Deep

No, God is essentially what we are. Not a creator God, but a Spirit that manifests itself through our body/mind complex. Spirit uses our body/mind as a vehicle. You become one with existence when you have a transcendental experience. An experience in which you feel one with all of creation. This is what Leo had when he took 5-MeO-Dmt. All of the sages, mystics, and prophets had this experience. That's when you realize you're not the body, mind, or ego but the Spirit (or Consciousness) itself. That's what liberation is. When Jesus says, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), he discovered our true nature. lol Unfortunately, it's one of the most difficult things to do because it requires lots of discipline. Any activity that allows you to be disciplined will help you get a glimpse of this. The reason why you can't see reality for what it is, is because you can't stop your mind from fluctuating. What does that mean? It means your mind automatically classifies and analyzes things when you look at them. All throughout your day you have an unlimited flow of thoughts. That prevents you from experiencing yourself as the Spirit because your mind is finite but the Spirit is infinite. Thanks for the questions! Good luck on your journey.

The Hindus say atman is separate from the body and mind. If you watch Martin Ball's latest video called Non-dual Therapy with 5Meo he says that God is self aware. God is a living thing but I guess the concept of "self" is within the mind. The Buddhists believe in rebirth but they don't believe in a self. How can something be reborn if it's not there? I think essentially Hindus and Buddhists talk about the same experience but they use different terminology. I think no-self just means there isn't anything specific you can point to. You can't really describe it. I don't understand the Buddhist terminology.

@Loreena Desires are not bad as long as one is not a slave to them.

Some people get good results from religion because their temperament is suited for religion. In Hinduism, there is a pathway to become enlightened called Bhakti yoga. Bhakti means devotion and yoga means to join. The devotion could be to a God or special cause. Majority of religious people practice Bhakti yoga including Christians. If one practices it with love, they will see no separation between themselves and God. There is nothing wrong with believing in an external God as long as they don't fight over it. On the flip side, there are people who are miserable internally. It puts a lot of pressure on them to be a "good" person.

@Prabhaker You're right. Maybe Brahman is able to divide itself into multiple atmans and some can remember who they were. I don't think it has to do with culture.

Here is clip of Dr. Stevenson presenting his research on reincarnation. If we are One consciousness, why do only certain people remember and not all of us? Doesn't that mean consciousness can become individualized or appear to be?

I agree with everything except this. I think it's necessary for one to touch base with their atman (Spirit) because they can't be sure before that. By touching base with atman I mean stopping the fluctuations of the mind completely. Many yogis have said Brahman is the only reality. Since atman and Brahman are the same, they will know what reality is.

Let's pretend you are man living 5,000 years ago in the forest. You have all of your basic needs met so you decide to sit under a tree and meditate. Slowly you discover that you aren't what you thought you were because the intensity of your experience increases. Your mind is destroyed and you discover your true Self. What I'm saying is mystical experience can lead to enlightenment but enlightenment is not an experience. Enlightenment is when the delusion is over.

Has anyone had an out-of-body experience? What does it feel like? I was sleeping last night and thought I had one. My body was feeling light as a feather.

Personality depends on thoughts and feelings, which are changing every moment without rationalizing. When you want to say "yes", do it. When you want to say "no", do it. If you say "yes" when you want to say no, that's ego. You lied to yourself and the other person, which strengthens the ego.

Personality is how you naturally express yourself. The personality doesn't depend on anything. The ego is the imaginary self-image you try to protect. Ego prevents you from expressing your true personality because you would get a lot of haters for doing so. Unfortunately, the ego causes us to hold onto a lot baggage.

I don't think being asleep is wrong because there are many good people who are. On a deeper level they feel connected with others but aren't sure about how. The illusion of separation is created by our mind. Most people aren't aware of Truth because they're chasing for happiness outside themselves. Our spiritual nature is very subtle in comparison to what our mind tells us. Once the mind is destroyed our spirit can be embraced. Destroying the mind doesn't mean becoming a zombie. It just means stopping the fluctuations of the mind. We automatically categorize things without even realizing it. If a person gets prematurely awakened, it can ruin his/her life. Jesus randomly woke up and offended lots of people. I suspect he didn't know anything about enlightenment. If a person knows about enlightenment, they can handle it much better. I don't think everyone needs to be enlightened, nor is everyone inclined to pursue it. From the Absolute perspective it doesn't matter what we do. After the dinosaurs died there is still life on Earth. Consciousness can produce life out nothing. How does practicing spirituality make you feel? Do you notice a difference from when your consciousness was lower? Thanks for reading!

