in this forum, you have to know whose house this is

Do not make a split in your self. Ramana Maharshi warned about this over and over again. Who is this 'I' in the question Who am I? It's the false notion of 'I' identifying with sensations of the body or thoughts in the mind or both. Inquiry is always done into the false self. Your true absolute self does not require any activity to know itself. It's always being itself eternally unchanged whether you know it or not. Your only job in self inquiry is to separate this false notion of 'I' that is attached with a sense object. This false 'I' cannot stand on it's own right without sticking itself with an object. So when you separate it, it vanishes. All the while your natural Self remains as it is. You start to be aware of it. Ask yourself, is there anything called the world other than the awareness of it? Where was the world in deep sleep? The world does not say ''Hey look, I'm the World!!''. The body does not say '' I am the body''. Find out that fictitious ego, the false 'I' that make those claims. When this 'I' vanishes, all it's false notions vanish along with it. Or it could just mean a conflict in interest. Do not bother finding sameness in the phenomenal world for now. You'll only get more and more lost in name and forms. But you're right, the inquiry is the same and the Self that shines forth is one and the same. That is our shared sameness. Realize that and then you wouldn't have to put faith in neither separation nor non-separation.

It's a sarcasm to put some light on the self delusion mechanism of the ego. The ego will distract itself with every beliefs and stories possible...with Gods, conspiracy theories, with idle philosophy whether the Self has parts or not, Whether the self is being or non being, with dimensions, aliens, densities, 10th eye, gurus, states of mind any and everything imaginable, materialism and non materialism It will gorge on all this fantasies but it will not face the only fact right in front of it's nose. It's own imminent death. wakey wakey the clock is ticking

Am I aware? yes. What is death? If I be very precise, it's the losing of object Consciousness. So all this waking experience and narrative is gone after death. There is no mechanism available to analyze and interpret the experience after death. Neither there is any objective knowledge to know anyway. So in this light, death seems very similar with deep sleep. Between two consecutive waking state, I'm basically dead. And yet why is death regarded so foreign? To register a change there must be a witness outside the change. So between the last moment of death and after it, there must be something to know that change. Because if a change was not registered, then that means there wouldn't be a thing called death. There would only be the continuous waking state. That which knows or witnesses death, by definition, can that be part of death? Can that be part of any objective phenomena? This knowingness seems to be outside Death, registering death. So it turns out that it is impossible to contemplate and acknowledge death without acknowledging a deathless witness simultaneously. But it sure is so overlooked. If I die right now, what will be lost really? Is there an objective me that gets lost forever? My grandparents are dead. When I sometimes hear other family members talk about them and their lives, it sort of feels like I'm hearing some made up stories. It's as if they never existed. Really, can I empirically prove that they existed? The only place they are now, is in memory in the form of stories. It is so circular, the meanings provided by thought. Thought says it's true because it says so. Now let's turn the table on me. Can I prove that I exist right now? I can verify that for myself that I exist but can I prove the existence of 'my life'? my narrative? my body? memories? relationships? Can I really prove that I exist in other people's eyes? This is something I've taken for granted all my life. Maybe next time I should ask everyone I meet, ''Do I exist in your eyes?''. It sounds silly but still there is an assumption that everyone will verify my existence until...I have the good fortune of sitting in front of Nisargadatta Maharaj or someone like him. If I ask him, ''Do you see me existing in your eyes?'' he'd probably reply, ''No. I see a case of misplaced identity.'' And that's it. Even if something happens a billion times, it just takes only one iteration to disprove it. What am I?

Nope that would ruin the purpose. The point is not to know some speculative answer but to expose our own bullshit answers. Nicely put. Earthworms must be fuckin' Enlightened hmm.... That's the point. The intellect must digest itself through itself. The only way a thought can be really original and effective is by killing all other thoughts.

