alyra

@soul haha I giggled cute word play! I like the way you have shifted what "I" means. I warn tho, since it is in fact on-topic - i notice people seem to think that all is self means their current state of ego is everything there is. it isn't. transcention is, in a cute way, to extend the ego so that it is more encompassing the kitty doesn't cease to be real because it isn't the ego you are limited by. she sure exists too, and as long as you are trapped in duality, she remains true and not-you. have you ever been the kitty? how about every kitty? only then can you trully say you have been infinite. as long as you only accept that you are part of the infinite, and do not include [the kitty] and [you] and [you being the kitty] and [you remembering being the kitty but no longer being her] and [you not remembering having been the kitty despite having been so or perhaps having yet to been so or really time is just an illusion so both are true and false] and [you before you knew you were the kitty]....... and who knows maybe the kitty can do all these things too so if she can you gotta do those as well! But sure as hell you gotta go be the kitty without ever having been not-her nor having ever again been not-her, just been the kitty and not anything else beyond that. so unless you have done all that, you can never actually truthfully say you have been the kitty. and as such you can never truthfully say you have been the absolute. And so in this way, you are always locked in ego, you will never leave it. you are always locked in duality, and will never leave it. even if you do somehow manage to be the kitty in all those ways and then some, don't stop there, because you gotta then go do that for all the kitties as well, all ants and all humans and all of all individuals, and all atoms and waves and gluons and particles and quantum states, and all concepts too. and especially the ones you never came up with yet, as well as been all of the nothingness to counterbalance all of these, and every false belief as well. And did I mention all of existence (and non-existence and outside-the-box-of-existence-and-non-existence) we can never fathom: AKA all of that what we can fathom can fathom also can never fathom? Without being all of that, and in all the various dimensions of being that that I mentioned about the cat plus some.... without all that you will only have glimpses of something awe-inspiring, some thing that you claim to be the infinite, the absolute, god - but that is just a belief upon its ending, even if it is true in the moment of it. its ending is its death for you and you return to your brittle ego. and unless you're having that "glimpse" right now you can't say you're in it truthfully - just because you are the absolute and the absolute is you don't mean the same thing as you accomplishing that level of consciousness - only that level of belief! And even if you manage to be "in" that existence of the absolute -"in" as in a conclusive "within" and not the limited within that is duality aka ego. Even being that conclusive absolute, but taking the action to state you collapse to be limited ego and not unlimited absolute. By having this conversation we prove to be finite dual ego, and by taking the action to not partake in the conversation we in fact do the same regardless! this is the nature of duality and nonduality to be perfectly frank. so be careful. You can never "be" the absolute in its wholesomeness of it - you can only be in its image.

@Mighty Mouse well yeah. wtf kinda sense is it to remove things just 'cause it's feared? are you afraid of the job interview, and so don't even bother to go? are you afraid of rejection, and so don't even bother to ask the girl on the date? clearly we should just erradicat jobs. and girls. or boys, I like that option better the way to learn how to discard ego is to not run away from it. to face it head on and learn how to not fall victim to the fear of it. as long as we try to remove things that make us weak, instead of learn to be strong in the face of it... we are just playing the victim card. do you know where the ultimate destinatin of people who play the victim card is? either hospital or streets. or both. or death, but well that's all our final destinations so that doesn't mean much really. own up to who you are and face what you can't handle. or own up to who you are and do what you are strong at well enough that it inherently makes up for your weaknesses. those are the two best tools of the book, of discarding this "ego" and transcending past it. running away? that is useless. a crutch at best. I admit sometimes a crutch has use. but don't sew it to your body as if it is a limb. pick it up and try to put it down again when you can. push your limits.

yes indeed. weird huh?

my precious kitty dies and I remember her fondly. I smile remembering the good times. i sit pensive remembering the rough times. why should ego not die in the same way? even the dinos die and yet billions of years later we find memory of them in the earth. ego is no different. as the earth is essential to life, and life is essential to consiousness, and consiousness is essential to the absolute, they are all one. there is no difference between the death of an ant and the death of the ego. and just as there are many more ants that remain, so too is there many more ego thereafter. it is not a thing to cry over nor shun. edit: not that crying or shunning is bad if it do happen of course

oh but these are one and the same.

i was oon a forum for three years before i came here and i was FULL of neurosis. over time I overcame it. I admit that there could've been a few crutches that could've helped me not be so anxious all the time about posting etc. but, without facing my weaknesses, I could not have become strong. it is said that awareness alone is curative. there is no need to remove alcohol from existence in order for there to be people who don't abuse the substance. the same could be said for notifications. i feel the better approach would've been to rework the system. removing it is only letting the darkness win, ironic.

