Water by the River

That is why I wrote infinite. In-finite. Not-finite. I didn't write Infinity as you did. Something not-finite can't be measures in any way, that is its defining property. Not higher nor lower, not more or less, not here or not here. Infinite Being. Always here, and never any kind of form. Reality itself. Infinite Reality, to be precise. Unchanging. True Being. Techically, Infinity is manifestation. A mathematical object. Manifestation and appearance. Happening in Infinite Being. But not the Infinite, as in Infinite Being. Only the content or what appears in Infinite being can vary, different Infinities, appearances, understandings. All the understanding you grasp is understanding of more content/manifestation/appearance/shadow/illusion. Realizing/Being/"Understanding" the Infinite Absolute of True Being on the other side is Enlightenment, which actually brings the satisfaction you seek with your understanding-project of infinity of infinities. Confusing the Infinite or Absolute with Infinity is btw. the core difference between true Impersonal Infinite Nondual Realization and a nondual realization still interpreted through elements of subtle ego/personality/separate-self filters. It is btw. the core mistake you are still making, and that will not change until you get a big clap from the One Hand and finally let the rest of whatever remains of your separate-self or "Leo"-ness die and see through it as mere appearance. Temporary form arising, a hypnotic illusion covering True Infinite Being. So basically seeing through & cutting off in real time what remains of your remaining separate-self gig. So well, can get more Infinity than Infinity: Yes, true, known since Cantor. Different classes/sizes of Infinity exist, and that why one can get more Infinity than Infinity. But can't get more infinite than infinite, can't get more absolute than absolute. That is how absolute is defined. And Absolute=infinite. Non finite. I know makes this differentiation doesn't make sense for you, but maybe just keep it in mind. Somebody once made a really smart video on youtube about open-mindedness. Maybe stay open-minded, so that the One Hand has a change of finding you and clapping the rest of the Leo-illusion out of you? Trust me, nothing more wonderful than that. In that moment, all Aliens & ETs in the Infinity of Multiverses will give you a hug, and whisper in your ear: My Darling, we just appear to be different, but actually we are all one, lovers of truth and understanding united in Infinite Being and of the same essence. And then you can continue meeting & hugging these way more intelligent beings and bask in their understanding of Infinities, but coming from infinite nondual being before the trip, and letting them appear in nondual true being during the hugging. Then we would have a truly happy love affair, since the essence of these beings wouldn't leave you after the romantic trip. Selling Water by the River PS: As you know, no Lèse-majesté inteded, always. And always with (imagined) alien respect & love.

Samsara, or the separate-self suffering mechanism in a nutshell.

Suffering = pain x resistance. Well, I prefer to not try every horror to test it (I know you are veeeery creative when it comes to that). But yes. IT is pretty amazing. Dark Room Retreat. Endohuasca-visions. I assume, but never tried. The Tibetans do it since a long time. Influences the brain chemistry and serotonin-dynamics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_retreat https://dmtquest.org/psychedelic-melatonin/

read too much Nietzsche lately? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return "What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence" ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine."[23] oh well... and now the Truth: Selling With no hindrance in mind and therefor no fear by the River

Um, guess I was lucky then that neither the hungry rodents nor any crocodiles who skipped lunch did manage to get into my dreams

Yup. When "it" is not Absolute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_(philosophy) Can't get more Absolute than Absolute, can't get more Infinite than Infinite. I agree in so far that many Enlightenments (by far most of them) are announced when it is not Great-(Zen-lingo) or final/full-Enlightenment (Impersonal, Death of the separate self, real Satori), but just Nonduality, or Unity of the separate-self with the universe (just nondual, not impersonal, just unity of personal + Universe, or Kensho). Or, the difference between waking up and a nondual dream.

