ajasatya

@CreamCat so now you just brought up a big word into the conversation: "responsibility". can you be precise on how you can develop the highest levels of responsibility on your profession?

@Peter124 changing your wording won't cut it. don't be afraid of "i", "me", "my", "mine". find out what those words are pointing to.

ok suppose i spend the next 20 years of my life studying artificial intelligence and mathematics until i become a world class reference in the field, a true master. but then all of a sudden my research starts to be implemented by federal military forces to send killing machines to invade territories and kill a lot of innocents. what went wrong in this case? even though i was a master of my field, my struggle to sharpen my skills ended up being used to implement weapons of mass destruction. time to ask what a right fight is? maybe a little late?

at some point of his life, hitler could have thought "alright, now that i have killed thousands, i consider myself a master... of genocide. time to ask myself what a right fight is" what went wrong?

how will you become a master without picking any fight (since you don't know what a right fight is)?

what is a "right fight"? take a deep breath here... this conversation has come to its climax.

hitler was a master of his work, a powerful leader and, of course, a legend. what is missing?

how does one become an absolute legend, exactly? what would make you an absolute legend?

@Ampresus bored? i know you're very young, but this is something that i did at your age (and even younger): think about your life after your parents are dead. who is going to feed you? where are you going to live? this way of thinking can shake you out of your current complacent life. engage in your quest for survival already... stop fooling yourself.

is that all a "better human being" is about?

there is still misunderstanding because you seem to be trapped in a intellectual experience of enlightenment. but real enlightenment experiences are brutally visceral, so to speak. here's another way of seeing it (still in the domain of the mind, though): are water molecules slaves of a river or are them the river itself? are planets slaves of the gravitational forces of their solar systems or are they the solar system itself? "no free will" and "free will" are ONE.

@CreamCat why would knowing True Nature stop you from embracing the human experience and sharpening your skills? i'm working towards becoming a better professional, a better husband and a better friend. in a near future, i'll do my best to be a good father and a good grandfather. i also want to learn how to cook. and i also want to have a more flexible body.

probably. the human being can think of itself as the experiencer, but that's the root cause of the whole baggage of confusion that leads people towards spiritual paths, religions, wars etc. the subtle, and yet at plain sight, Truth is that the universe is the only experiencer. and the human being can become aware of IT.

@arlin it's possible to go deeper than that as a human being (and it is a marvelous thing about the human experience that very few know). there is a huge shift when you no longer feel as if you were a human being experiencing existence, and start to feel as the entire existence experiencing a human being. the former is a mental phenomenon and the separation is felt in the gut. the later is a fully integrated phenomenon and you feel whole, meaning no identity, no human being, no self: only experience without "experienced" or "experiencer".

@arlin the very moment you say "i", the universe says "i". the sun rises, the flowers bloom, the heart beats and human beings say "i".

in your little story, i was telling her "how i got to new york". but maybe we were starting from different places (and maybe not!).

and that's not my responsibility. everyone is here out of their own will and nobody here holds any kind of duty to solve things for others with efficiency or anything like that. if that's your responsibility (maybe because you embraced it or simply because you're a moderator), that's fine. but you can't expect random dudes like me to weave an "accurate diagnosis" you can intervene and say "hey, you, be more gentle" and i'll say "huh, sorry, won't happen again" (some forum guidelines mention this issue in a very subjective and subtle way). we will be playing our roles and that's fine. but if people need professional/efficient/accurate help, this is not the right place to seek (and the forum guidelines mention this issue in a crystal clear and objective way).

@Serotoninluv i understood. and still, i wouldn't remove myself from the conversation (not really a conversation though... this is a forum thread). you can just ignore people.

i wouldn't people tend to take things very personally, which is something that i might have lost touch with. also, i think i'm out of shape to teach/help, since i've been working very hard on other aspects of Life. anyway, this is a dead horse already. i promise that i'll be more gentle from now on. thanks @Mu_ and @Serotoninluv for your patience and efforts.

@Alex bAlex yes, but fully embracing the human experience seems more interesting to me. i mean having children, grandchildren etc. of course you'd need the right partner for that. i was sure that i was going to become a zen monk and live in celibacy for the rest of my life until i met my wife: an amazing human being committed to the process of learning and practicing human virtues. it was a radical change in perspective for me and also one of the best choices of my life.

interesting... this thread is still paying out! i'm pretty sure she will, it's just a matter of time. eventually it will click like an engine booting up. when i was 16~17, there was a lot of pride and frustration in my experience because i thought of myself as being more evolved than everyone else around me. huuuge ego trip! zen has taught me differently, though. zen can be harsh on the mental barriers but it has a very specific goal: to open space for the heart. yellow girl thought she was going deep by talking complex, but in the end it's just mental noise. just like @Michael569, i didn't sense a single word imbued with spirit. but i'm not made out of stone. i am learning from this. not everyone has chosen to learn from zen

@Angelo John Gage most people here won't understand you until they've decided to build a family grounded on virtuous foundations. i recommend that you just leave it this way and work on your message. don't waste energy.

@ivory here is an insight that has opened a lot of possibilities for me: enlightenment is realizing that you are like a flower that will blossom vigorously. as Life itself, we don't need to separate enlightenment from everyday life. if you need time for developing mental discipline (like i did), then create a plan to spend a few months in a monastery or an ashram. i don't know what can help you more with mental discipline than a life devoted to the practice of meditation. but if you don't feel that you need an extra dosage of mental discipline right now, you can just become a good husband/wife, a good father/mother, a good professional. this is how Life consciously embraces itself through the experience of a human being.

point taken. thank you.

@Ponder you're still projecting a lot of pride/status onto this, as if enlightenment made some people better than others somehow. there is no prize, no pride, no winner, no loser. enlightenment is a phenomenon of the universe, like a volcano, a nimble, a river or a super nova.