@MarkusSweden Thanks! Enjoying this written contemplation style more than any spiritual practice I've ever done. I usually do 2 sessions on paper and 1 time here on forum everyday

Am I aware? yes. What is the conventional waking state? Is it the same persistent reality or is the persistence something being assumed everytime after waking up? Well there has to be a narrative or symbolization to make a distinction in the first place. How do I know that today's waking state is exactly the same as yesterday's waking state? Because the thought says so? Thought says many other things as well. What seems to be consistent in two consecutive waking states is the narrative or mental dialogue that starts it. So am I waking up to a new Reality every single time from a deep sleep? What is it that registers the change between a deep sleep and waking up? It is certainly I and that doesn't seem to change. While I'm thinking and writing, there is a palpable sense that all these functions are being known or witnessed. What is this magical stuff that seems to happen when attention is turned on itself? Is there any independent object? From direct experience, no. But what else do I have other than direct experience? Have I ever encountered anything in my life outside my Consciousness? So how does the illusion of objective knowing take place? Is there really such a thing called objective knowing? At least I have yet to come across such knowledge. So the more direct question is, is there a world other than the knowing of it? No. I have to know or experience something to verify it's presence. Now is there any difference between an object and the knowing of the object. The knowing of a thing is all that is ever known. What else is out there? As I've never came across anything other than knowing, so does it mean that nothing exist outside knowing? So the world, it's events and even myself do these things have an objective Reality? It's hard to believe in their permanence when it is questioned like this. So does it mean I literally think them in permanence? that's a hell of an audacious claim.

Take a realized being. You and I are seeing him to inhabit a body. But in his direct experience, he finds absolutely no distinction between having a body or not. In fact, to him there is no notion of having a body. Would that man ever have a desire to leave the body? Would that man be able to distinguish between life and death?

@MarkusSweden In the movie Matrix, we see that Neo wakes up from one reality to a higher reality. When you wake up from dream, you break out from one reality to a seemingly higher level reality. But the thing with final Enlightenment is, there is nothing outside waiting. Haven't this come across your mind yet? Everything is happening in Consciousness and the sole substance of it all is nothing but pure consciousness. Once you see clearly, once you only know Consciousness aka become permanently Enlightened, where can you go from there? There is no outside dream or a bubble waiting to receive you. For the self realized being, there is literally no distinction between waking, dreaming and sleeping. All he knows is the Self and knowing the Self is all there is. Quoting from Ashtavakra Gita, ''The realized being wishes for neither living nor dying''

Am I aware? yes. What is it that I can legitimately say from my own experience without borrowing any previous knowledge? I am. I exist. What else can I say from my experience? I'm aware that I am. So I simultaneously exist and am aware that I exist. Anything other than this knowledge seems arbitrary and derivative from my upbringing. Do I need someone else to point out that I am? No. Do I need a book to tell me that I am? no. Do I need a thought to tell me that I am? No because I am aware of thoughts coming and going. Do I need to believe that I am? no that sounds silly. So this knowledge of I am, what does it depend upon? Is sight needed to verify that I am? No I can be blind and still know that I am. Is sound needed to verify that I am? no I am irrespective of sound and silence. So let's get this clear, the image of the body and the sounds of the thoughts are not fundamental to I am. I exist without the body and self image and without thoughts. What about feelings? How much can I subtract while keeping this I am intact? Can I erase all my memories and still know I am? yes. Can I subtract the sensations in the head and still know I am? Can I subtract all sensations of the body and still know I am? In the dream last night, the experience was completely different from now but still the sense that I exist was one and the same. Does it mean that this body, these sensations, these thoughts are totally arbitrary? Yes these sensations are changing and morphing constantly, in sleep they disappear all together but do I ever experience a break in my own existence? No. So how much can I subtract without tainting this knowledge I am? It seems that I can erase every pixel of my present waking experience and still be as much I am as I am right now, So if this I am is fundamental, why do I mix it with these sensations, thoughts and perceptions? This I am can only appear to be mixed with objective experience if I am knowing aware of this I am. As long as I know I am, it stands on itself by itself, knowing itself. So is it legitimate for me to identify my existence with a particular experience from now on?

You're welcome. Happy inquiry

@LiakosN it's because you cannot verify your own self image empirically to yourself. Because that self image itself is false, hollow and untrue. So you project this self image and it gets reflected back to you by other people and circumstances and thus get verified to you. This is something we're constantly doing. Projecting our self image, worth, opinions, thoughts and emotions outward so that they can be reflected back to us. But if you inquire into the same images honestly by yourself, you find them to be utterly false and arbitrary.

Seek and ye shall find