jjer94

@How to be wise "I've got more important things to do" This idea will be removed when enlightenment happens. Your scarcity mentality is the product of an ego that imagines it will be complete in the future. You feel incomplete and unenlightened precisely because of this mentality. Enlightenment is not just some trinket you pick up at the candy store while you pursue success. It's an entire change in perspective and lifestyle. Just a heads up.

If You Were the Last Man on Earth What would you do if you were the last man (or woman) on earth? Assume you have all the food and water to survive for the rest of your life. Would you go cliff jumping? Write music? Meditate? Travel? Invent a new product? Write down at least five things. If you have more, great! These things are your authentic desires: your desires without the filter of others' opinions on what you should and shouldn't do, without the filter of wanting attention from others. Now ask yourself, why can't I do these things right now? By asking yourself this question, you're essentially uncovering all the limiting bullshit thought-stories in your head. These stories are the lifeblood of the fear-based ego. There's no need to change the bullshit; that's just piling on more bullshit. All you have to do is illuminate it. Shine the light of awareness on bullshit. It will dissolve with enough persistence and prime the body to pursue the things that it feels authentically inclined to do. Cheers.

You're "trying" to slow down your life instead of removing the things in your life that cause it to be fast-paced. You already know the things you need to give up in order to slow down. You just don't want to deal with the emotional labor of coming off the addictions. Sorry, but the only way out, is through. A meditation habit is a great method for weaning off addictions and slowing down the pace of your life. If you've never done it before, Leo has some great videos that will teach you. Cheers!

Now stop parroting and confirm all of this in your direct experience!

the Universe, she’s wounded she’s got bruises on her feet I sat down like I always did, and tried to calm her down I sent her my warmth and my silence and all she sends me back is rain . . . rain the Universe, she’s wounded but she’s still got infinity ahead of her she’s still got you and me and everybody says that she’s beautiful... the Universe, she’s dancing now they got her lit up, lit up on the moon they got stars doing cartwheels, all the nebulas on the tune and the Universe, she’s whispering so softly I can hear all the croaking insects, all the taxicabs, all the bum’s spent change all the boys playing ball in the alleyways they’re just folds in her dress the Universe, she’s wounded but she’s still got infinity ahead of her she’s still got you and me and everybody says that she’s beautiful... and everybody says . . .

Sometimes I don't see what's right in front of me Yet I keep moving faster trying to find the key You elude me...

Ego is like Boo in the Super Mario games. It haunts you and follows you around, but the moment you look for it, it's no where to be found...

So clear, so lovely, The peace inside, This space within my mind. You will never understand, How a thought could kill a man, Until you have to try to see, The truth inside of everything. All I know? We'll never know. We'll never know. And if I don’t? That’s fine with me today. How strong, how costly, The urge to fight our fate, To turn back time. But life is meant to be consumed, Not preserved to ward off doom. Oh one can surely die from fear, Before the end is ever near. All I know? We'll never know. We'll never know. And if I don’t? That’s fine with me today. Stay down, A common noun, now. We'll never know. We'll never know. And if I don’t? That’s fine with me today.

I've lost my mind And come to my senses, Come to my senses Escaped the haze that clouded my vision, clouded my vision My thoughts were steering me off course, Off course But I can see clearly once again, Once again My fears are melting Like water from the ice As the fire from the sun Burns bright, burns bright I feel its warmth upon my skin, Upon my skin All my doubts, all my worry, all my hope They don't haze me anymore They've been burned up by the sun's violent fire My desires, all my will, all my want They don't haze me anymore They've been burned up by the sun, by the sun All my thirst, my ambition, and my mind They don't haze me anymore They've been swallowed by the sun, They don't haze me anymore Nothing is left here in my path I'm free, I'm free, I'm free...

Hi Geetar, Great questions. You seem well acquainted with "enlightenment theory," and I'm glad that you've become conscious of the fact that you study too much. Yes, your cup is too full, and yes, it is time to empty it. To clear one thing up: enlightenment is not about seeing reality without beliefs/concepts, it's about being able to discern between reality and beliefs/concepts. Illusions will still be around, but you will see them as illusions. Okay, You've had enough theory. It's time to have an awakening. The following post may open you up in a lot of ways and induce an awakening. It points to the beingness of your experience. Not your absolute true nature, but very very close: After you have an awakening (and even before), personal insights will spring up naturally from your direct experience. You will no longer need to abide in thought-storyland about which teaching is right, which teaching is wrong, what meditation to use, what to contemplate, how to resolve all the paradoxes, blah blah blah blah blah... Silly mind poop. Instead, you will learn to be your own authority in your own experience, and from that groundedness, you can figure out on your own the next best steps to take on your path. The Universe will guide you every step of the way if you let it. Cheers!