... and no imagined rodent has been hurt Enlightenment doesn't mean that one is always right when it comes to relative truth like the things you mention. It just meaning knowing what you truly are, and what Reality is. Answers to both is the same. And on top, having that accessible all the time means nothing else than being to switch off/cut-off any ignorant I-thought and I-feeling of being only this little body mind, which makes the states (1)-(4) available all the time. And this can be done (without lying to oneself) if the Awakened State is accessible anytime (1) Infinite boundlessness of the Visual Field (and any other perception/dimension) (2) its groundlessness, or mere-appearance (imagined) character "hovering" in Infinity (3) the eternal nature of this Infinite Reality/Consciousness is always known (4) there is no (zero!) separate-self I-thought/feeling still hypnotizing. Impersonal. Empty. Silent. Vast. Yet, giving rise to all appearances and thoughts. And if one chooses to, one can cut off these thoughts/feelings off in real-time. The magic word is real-time, Or high-speed cut-off of any thought/feeling arising that ignorantly believes in being only this body-mind. Speed & strength of awareness, before any thoughts starts hypnotizing oneself and are believed&elaborated. And that takes normally many years. But its worth it. The high-speed cutting of of (4) isn't always necessary, but that ability is what opens up the Awakened states described in (1-3). And if thoughts then rise again, simple mindfulness lets let flow in Infinite Being without believing them, if (1)-(3) are powerful enough. And: Being able to generate (1)-(3) with (4) induces so much bliss that the annoying separate-self arisings don't "grip", even if they are not cut off in realtime but just watched in mindfulness. Ego-wanting/avoiding only grips when one is not in a positive enough state already. One has a human, but one isn't one. True Being is Infinite Reality. That doesn't mean one does stupid things for to ones relative vehicle, like James hand-into-the-fire. Beings who know their True Nature are not brain dead. And that is having Absolute Truth always available. Or Enlightenment. It is not an idea, and there is zero doubt about it that this is final. Can't get more infinite than infinite, and there is and only can only be THAT. And any Alien, ET or way-out-spectacular-appearance-of-consciousness appears only in THAT. Nice to understand&see, but not really urgent in any way. There were enlightened Zen Masters who thought Japans Imperial Wars were great. So one can be totally wrong on relative stuff. But the Absolute stuff must be handled. Selling smiling little annoying Buddhist-rodents by the River

@Osaid good points. I find the following thought experiment interesting: Imagine that all it would need for Enlightenment (realization of True Infinite Being instead of being a separate-self/human) would be taking psychedelics. Truly realizing Infinite Being means understanding that each and any identity and thought is just an object. No character/ego-element not made from subject into object arising in Infinite Being in real time. If psychedelics don't deliver that (which they apparently don't do, has been tested many times), and yet would cause a permanent blissful nondual state, that would mean nothing else that ego and its normal occupations with I/me/mine and all its endless needs Maslows pyramid up and down, not to talk about being soooo special (a brief look at current state of the world suffices) would at least partly survive untranscended. And then we would have permanently blissful non-suffering (and hence NON-CHANGING) super-egos running around, established in blissful nonduality, doing its remaining turbo-egoic-thing. . Not for the faint of hearted... So, there is and will remain an entrance price for staying in blissfull boundless impersonal nonduality: The transcendence or seeing through each and any separate-self I-feeling and I-thought in real time. The death of the little self, understanding it never existed, and only Infinite Being IS and apparently played the game of being something separate. And what would a Roshi say to Water by the Rivers telling his little pet theory and thought experiments: Empty your cup and back on the pillow! And he would be right. Oh well... Singing "If I can Dream..." by the River

My best guess would be the overflowing cup. Do I have to put my hand on the fire, or does the answer to the Koan please the Roshi? Selling plenty of tea by the River

Paul Atreides of course. Seems he followed your advice with the fire & hand. And now lets get serious: James my friend, if you wouldn't have written that wise statement in your signature, someone really would have needed to state such wise words. Selling Gom Jabbars & burning hand tests overflowing cups by the River

If one blows it up, I don't doubt it can feel like.

No-Self is not Infinite Being without a functioning personality. It is just Infinite nondual Being containing a personality. Like it contains the rest of the world also. And the personality doesn't have to become totally stupid my friend

That is wrong in my experience. But see for yourself before you rule out what is possible.

When first stepping truly into True No-Self or truly impersonal Infinite Nondual Being, it kills the separate self. Literally. It no is longer believed at all, just as an assembly/Gestalt of incorrect ignorant ideas and feelings, realized as appearing mirage that just pretended and cut off in real time. The snake is the rope. Which is Infinite Impersonal Being. And "the" "Realizer" of that is also more BS-clusters of thoughts and feelings. That closes the loop. The separate-self illusion has then no ground to stand any more in infinite groundless mere appearance Infinite Being. Then, it is replaced by an Infinite Ocean of Suchness or groundless mere nondual appearance. Only after quite some familiarity with that does the normal hypnosis of unawakened human life seem as the altered state, and the empty Suchness as the unaltered state. Yet, that is how things truly are.

When it is all said and done (in retrospect), all other states of consciousness seem quite altered and strange when compared to the no-self state. No-self is in no way an altered state of consciousness; it is completely and absolutely unaltered. It is simply the One, seen from the One's point of view. It is a single drop of rain, a cloud passing, the fall of your own breath. Adyashanti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e78ZGCm4jtU&t=84s Sorry, didn't find that in english.

