axiom

@Razard86 Life just appears to be. There is no how, because there is no one to ask, and no one to know. There is no trick. There is no explanation. There seem to be stories about how we create the universe, ad infinitum. You can add yours to the pile if you like - why not? It doesn’t matter either way, but it might be fun.

Remember, it’s a comedy. Nothing much to discuss except life as it appears to be, put back on the suit of the ‘I’, and keep on keeping on.

@Vibroverse You may start to take ownership of the breathing. Wherever attention flows, ownership goes. Eventually you'll realise it isn't a breath that you are having, but simply a breath arising. And if you're really focused, you may recognise that the sense of 'you' is only arising along with the breath, and has no independent existence at all. And then after 70 or so years you might stop breathing, and if you haven't by then become enlightened, you'll pretty quickly find something else to attach to.

@Vibroverse You'll probably recognise sooner or later that it's not your breathing.

Nothing is going on until / unless someone comes along and tells a story about it. Nothing. But it can look like it's really here and really now.

@Adamq8 Sure, nothing like a good story.

This should be a coffee table book. Pictures of various substances with trip reports, interspersed with AI image interpretations of God, peppered with a few HD macro photos of vomit.

I guess you could say that the path to enlightenment is A to A. But really, there are no paths at all. There only seem to be paths while you are dreaming.

Cows are holy animals!

Likewise, cows have very little to do all day except eat grass. Many cows are probably enlightened, then minced.

Any attachment to the idea of teachers or teachings is simply more story. Does a teacher seem to be needed within the dream? Absolutely yes. It seems totally logical within the dream. The very idea that one could get from A to B without following some path or some process seems absurd. Is a teacher actually needed? Absolutely not.

Right! Exactly. The story of a life being lived by a person. Hah :-) In this respect a life story isn’t real at all. It could be considered a parable, but really it’s nothing. That said, Achilles and the Tortoise is a pretty neat parable.

All philosophy is simply entertainment. It has no value except within the confines of a story. People can get drawn in to its nuances and machinations such that they will begin to take it very seriously. People love stories and games and meaning. But what is the meaning of the teapot? What is the meaning of the sky? Nothing.

There is no you to have humility. There is no teacher. There is no you to be fucked.

There is no you to take responsibility or not. There is no you to be careful. It's not essential. It either happens or it does not. There is no you to do anything.

@Galyna That’s right. The story is the dream. “Unconditional” because all conditions arise only within a story. “Love” because noone is there to judge or be judged.

… and the ‘I’ appears when it is proclaimed. Absent of this proclamation, there is only surrender.

You may not be interested in enlightenment now, but after a good therapeutic dose of psychedelics you definitely will be. They are completely life changing. More than you can imagine.

This is sort of the problem. It's not true. Psychedelics tend to reflect the ego back on itself. It's rather like those who believe in chakras. Chakras are essentially just neuroses, egoic blockages. They only seem to exist insofar as the ego remains undissolved. If awakening seems personal, then there is a massive misunderstanding there. This misunderstanding seems to be the case in the vast majority (99%+) of supposed "awakenings" that you hear about. There is nothing wrong with having this misapprehension per se. It is to be expected in many ways. It often seems to come some time before the 'I' is finally dropped. Like a final Grand Tour of the ego, a victory lap before ultimate collapse. When a star begins running out of hydrogen fuel in its core, it swells into a much brighter red giant, for a relatively brief time, before dying.

Psychedelics do seem to substantially rewire the brain such that the degree of conditioning may actually be similar to meditation, after repeated trips, with relatively less tedium. I have done lots of both. Meditation seemed to rewire the mind and raise the baseline level a lot after decades of practice. Psychedelics were more like action potentials / neurochemical spikes. Some trips are so enormous in scale that Leo quite rightly says that meditative states can't generally compare except in extraordinarily rare circumstances. The effects of a breakthrough tryptamine dose can still be felt months or years afterwards, and lab tests show significant neurogenesis - not easily dismissed if you believe in neurobiology, materialism, and/or storylines in general. The moral here is that meditation shouldn't be underestimated. Psychedelics also shouldn't be underestimated. If you find yourself dogmatically favouring one over the other, in all likelihood there is some egoic bias there, i.e. you're overlaying your personal story on to what is. @ardacigin @Consilience Getting hooked on the idea of a long and arduous path is a dogma, and is just another place for the illusory self to hide. For some it will take lifetimes. Others might not be sleeping to begin with. On awakening, all of this is a story of course... so it cannot be taken too seriously.

I’d much rather hear about the beard.

Good distinction. Awakening is the recognition that all appearance is on a level playing field. All made of the same stuff. The appearance is a labyrinthine diamond mine, each deeper cavern filled with more jewels than the last. But go deep enough for long enough, the way back is forgotten and the entrance sealed over. This is not good or bad, but it is.

You think Sadhguru has real, actual “powers” ? That he’s a genetic freak? If you mean in the same vein as Uri Geller, then yes!

You’re not doing anything.

@kieranperez I enjoyed your last couple of posts. Buddhism, like all teachings, is ultimately seen to be meaningless - simply fuel for the ‘I’ to feast upon, to continue with its expectations and hopes. As per my signature… all paths lead to a deeper unreality. They keep the ‘I’ going. In real awakening, all spiritual paths - just like all peak experiences (no matter how profound) - are transcended, seen simply as story. They never actually happened. And of course, this includes awakening itself. Awakening never actually happens.