axiom

"God is so good and kind, He has saved me and my young from another day of starvation" thought the lion, as it sunk its teeth into the antelope's neck. "This hurts. Why does God allow such extreme degrees of suffering!?!?" thought the antelope. God looked on, and shrugged.

Just regular old advaita. Whatever the child does or does not do, there is no choice involved. No person behind it. The child is just an appearance. "Why not celebrate it lucidly" - No choice either way.

Next is the realisation that you have never done anything, and that there is nothing that could ever be done because you are not there, and you never were. There is much in your opening post that resonates strongly. Seeking of any kind becomes a cosmic joke. Once every path in the labyrinth has been visited, the foundations crumble. Seeking wholeness in itself is seen as the very root of suffering and unfulfilment, and is the pernicious drive behind all spirituality which, ultimately, is completely transcended. There is no longer any desire left to find meaning, no matter how novel the means. Spirituality is seen as mere silliness, a child's game of hide and seek. A game which is most definitely over. Then, there is no need to do anything. There is no way to do anything. Noone there. Things just appear, as they always did.

Another one: https://www.foxnews.com/sports/old-dominion-mens-basketball-player-collapses-game-vs-georgia-southern

Leo, and other speakers, have sometimes reminded me of the potential, beauty and potency of the spoken word.

Let's be honest. it's pretty funny to see people on a spiritual forum arguing over whether it should be possible to see through each others' eyes or not Exactly the same tone can be found in any social media spat of any kind. Has all this preoccupation with spiritual growth yielded anything useful, I wonder...

Do you think you could have done it for a whole year, if such an option were available?

This is true (I tweaked it slightly). Your body may be “attached” to your wife. But you are not the body. You are not “everything” either (as some here seem to believe). This is just another attachment. Attachment is the self / Self. To drop all attachment is to disappear. Enlightenment is a disappearing act. You have no choice about it.

There is what is, and there are stories. Nothing can become more unified than it is already.

Everyone is peddling their own warez. In general more esoteric systems engage the self more, so they are less “useful”.

Hello! … and yes! ?

Does it sound fun… No, it does not really sound fun to be honest, as it sounds like it would take a long time, and I’m actually in bed (not feeling too well today). But thank you for asking me. Maybe someone else would like to play?

Hi Carl. Are you playing devil’s advocate here? I think you actually do resonate with what is being said. You may think you are trying to find the reason, but what you’re actually doing is trying to add the reason to something that is actually meaningless. A whole backstory can be (and generally is) added to whatever seems to appear. This makes a self feel better as it prolongs its existence, gives it confirmation of the reality of the world and seems to provide a place for it, etc. But all stories are the very essence of separation.

@Razard86 These are just (meaningless) words on a page, apparently.

There are thoughts, and thoughts can take the form “I understand”. But nothing is actually understood. Everything without exception is meaningless.

Desire, fear, aversion etc etc can all happen post enlightenment just as they do before enlightenment. The difference is that it becomes obvious that they are happening for no one, and as such they hold no power. However, Ingram talks a lot about means and methods and results, which indicates that he may not be as enlightened as he claims. Insofar as it may help one way or another, it does not matter whether he is enlightened or not.

People misunderstand cessation. There is only cessation already. For a spiritually oriented meditator, the ultimate goal of meditation is “enlightenment”. There is only cessation (no consciousness) and enlightenment is therefore already the case. It can be funny to watch people running in circles and jumping through hoops, thinking “they” are doing something to somehow get closer to what already is. They are like particles of dust in a storm stuck in the belief that they can somehow control their own direction. Nothing can make reality more real than it is already.

Selfhood is attachment / attachment is selfhood. You cannot let go, because you are not there to let go. You cannot re-enter existence for the same reason you cannot rejuvenate your childhood belief in Santa Claus. Once the game is up, it’s up.

The bliss of being, simply this - freedom without the veiling activity of selfhood. It makes everything feel fresh, new, more alive, more vibrant. It can be subtle but the more it is noticed the more it seems to grow.

Daniel Ingram refers to cessation as some kind of peak experience. It is not this. Cessation is already the case. All jhanas are just a story. Some might be considered useful pointers. But getting hooked on them as "a path" is just to perpetuate the dream. There is actually no such thing as consciousness. That is what the 8th Jhana points to. That's the whole shebang.

I am not falling into the "neo advaita trap". Rather, you are apparently seeking and looking for answers to what is. Enlightenment is not about knowing and being yourself. It's not about anything.

@Someone here Apparent intellectual capacity is enough for rabbits to be rabbits, just as it is enough for humans to be humans. There is much beauty in human creativity. But when it comes to enlightenment, human intellectual capacity is often a problem. Metaconsciousness, one of the core attributes humans tend to attribute to themselves, is the essence of separation. “A conceptual spiritual path” - no such path is needed. The path is precisely what hides the way.

Perhaps because humans have an innate sense of separateness and incompleteness, whereas most animals (perhaps all animals) do not. Animals live in reality 1:1 (generally speaking). Humans draw diagrams and write descriptions, trying to stake a claim to what we already have. Knowledge seems to help in the dream, sure. But when it comes to enlightenment, knowledge veils reality. It does not illuminate it. Observe tourists on holiday standing in front of the Great Pyramid and looking at their phone screens to take the perfect snap.

There can be a lived experience of being an individual. The apparent self, to the very extent it believes itself to be real, makes everything seem real and important. That is its function. But yes, liberation is illusory insofar as the lived experience of selfhood is illusory. In truth there is only liberation without end. But with nothing to push against, no boundary to draw, delineation of any kind becomes meaningless. Just like “self” / “Self”. Same thing. Liberation can certainly seem to happen, but never actually does.

He means that it is beyond insight. It is just itself. In this he concurs with Buddhism.