@Girzo i honestly don't understand al this "building up ego" talk at all. sorry but that reasoning sounds rather pointless to put weight to lol ! we work towards self actualization on these forums. "reputation" aka "upvote" aka "like notification" is a way of communicating shared appreciation of our lingual symbols that try to represent our journey. what is the point in having a forum if we restrict such things for fear of ego? ego WILL happen in ALL of us no matter what we run away from. I thought it was important to be aware of what we fear, and cease the habbit of running from it? it just makes no sense. so frustrating to talk about it 'cause I am sure someone else will come along going "oh but alyra you say this in ego" lmao. so what if I do, and who said i did? I say this just 'cause.

End of reputation/rank: sure ok has its merits, appreciated. Didn’t bother me. End of the method to give give a simple notice of appreciation, or find feedback on whether or not a post meant something even if it died off? I miss that, was a good way to learn and find inspiration from others.

@SOUL ah! Yes! Well said! Even when we discover we have transcended ego, that in and of itself is ego indeed. Edit: not that it defeats the point of it. When the painter paints the Michelangelo he still remains a painter. He is never a painted. Er,,, maybe I should say, a peasant who steals from the king’s treasures does not become the king. The teacher who teaches the most accomplished student does not establish that student’s fame fortune nor wealth... The change is meaningful even if it is not the meaning itself. The practice transcends even when it never reaches the peak. Ego death is a form of transcension. And you can go do it better again after you done it once, twice, a thousand times... and each time could be remarkable!

@Serotoninluv “you” = self = ego = symbol within the scope of the dual = the sum of experiences and memories and beliefs and actions that behaves as a separate entity from that which it perceives. Nondual or or not we do in fact perceive existences through a veil of duality. It is a part of the experience. That is not separate from that which is inseparable. Yet we manage to do it anyway hah - but that there is the real purpose of “ego death” - to find some level of oneness, elevate consciousness to be less limited by the illusions of duality. the contradictions are really hard to avoid ... @tool/use it. I am unsure if I follow that. I cannot use a mouth to eat itself. I am missing the point... why woul the ego be a tool used to transcend ego? I suppose there is neti neti, or even to look at the yin and notice how it outlines the yang. Is this what is meant by ego as a tool? Or perhaps you are stating how meditation can feel novel and yet remain ego.... the same illusion as before but on a new level of it.. in a way that that is all we can do to try to embrace the absolute.... hm.... thought provoking actually.

@Truth I am just reiterating idk how to speak to all readers without using a misleading singular pronoun

All I write is meaningless prattle. Empty symbols. Why bother saying anything at all! You are saying there is first, non duality, and second, reality. Doesn’t make much sense to me. Sure I have a hard time really (uh.... hm. Experience nor understanding nor seeing really captures the meaning at all. The meaning doesn’t either lol meaning is just a higher level symbol lmao. It fails at it too.) But uh, yes, I struggle to really “capture” nonduality I mean of course I would. It is beyond limits, and we can only sense/think/process limits. It’s a fools game to chase after what can’t be captured, but the wise man finds the profound everywhere she looks. All I attempt to do with this thread is remind people that knowledge is not truth, but belief, lol. Aka ego is you in every way (and me too, a different ego you could say, I mean by definition ego is in dual perspective, me v not-me) Also thanks for finding me profound, im flattered... I’m pretty sure I just sound like an ass in this thread almost didn’t even bother to start it grr it’s hard trying to explain it tho. Everything I say is riddled with irony and contradiction.

If you stop seeing yin and look at yang, you still see yin you just fail to recognize it. I am trying to show with words how yin and yang are both there even if you believe you’ve hidden one. They are each other in this way. And yes, it’s deeper than that, but I guess I’m just suggesting, don’t get caught up demonizing the ego.

@Joseph Maynor careful - what is judgement? I judge you to be Joseph Maynor, a dude with a beard who likes contemplating enlightenment. why is drinking water not judgement? maybe i am being silly but, I wouldn't say that clinging to belief causes judgment, that implies a dependent relationship, where judgment mostly arises from clinging to belief. the rock judges the ground by sitting upon it! the river judges the otter by sweeping it away.

@pluto puts it better than I could, for how I understand the word. in a way, I find that necessarily all things called "god" are god and also exist, but that's a bunch of nuance there lol. . . and if you take it the wrong way you think "oh I'll just make up shit like the flying spaghetti monster and worship that god" and well I mean you can and it has been done but I don't mean to encourage it as if it's the best way to understand god. personally when I look towards god I look towards what is infinite, what can never be finite, aka what is unknown, idk a lot of stereotypical words about god i like. the absolute, the divine, the source. presence. not like any of this ramble makes any sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

huh, for me I would think it is the other way around. to me, tactile is everything. in fact i think in tactile lmao. vision... people get all excited about 3d movies, but to me regular movies are 3d enough as it is. what 3d is - is the perpective my imagination sees, creates. the sensation itself is just sensation.

