UnbornTao

Haven't tried Hollow Knight yet.

That sounds like a good direction. The stories, hearsay, and expectations aren't really useful. Make sure it is real for you - that it is experiential and not just something you think about. Also, I wouldn't presume what consciousness or you are; stay open that they might be different from what you think they are. Essentially, you're questioning who you are as an attempt to become conscious of the very entity that you are, the one asking the question. Realizing the so-called answer takes the form of an insight, a direct encounter with the subject matter.

One can't get around this condition, and neither is it wrong nor negative, though we might tacitly believe otherwise. Rather than treating it as ignorance to be avoided, we should recognize that such dismissal reflects our cultural relationship with "knowledge" itself. It is the source of knowledge, learning, insight, and creativity - the closest thing we have to direct consciousness. Consider the contrast between ourselves and someone like Gautama, who was presumably "fully awakened." What does that contrast reveal about us? Do we truly grasp everything there is? At present, we are not in touch with the nature of anything - and we might not even be aware of that yet! It has to be experienced deeply. And this, paradoxically, is a powerful place to stand. Not sure where I'm going with that, but it may be of some use.

Someone may assist you in some ways, but what good does it do to stand on hearsay, no matter its source? Realizing the "answer" requires experiential investigation, which goes beyond merely thinking about a subject in the abstract. Find out for yourself - which is to say, find out what your nature is. It seems that your approach would need to change, then, as you're focused on mentally piecing things together. This is putting the cart before the horse.

It's been awhile since I last paid some attention to the AI landscape, but I like Claude. Seems to be quite intuitive and smart, generally speaking. GPT is the one I use the most, though.

Well, you are conscious, and you say that you exist - so the question is, what's that about? Who are you? Stay open and keep at it until you reach an experiential realization or insight. Trying to figure it out is not the same as contemplating it. Otherwise, believing in notions is just that - and they simply contradict what seems to be your current experience: being a self, having a pretty solid sense of yourself. That's perfectly fine too. Just don't mistake adopting lofty ideas, such as "no-self," for a conscious experience of the matter.

Not at all - it is a profound condition. It's not trivial, such as lacking information or failing to understand some subject. In your very experience right now lies the sense that you might not even be real, as you don't experience having created yourself - you're disconnected from that source. In other words, you - your self - aren't God. This sense might be related to this deep not knowing. I'm not explaining this very well. Besides, it requires setting a foundation first, and elaborating on it. Anyway, don't just automatically believe or disbelieve that. Okay. Still, it has to be genuine. We can make up whole words to participate and believe in, so the potential for self-deception is high. States and experiences tend to be easily conflated with breakthroughs.

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A thought about what's true, or what you think to be true. It depends on what you're calling knowledge, but you can actually let go of your knowledge and set out to experience what's true. The point is that one can know directly the nature of things - we aren't just stuck with belief. I'm not dismissing belief; what you believe has consequences and is powerful, but this belongs to the relative. What I'm pointing out is that belief itself is of a different nature than an experience of truth. An assessment or claim isn't the truth it refers to, even if the belief is valid and factually grounded. Notice that no belief is needed to recognize that you currently do not know. This condition is intimately yours, permeating your very consciousness. Move in this direction, rather than covering it up.

"Who" refers to the recognition of the conscious entity that you are. 'What' is about the "substance" of that being. The first one is actually not an enlightenment question, it's more like an insight. To be clear, an anwer isn't the goal - we're just taking a look: You see, hear, touch, and think, as well as feel and experience. None of that is who you are since it is being received by you. You don't find yourself in a perception or experience. Where is you to be found in those? Without extrapolating, who is experiencing those things? Get you directly. Again, don't believe me. Just wanted to open up this consideration a bit.

Even a genuine direct consciousness can be "corrupted" by the mind. Someone like Adi Da cast himself as the sole gateway to God and fell into the adoration of his followers. He had a deep enlightenment, yet his group devolved into a cult and is now no more than a religion. Little remains of his teaching, given it's been turned into a system by his followers. Any ism is already way off the mark. They are purely conjecture in this context, no matter how intelligent or sophisticated. Such systems may sometimes be useful but they degrade whatever reality might have been originally grasped by an individual, assuming there was a breakthough there in the first place. When it comes to the truth, they're always wrong. Belief isn't just an extraneous thing - it's pervasive. Most of what you think you know is actually just a belief. In other words, we aren't directly in touch with the nature of anything. Moving in the direction of recognizing this fact is far more powerful than merely exchanging one conjecture for another. This trap can be escaped. We usually assume that our only option is to adopt some stance, cling to a worldview, or believe in something. In a sense, having a worldview might be inescapable, and yet it can be recognized as a fabricated convenience - and thus as something different from the truth. Why do we make up these things in the first place? Because we fail to realize the truth for ourselves. And so we become believers. Yet the possibility of direct realization remains. One could even adopt a practice of eliminating every belief they hold, which is more powerful and authentic, albeit emotionally and psychologically challenging at times. Why isn't such a practice seriously entertained and taken on?

