WelcometoReality

Yeah, Awakening on the heart level can bring some pain in the torso area but might be good to get a check up just to be safe.

@MisterNobody Very profound and deep. Thx for sharing. 🙂

Great questions! 🙂 I think "not knowing" is a good starting place. You become alittle more 'loose' in thinking. Your beliefs becomes more flowing than rigid. If you hold on to the not knowing that is also rigidity. You don't know, your beliefs are just beliefs but that does not stop you from having beliefs. You are aware that your beliefs are only beliefs. They evolve freely without anyone holding onto them.

What do you lose? Experience might change but isn't it something that is unchanging that is experiencing it?

@r0ckyreed If you close your eyes does it feel like you lose a part of yourself?

Do you use awakened, enlightened and self-realized as different words for the same thing. To me they mean different things. Awakened and self-realized is not yet enlightened. So awakened/self-realized still experience suffering. Pain does not equal suffering though. You can feel shitty without creating a suffering-story about it.

@Someone here Yeah I agree that pain doesn't equal suffering. Pain is feeling sensations and suffering is thought. Awakening (imo) isn't as black and white as being awake or not. There are degrees of awakeness and with that degrees of suffering that one identifies with. Depending what life your living there might be different levels of suffering. Compare an awake being living in a cave with someone like Jesus who was highly engaged in his community and also tried to change the power structures of society and being nail to the cross for it. He probably did experience suffering to a very high degree but does that mean he was less awakened than Ramana? I don't know. It's hard to say because they lived such different lives that it's hard to compare the two. What I can say is that everyone will have a choice to make after enlightenment. Whether to isolate themselves (to various degrees) to connect to source and go further onto the continuum or engage in society and embrace the love aspect of awakening.

Yes like Carl-Richard said. How high you want to set the bar is up to you of course. 🙂

@Something Funny Try it and see what results you get. I'm sure you'll be amazed with the results. 🙂 Also I can recommend doing a mindfulness practice when you're off the cushion.

If meditation is a distraction then what isn't distraction? You sit and become conscious of being conscious which is what I would define as not being distracted. If you do something without being conscious of being conscious that's distraction which is the state of 99.9% of people. (Yeah 69% of statistics is made up I know)

Yeah, it could be a way to run from those feeling that come up when you're still. I don't see the creativity to being a problem but the running away is. You might be running from that your whole life unless you face it. It can be very challenging I know but once you stop running the intensity of it starts to lessen and it gets easier. 😊

@MsNobody what happens if you sit in the sofa. Take a couple of deep breaths and don't do anything.. what feelings come up?

It's funny now. But it seems so true at the time. 😊

Yep certainly could be an indicator. Fair enough I'll shut it then. 🙂

@Carl-Richard I did the survey and found the question about remembering people's names interesting. Is it used as a measurement on consciousness? I wonder if it really is a good measurement.