1 hour ago, Water by the River said: Like any other being, it seems to me you strive for what brings you satisfaction. Now you equate pleasure with bliss or non-suffering. Which I didn't do: The Sat & Chit in Sat-Chit-Ananda, or the bliss & love that a sobre Awakened Nondual State brings is also not pleasure, and I assume you are well aware of that. So lets look up Wikipedia (I know..) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure "Pleasure is part of various other mental states such as ecstasy, euphoria and flow. Happiness and well-being are closely related to pleasure but not identical with it." "Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment OF something". For example of Infinite-Consciousness-chasing-exploration. The bliss or love of Awakened Nondual States doesn't NEED the enjoyment OF something. Then we would have to consider the nondual essence Nothingness behind all appearance as OF something. Which luckily it isn't, because it is not OF something (but Infinite Being, Nothingness and nondual appearance and not something specific IN/OF it) Selling the basic difference between pleasure and between causeless Sat-Chit-Ananda by the River

Like any other being, it seems to me you strive for what brings you satisfaction. And even if that comes from "Infinitely Consciousness"-ET/research/n+1 or whatever. Dukkha=unsatisfaction (unsatisfying is a much better translation than suffering) = separate self = appearing/imagined opposite of bliss & love of Infinite Being. Or do you strife for dis-satisfaction? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery These guys also did what they liked... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccidānanda Sat! Chit! Sorry. Watching & cheering the Great Discoverers departing on their ships by the River. Really! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_no_man_has_gone_before#:~:text="Where no man has gone,Shatner as Captain James T.

. Let's dance. How about researching angels? Ok, got me. Demons & Aliens are also interesting: But angels also Strassman, DMT and the Soul of Prophecy: A New Science of Spiritual Revelation in the Hebrew Bible Who else could? Water by the River listening to....

Exactly. Heroine is a foretaste of these states where the self-contraction is totally obliterated. Unearned bliss. That is what makes it so dangerous. Luckily, psychedelics are not that dangerous, and can be even non-addictive by boosting consciousness. Yet, certain similiarities in possibilities of bypassing are hard to ignore.

When the arugment breaks down we turn to funny stuff. But its a step further than the rodent-insults -comments. So fine with me. Have you ever seen an enlightened crocodile? Maybe the crocodile becomes a Neandertaler after having been an efficient crocodile and l-o-v-i-n-g its food? Who knows? But to be honest, crocodile minds are not really my research-focus. They seem to be not too high neither on the Karmic-evolution-ladder, nor on the smartness-ladder. Not even being a good-buddy-ladder... Bon Appétit: I always wonder when you sleep? I just got up here in Germany.

There are certain things an Infinite Nondual Being can not do. Like die. Nowhere to go. It can cast itself out into division and duality, or ignorance and delusion. But all of that is unstable, and returns to the source. Like a rubber-band. A universe moving towards darkness doesn't make sense. The Alpha and Omega is Infinite Being. The groundless ground or Suchness of Infinite Being is always the same, even in your imagined universe whose game it is to move towards darkeness. All parts yearn for the whole. Yet same parts fear the love&unity so much that they retract further into "part-ness"/separation/duality. Which is unstable. The only stable "thing" is Infinite Being. Every other appearance is just temporary appearance. Which is quite shocking in itself, since everything we hold near and dear is an appearance, bound to disappear. While only formless True Being is eternal, which is pretty much Nothing(-ness) in certain states like deep sleep. Think about it like this: Despite Infinity, certain things are just impossible. For example, in every 2-dimensional triangle in euclidian space, the sum of the angles is always 180 degree. No Infinity will change that, ever, in no realm. We have to move to non-euclidian-space then, which is no longer euclidian space, for which that law just holds. These "rules of the game" even hold for Infinite Being/Reality. Some things are just not possible, even in Infinity. Like for example total Non-Existence. Parmenides already reckognized "Being is, Non-Being is not". Selling Being is by the River

The issue that after you experience heroinepsychedelic levels of blissconsciousness, nothing less will satify you. Ken Wilber once wrote something along the lines of certain states of bliss can only be accessed in higher subtle realms or states of Awakening, and Heroine/Opiades can give a foretaste. Of course that is addictive. It is a kind of unearned divine bliss, not accessible sobre because the structure to do that is not in place. Of course that wreaks the whole growth path and its dynamic. And that is why heroine is truly evil stuff. It is true that nothing less will satisfy oneself than the awakened states True Being brings along. And that it is normally a long and hard road achieving that sobre. But what is the alternative? Addiction? Meditation done in the right way/technique, over long time in daily practice (even if its carried into daily life and not on the cushion) early over a decade can produce fascinating results. I can testify that, and I consider even short amounts of meditation as adding up if done with the right technique. Key is getting it working in daily life, then the necessary time of thousands of hours can be added up. The strength of consciousness to transcend former identifications is strenghtened always, even by small amounts. Which can add up over years, decades, or lifetimes.