I'd begin with 'Who'. 'What' is a different question. @theleelajoker Don't jump to conclusions. What's perceived comes to you or is received by you, is it not? Keep digging.

Another thing: survival is everything you do - it is the principle of life. From worrying about what to wear, wanting to impress, to sustaining your body and everything else. Why separate survival from other pursuits? The only exception is truth-seeking, which is an independent pursuit. Spirituality, in that sense, is just a different flavor of survival. It's all about you and improving your experience. @Joshe If it's about controlling one's mind, then you're no longer so influenced by your automatic drives and motivations. That doesn't mean you can't simply create things and move toward the goals you've set for yourself. I suspect there are many ideals on this domain. For example, Osho liked his luxurious cars. And Sadhguru's is quite successful in the conventional use of the word. You can also be an enlightened pianist, or some such. "Spirituality" or meditation practices aren't strictly reserved for monks, or restricted to a particular lifestyle. You may have a point, but I think reaching that level of detachment would have to require more involvement than the level I recommended. The point is, mindfulness tends to increase your effectiveness in whatever you do, as your attention is increasingly focused on your present experience. Whether you want to perform a certain action or not is up to you.

In the end, what's believed is irrelevant and is different from the truth. Are you conscious of who you are? Do that first.

Maybe that could happen to a degree, depending on one's commitment and how far one takes the practice. But it doesn't hurt. Controlling your mind is just that, and you could use it to better direct yourself toward your goals.

I'm watching Foundation.

Practices like meditation can enhance your ability to control your mind (not doing so much silly stuff with it), thereby increasing your effectiveness in life - like removing layers to see something more clearly, to put it metaphorically.

@Sugarcoat Sounds good. I'd just pin down the subject being addressed. Hold it in mind while remaining open - free of bias and presumption. So, when it comes to yourself, who is that? And then you set out to discover the truth about it.

@zurew

That's common. Can you specify what you mean by that? What is it directed at? Man, this is fun. My bad, it seems you already clarified that in your post above.

Hey, you're obsessed with you(rself). But who isn't? That could be a koan! Perception itself is an indirect process. I'm not so sure about calling it a filter - interpretation would be a better fit for that. Perception is more like an intermediary, metaphorically speaking. But you tell me. We could postulate that whatever we hold to be pure reality isn't a point of view, but the very thing itself, its nature. And we can, as a matter of consciousness.

@zurew What do you expect to get from the interchange? Not just with me, but also from participating in such an endeavor as a whole. What is it that one is left with? Say someone has a profound enlightenment, and it's genuine. They might try to communicate it and claim something like: "consciousness is all, and you aren't separate from the nature of existence. You and existence share the same nature." Let's just pretend that's something they might say, for whatever reason. What do you think people could make of that? Seriously - my point is that it will be misunderstood in any case unless the individual has an enlightenment themselves. They can make stuff up in their minds, and this will always miss the point. Not to sound like a broken record, but I want to clarify that my points aren't about relative discoveries. Bring examples of the truths or metaphysical questions you're referring to. If it relates to an existential aspect of reality, it could be boiled down to: What is it? This involves enlightenment work. Something like what is emotion, or what is perception, may have to involve other methods. In many cases, it is an experiential matter and not just intellectual one - depending on what's being addressed. It's like someone communicating the possibility of waking up from a dream, as he or she has experienced that directly. Obviously, this is directed at others within the dream. They hear the words of the facilitator. Now, can the communication be understood? Not really. At best, it can provide dreamers with the possibility of waking up from the dream. And discussing whether the dream is made of rainbows or pixels - which occurs within the dream - is speculation and dream-stuff still. In this analogy, we can see that waking up is the only thing that really makes a difference. As someone who is asleep, we are having titillating discussions about the substance of the dream - and this is just another layer of the illusion. Something like that. To be clear, everything you're talking about is relative - that is, it refers to the relative domain. It's useful to recognize that nothing one has regarding the absolute is "the absolute." Even then, we might still be thinking of it as some "thing" out there that's grandiose and "inaccessible," or maybe as just an interesting philosophical consideration. When a direct consciousness is had, it is not a relative phenomenon and is not up for grabs - which is to say, one is in the same place, so to speak, as the thing contemplated. There's no separation between it and you. It isn't an answer, is self-validating, and it can't be wrong. This trueness isn't a function of one's mind or conviction but of the consciousness. And to discover existential truths, it's pretty much the only method - everything else would be indirect, perhaps scientific approximations of a fact or principle. But again, what's true must be dealt with on its own terms - the absolute requires "waking up." Anyway, that's all for my rhetoric and useless opinion. I don't know of any satisfying answer to give you, other than to have several enlightenments. That would likely move the conversation into a more experiential domain.