UnbornTao

There are not two truths. Use and value relate to you, not to what's true. Want to know it irrespective of what it does for you.

Genuine inquiry starts from scratch. It is an open investigation. Avoid making conclusions and speculating. If it's not possible, why contemplate in the first place? Realizing the absolute should be held as a real possibility for you. Apart from that, remain open and want to know it.

Why do think alcohol is needed in the first place in order to make friends? That's a false assumptoin.

Hearing that the truth might be useless doesn't sit well with our ideals about it. It undermines meaning. You think that enlightenment will improve your experience. Maybe it also brings freedom, among other things. But these are side-effects. Let us just want what's true.

What are you doing then? This is what the work is about. A concept is a concept. You must know permanently, so to speak. This isn't a state, though. Perceptive abilities remain the same. Your experience of yourself, the world, others and emotions remains largely the same, except that now you are free from them. You can be bored and enlightened. It's clear to me you're holding some ideal about this. Monks experience despair, desire, jealousy, joy and pain. Awakened warriors throughout history killed people. Enlightened people aren't suddenly able to walk on water. If you cooked amazing omelets before enlightenment, after it you would still be able to do so. See? Solutions to what? What is self-serving might conflict with what's true.

That's what I'm getting at. Enlightenment isn't a process.

What is a tool for?

A tool for what? No practice, technology nor tool can possibly produce or lead to enlightenment. They can help calm, focus, open and master the mind, facilitating insights. Contemplation is what you do while becoming conscious.

What has been verified? What are you conscious of? What's enlightenment?

Not likely. Again, we don't know what it is. Let's not presume that awakening is X or Y, remain open and contemplate. Think of infinity. Mind can't think infinity. All it will come up with is "lots and lots." That's my main point. This matter is not graspable. No tool or technology will solve that dilemma. They are different matters. Inventions are relative and have an influence on that domain -- perception and experience. The realization of the absolute is untouchable by anything you can think of. It's like trying to wake oneself up by drinking coffee within a dream. Why hasn't an enlightenment pill been invented throughout human history? It's you. Intermediaries are not direct.

Let's get enlightened first and avoid speculation.

I don't place that much importance on teachers and teachings. By necessity, I investigate from scratch. You're projecting here. Well, if it's a conclusion, it is a grounded one. Are you perhaps angry because enlightenment ideals are being threatened by that assertion? I haven't said I'm enlightened. As most people in the "spiritual" terrain, I'm talking out of my ass: from hearsay, impressions, beliefs, and in this case, from the memory of a couple glimpses. Survival and truth are completely different pursuits. The truth is useless. And there are no requisites to awakening. The only thing you need is getting you. Luckily, you are already you. Consciousness is needed.

Gonna play Rayman on an emulator. Enjoying it thus far.

Trick question Do you want me to say there are so that you turn it into something relative? Deeply enlightened individuals may be able to see through the distinction of "other" as illusory and constructed, hence not real. This is key. In your experience, you haven't experienced things like brain, atom, nerve, God, except by hearsay and concept. Point is, who cares? You yourself must get it. There's no avoiding that. Experientially speaking, others seem to exist. It's also true that what others are is an unknown to me at this point. I assume there are enlightened humans, and it appears as if we are existentially separate entities. But I don't know.

What's absolutely true. What's real. What is. What is the case, has always been and will always be.

Becoming directly conscious of the Truth.

And I said "independent". You may be conceiving of enlightenment as something limited that happens within perceptive experience by holding those presumptions. Enlightenment isn't a perception. I'm sure it can be fascinating and worthwhile to scientifically study what happens to the brain when such and such phenomenon occurs. But enlightenment is neither a phenomenon nor relative. It's off the charts, so to speak. Something else is being measured in those studies. Consider the following analogy: waking up from a dream has nothing to do with what happens within the dream. It occurs as the act of awakening itself. That's what is meant by "direct".

I do. Two expressos a day. Try L-Theanine, or quit if that's what you want. I've found that intense daily aerobic exercise radically reduces the anxiety I can get from drinking coffee. That's what I did 4 years ago or so. Now, with a sedentary lifestyle, the anxiety is more obvious. Be physically active!

You are still holding it as something that is conceivable. It is independent from the brain. Whatever happens in your experience is irrespective of the absolute. That's not the tree to be barking. Sounds like you think the brain comes first, that it is needed for enlightenment, and that awakening relies on a certain neurological configuration in order to occur. I'm saying: these are different matters. In any case, the absolute can't be thought and by nature is confusing and paradoxical to the mind. If it makes sense, we are by necessity mistaken, as we likely reduced it to an idea. It's easy to make up fantasies about this topic. Enlightenment doesn't change anything, the only thing it gets you is the truth. Again, it's true now. Either way, all this BS gets in the way. Let's remain open: What are you? Who are you? Contemplate.

Unless you wanna learn math.

Contemplation creates openness, the space to wonder and to question.

Drop everything you have about enlightenment as it is utterly useless crap. It has to be. Seriously. Consider the implications that it is not relative. That may create an opening in order for you not to confuse it with relative stuff like perception, changes in states and ideas. It's what you are now. It's what's absolutely true. Period. You see? It's always been true -- even before you had a brain. Discard this BS too. Go become enlightened yourself. Btw, the terms awakening/enlightenment are being used interchangeably here. @Carl-Richard Smart but mistaken explanation -- every explanation is here. It somehow presupposes that the matter can be thought out and mapped. You're referring to phenomenon the brain or perhaps the mind. Consciousness transcends mind and perception. This matter is not conceivable. Only direct consciousness will do the trick.

Enlightenment is independent of brain and perception.

OK