@OBEler Thanks! I haven't tried it yet because I'm scared.

Of course, but if they ask I would tell them. A couple weeks ago some Christian fundies came to my door. I was hinting at them what happened to Jesus. Next time they come, I'll have to tell them to fuck off.

From the Absolute perspective it doesn't matter if billions of people are drowning in their own "suffering." I meant to say it's unnecessary to look down on them if they don't know Truth. I know mostly everything society does and believes in is wrong. Enlightenment is the only way to gain true independence.

I've been having some problems with my ego.

Isn't it nice to fit in to a certain extent? I mean you don't have to be a slave to society. You just have to make them think, you're one of them. In reality, you're awareness is different from theirs. You can pretend to believe in everything they do.

Well, ruin in the sense that others would misunderstand them. For example, Spirit is appearing as everything that we see but we aren't aware of that. Once a person awakens he can be aware and others would think he is crazy.

What a coincidence! I just finished meditating.

Honesty, forgiveness, love, integrity, compassion, good habits, etc... Sometimes it's necessary to express negative emotions as well.

@Simon Christiansen There are a lot of theories about this. No one can conclusively answer it because it's not possible to comprehend with our mind. One theory says, when we become fully liberated we can remember all of our past lives. That's kind of strange because liberation is the realization that we are God. The life of God can't have any beginning or end otherwise it wouldn't be infinite. What we consider to be our life is just an illusion from that perspective. The people who were liberated came up with the idea of souls to help the average human understand. All of these ideas are too airy-fairy for most people to grasp. They said there is an atman (individual spirit) and Brahman (Great Spirit). Both of those are connected to each other and they are infinite. The atman appears to occupy individual bodies/minds but isn't really bound to them. Atman can change bodies whenever it wants to. My answer is that, it's impossible to answer with our limited mind. I think there is something that lives on but nobody can prove it. In quantum physics they are discovering something non-material appears as matter so I think matter is a secondary phenomenon.

@The Universe I wasn't being entirely serious. I know trying to become enlightened is also just game. I'm not pursuing enlightenment at all because material and spiritual are the same thing.

@The Universe No, Hinduism isn't better for enlightenment than Buddhism or vice versa. It's all about your preference. There is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali in Hinduism and in Buddhism there is the 8 Fold Path. Both of those lead to direct liberation. When you succeed in them, you can experience Absolute Infinity without 5-MeO-DMT. (I'm not joking) Although most people will NEVER put that into practice because their ego won't allow them to be that disciplined. A lot of people don't like to hear that but it's true. Waking up from the dream state is extremely hard.

@Prabhaker Krishna had a sense of "right" and "wrong" but he didn't live by any dogmas. According to Patanjali, one has to be celibate to become enlightened. Isn't that a dogma? Some of my family members have dogmas against sex and alcohol. If one has seen Reality, why should they live by dogmas?

Good question. Yes, it's a possibility Krishna was fully enlightened because he is worshiped as God. I think the story has a lot of exaggerations such as him lifting the mountain with his finger. We can't believe everything about it. Maybe Krishna was experiencing God-consciousness all the time, we don't know. Krishna was married and very wealthy. I don't think liberation has to mean one has to remain poor. I think nirvikalpa samadhi is the only requirement for enlightenment. Otherwise a person keep thinking they are the body/mind. I don't think an enlightened master should behave in any particular way. I'm just skeptical of people who claim enlightenment because I'm not them. Nowadays anyone on YouTube can say that. I don't know what they are experiencing. I don't care about how they live. I don't think there is any "right" way. The ancients discovered enlightenment because they wanted to figure themselves out. It was entirely random.