No my friend. Consider there are Infinitly Consciousness enlightened Awakened States and Realizations (where that is totally obvious and how that holds for Infinite Being/Reality) that maybe you haven't had yet. Hey, I start talking like you Selling demon-eddies-in-the-River-are-not-permanently-without-suffering-but-rather-the-opposite by the River

No, not human logic. Basic laws of duality when Infinite Being splits itself apart and plays hide & seek and return to the source. How do I know that? Well, there are Awakened states where that is blatantly obvious what separate-self arisings that hide/cloud True Being are (separation= a spectrum of evil, from very mild to very very dark), and how they they literally contract the original Infinite Blissfull Being just with their arising into duality and separation. And contraction IS suffering, it is directly realized and felt that way, a cluster of sensations and contractions assembling a localization and center, most often in the head. And if one is able to cut them off fast enough, the Infinite Field returns to its original state: infinite and groundless and nondual without a center again. And full of love and bliss. True Being is boundless infinite Nonduality and (your much absolutized) Infinite L-O-V-E. Sat-Chit-Ananda. and anywhere were that Awakening and love (when the clouds of ignorance is removed) is not and where it is clouded by separation, there is just necessarily suffering (in cycles and various degrees) and the self-contraction. It is totally obvious and infinite/absolute that it is a no-brainer. And that realization my friend, that is absolute. There is no realm where that is not the case, because you know, Infinite True Being. Nothing outside of It.Either nondual and infinite and mere appearance and love, or duality and out-thereness, and fear. Somebody ought to make a youtube-viedeo about it. “Reality unfolds like a fractal divisions within divisions reunions within reunions. Consciousness polarizes and depolarizes it expands and it contracts back it diverges that it reckon verges and it keeps doing this forever eternally and that is the dance of consciousness or Infinite Mind” Aha. And now lets think that to the very end. And again, I am not talking about animals, nor rocks or bacteria. But higher level beings and their evolutionary lines, starting on a certain level of complexity. A molecule can not be evil, but the game of Karma/souls and return to the source starts at beings/perspectives with some level of self-awareness. But thanks for commenting, I understand you and your behaviour a bit better now. I assume you think that something like a (relative, just appearing, but appearing nontheless) soul "storing" in a higher dimension all this self-contraction or openess/love, and other lessons and the impact it had (on others, and oneself), from life to life, doesn't really exist, even in a relative way. Or is subordinate to hey, its all imagined anyway. Which is true, but forgets the power that suffering and/or love still holds for a separate being to either be awakened in sobre states or not. Including you my friend. I have a bit the feeling that you believe yourself to be a bit above the game of cause and consequences, or in other words Karma. You still are not telling why you stopped doing psychedelics and what happened, and write more about crocodiles. If you don't just want to escape via psychedelics (spiritual bypassing) and want to find genuine happiness and sobre Awakening in daily life, I wouldn't consider myself (or my relative being) to be in any way above this game of cause and effect. How about this view? "Although my view is higher than the sky, My respect for the cause and effect of actions is as fine as grains of flour." Padmasambhava If newbies take over this way of thinking (like lets go into a haunted house and try some DMT to meet something really evil, or blow up your relative life & values and just do spiritual/psychedelic bypassing, and I don't know what other less-than-smart-irresponsible stuff)... all these a bit less than funny posts in your forum where people somehow go for spiritual bypassing, although you write in places that is a no no?) and follow their idol, and then wreak their lifes... Ever considered its actually YOU in just another form suffering that? Literally You? Not metaphorically, not only true in some way out psychedelic states, but literally, all the time, just Absolutely True. Is that intuition and resulting love and compassion still so far away from your sobre life? You think that Infinite Intelligence will not give you some "less-than-positive-credit-points" on your Karma-Bill for just letting that happen? Where are your clarifying comments when a 20 year old again writes some irresponsible stuff that anybody with some more life-experience will see will f*** u* their lives? And what does Infinite Intelligence have in stock to finally correct such tendencies? Crocodiles. But is that really necessary? Although the law of cause and effect and the crocodiles are just imagined, their imagined bite creates very painful imagined sensations. As we are all probably quite aware of. Ok, that was the sermon for the sunday at the imagined church of Selling basic cause & effect by the River