Sugarcoat

Spirituality that turns outwards instead of primarily inwards. One that identifies as spiritual instead of dissolving that very layer of identity.

Do you have a sense of self? Like do you wake up in the morning and feel “I am *insert your name”. Do you feel located behind the eyes? If not, sure speak in absolute terms, but if you answered yes, hmmm isn’t the absolute only concept to you then? Or maybe you resonate deeply with it and think that’s enough for you to speak in those terms

Maybe in absolute sense it’s like that

You assume because you’re honest with yourself that you might not know what it is. People seek it though because it’s portrayed as the end of suffering and perhaps a lot of bliss

I’ll just let that be. Heh

And another question that came to my mind recently was “what does understanding lead to?” . Like are we all just running around in a language circle when we contemplate and discuss things, or is it actually leading to some valuable change in our life apart from the temporary satisfaction that some gain from mental understanding?

👍🏻

It’s this without adding a layer or boundary to it with the mind ?

Yea I think I understand. For me context is most interesting in terms how we create context to this present moment using the mind. In fact we have never experienced for example the country we live in, which is like a context to our location (if I’m using the term correctly).

What we can know is when there is a sense of self present, or at least that’s how it is for me. And we can believe that it must be possible to transcend it.

I shouldn’t have made that joke. My apologies My mission to clear my name on the forum is not going so well To give an original thought (it’s not original it’s probably what the materialists think) : I think consciousness is limited and dual. It’s always conscious of ~something~ . Without the ~something~ to be conscious of, there’s just absence, and in that is no consciousness. Consciousness arises when there’s something (duality) to be conscious of. And it seems it also simultaneously requires a subject, that possesses that consciousness.

Probably a cool book Well if context is the space then it’s not the objects in it according to your logic or maybe I’m not getting you there Maybe I’m too much in a vegetative state mentally to comprehend

In this. Arising in this, as this. All is this. There is only this. Nothing but this. This is everything. There’s just this — Some non dualist with 50 subscribers on YouTube holding monthly zoom meetings where the audience is like seniors who are anxious about approaching death and trying to escape through non duality

If you truly understood you could translate it to simple terms that others can understand

lol you’re funny. I just hadn’t responded yet. My assumption is that enlightenment is something to do with the end of the sense of self or at least that it no longer feels absolutely real. Also the realization of what love is, that reality is non dual.

You don’t understand that

From my limited perspective there’s a difference. You have to be non enlightened to say that😏

That’s why I’m not enlightened 😂👍🏻

I think if you were born alone on isolated island you’d still develop a self

When self dissapears*

lol I don’t know how it is for others. But like a sense of “I’m physically here” maybe not physically but of some kind of substance…..

The word context makes me spontaneously imagine, in a visual way, like something that surrounds something else. Self seems more direct than that. But then, self could include the narrative on a time line we have about ourself, the story about ourselves: and that for sure seems like a context added on this immediate moment. So id agree with you, I’d say self is both context and this present, immediate “sense” (like a physical self)

You must be talking about a different kind of watching because for me watching thought has not led to enlightenment

I think as long as we feel like we have a choice it’s wise to try to make choices that we think will lead us to our goal, even if the goal is to go beyond that sense of choice. What else is there to do?

You need a self to have context. Because you feel like something, so you’re able to feel like there’s something beyond this immediacy, a context to this moment. Like: “right now I’m on planet earth”. You’ve never proved this in your direct experience. It’s you who assumes yourself as separate thus the world as separate, so it makes it possible to have all kinds of contexts.