why does it matter to measure it? why does it matter who is greater or who is not? idk...

idk journalling has helped me. i hear meditation is good too. i do not currently meditate tho lol 'cause i'm weird and think that i'm sedimentary enough as it is. if I were truly wise tho i'd just find a way to meditate that involves walking, wouldn't be hard to do. what is growth... it is inherent to who you are... idk I think growth is the meaning of life. or moreover, the active investment in one's own growth or in the growth of a culture/family one is a part of. this is what all life does lol. that really makes me wanna care about growth. the future how to care about the now and growth i don't understand this question you ask sorry. growth requires both the future and the now. the past also helps. without both the future and the now, there is no perspective of a concept called "growth" .... we care about the growth because we care about the future. we care about the future because we see now as meaningful aka we care about the now. perhaps you mean that you are too obsessed over fantasy of the future/ if this is your concern, idk, why isn't meditation helping? or are you like me and come up with silly reasons to not meditate lol.

@Leo Gura you're picking at straws. ego is going to be here, as it is everywhere. even if you removed all profiles it would still remain, the one who posts and the posts she has not written. . . the posts she has written in the past even tho nothing shows others it was her, she is proud of them or shamed... why do you take on this burden of others to your own sake? you give us plenty of insight nudges to teach us how to stop depending on ego to survive. that is enough, you are removing tools that are used for good because you hate that they are used for evil. but I thought there was no good nor evil? you fight a war as if you are the only soldier who matters. what an ego

@Shiva huh, that's a cynical view. why can't employment be a teamwork effort between multiple people with similar dreams who work togther to create some output or bring upon some outcome greater than any individual alone could enact? why can't employment be an undergoing in which you trust your coworkers and supervisors to work towards their dream in a way that you can also build of towards yours? why can't employment be a process of negotiation with external minds to bring into fruition a meshing of them via created collaborative accomplishment? it's ok for anyone to take a step away from employment. do what fits your goals and dreams best

what is wise is just belief restriction, acceptance, both are good, both can be bad too.

imo it's important to notice the illusory nature of thought, and practicing no-thought is one good way to meditate for sure, to search for mindfulness. but it's a little ironic to think that thought can ever go away it ain't really gone and it isn't really bad. it's just something which grabs your attention and can distract you. lots of things can distract you. it's easy to say "before enlightenment, carry wood chop water. after enlightenment, carry wood chop water" her but I think the more important message is how absorbed some people can get in carrying wood and chopping water that they fail to milk the cows and chat with the spouse during the lazy afternoon break. idk what you really mean by trying to achieve fake growth, I think you take a different message from the video than I did. what I found important in the message was to not get caught up in the thrill of accomplishment, when thrill is something which ain't really reliable or consistent is. the growth we seek is something which is stable and reliable. learning chess can have stable and reliable results too. if you feel thinking, processing strategy, planning, these things help you play chess. why stop it? it isn't fake growth to become a better thinker. it's fake growth to think that being a better thinker makes you a better mindful person. mindfulness is not thinking, and is more fundamental - mindfulness can exist in thought, in fact, awareness is necessary for thought to develop... awareness is really fundamental to all. thinking, just as chopping wood, or sex, or thrill, these things can distract us from finding mindfulness. overall leo tends to push us towards consiousness work and especially enlightenment and experiencing infinty/god/nothingness/noself/etc. whatever you wanna call it. but you can have fake growth as you move towards those goals, just as you can have "true growth" when moving towards chess mastery. the difference is just another illusion, in the end. these concepts - fake growth v. true growth. thought v awareness. they are only useful for finding more duality - more illusion - more belief - more lower self. but even the yogi returns to concept. it's just different. this is the meaning of enlightenment really - change, to take what you saw before and see it in a more full light. before and after, chop wood carry water. but, after - there's something more to it. it's different. after enlightenment, chopping wood carrying water - even thinking - don't need to be thrilling to be fulfilling. but thrill isn't bad. it just distracts us from what is True. we find ways to strip away thrill, strip away thought, to come to understand better what existence is like without those things. neti neti! and yet, we return to the illusions. it'd be unhealthy not to. but it's also unhealthy to get so absorbed in illusion, we lose sight of what's really there.

just be careful you don't get trapped in some "definite" belief that this or that or the other thing is absolute. knowing is really not-knowing

wait I don't understand... you love the country so much you aren't comfortable learning its mother language? am I reading this wrong somewhere... maybe it is just a constraint of time? then what's the rush - what's stopping you from returning in 2 years?

yeah leo likes to be blunt what can i say. I tend to find his perspectives to help clear away the distracting stuff, but in the end it's up to me to figure things out reallly, don't matter who's doing what what way imo . i try my best to learn from every moment.