As you do more of the inner work, you begin to develop a sense that allows you to see where every person is at in their psychological/spiritual development. It'll happen on its own. If you really want to accelerate it, learn to categorize your friends and family based on their "psychological age." Don't say anything about this to them! Just keep it to yourself. You'll find that most of the people surrounding you are, as Jed McKenna put it, "Human Children." For instance, my grandma may be 80 years old, but she's still very much a child. Agoraphobic, afraid of nearly everything, you name it. My former roommate is psychologically much older than she... Cheers.

@Nickinicki343 When you realize you are "everything and nothing," you will be making a lot less distinctions in your experience. One of the distinctions removed is right and wrong. You become amoral. You do whatever feels right. If it feels right to be vegan, you'll be vegan. If it feels right to keep eating meat, you keep eating meat. There comes a point where you realize that EVERY ethical argument is bogus (every argument stance in general), so diet choice just doesn't matter. I suggest you avoid wasting time in semantical arguments about stuff that has little to nothing to do with realizing your true nature. Your true nature is beyond all arguments. Cheers.

A lot of people here are confused about what enlightenment really means. Some think it's simply the realization of your true nature. Others think it's that PLUS the alignment with your true nature over a lifetime. How do you precisely define enlightenment, Leo?

Now shoo, and go find out what you are!

Hi Emerald, As Kenya says, you're very intellectual and your posts reflect that. However, that has backfired, as you've got yourself stuck in the realm of words. My guess is that you wrote this topic as a way to get your "fix" of words. Words that affirm what you say, words that give you reassurance that everything will be okay, words that reinforce your spiritual beliefs, words that will magically make you re-live your Ayahuasca experiences. You're going to get a lot of different opinions here, and you're going to take them only half to heart. Then once you get your "fix," you're going to look for more magic words that'll give you enlightenment. And so the cycle continues. I don't mean to sound harsh, Emerald. I say this all out of the utmost empathy, because I've been in the exact same position as you, several times. This too shall pass. So here's my opinion. Leave this forum, and don't come back until you've had at least a glimpse of your true nature. Don't read any more spiritual/nondual texts until you've had a glimpse of your true nature. Don't watch any spiritual/nondual videos until you've had a glimpse of your true nature. You already know the ins and outs of enlightenment theory; now it's time to throw it in the fire and find out what you are in direct experience. It's simpler than you think. In fact, thinking is the problem. Sit down anywhere, maybe even with some background noise. Mind-wipe your Ayahuasca experiences and pretend like they've never happened. Mind-wipe any spiritual knowledge you have. Mind-wipe your name, your memories, and your roles. Stop believing that you are a human body on planet earth in the year 2016. Stop believing that you are an entity experienced. Stop believing that you are an entity behind the eyes. Just close your eyes and confirm for yourself that there is only moving boundary-less perceiving occuring in...what's left. Totally solid. I've already said too much. Don't intellectualize it and just look. You're already here. Once you've seen it, you will be able to ground your insights in direct experience. From that place of wisdom, you'll have a more intimate sense of why you're feeling directionless. Cheers!

Yes, you're overthinking. You had an amazing glimpse, and now mind is trying to make sense of it (and hijacking it) with concepts. Have you ever considered that there never was such thing as time? That this moment as it is, is timeless already? What we call "time" is really in reference to the flow of experience. Experience is always moving. What it occurs in is the immovable now. When has it ever been not-now? No need to answer, just take a look in your direct experience! Cheers.

Good! Be vigilant. When you begin to notice the hidden rules you use to direct your actions and live more spontaneously, it's absolutely terrifying at first. The moment you open yourself up to spontaneity, you open the floodgates for your fears. You must face each and every one of them as they come up. Welcome in the emotional pain, the vulnerability, the risk of being openly disliked, even physical pain. Not many people are willing to do that. If you've already had a glimpse of your true nature, it may be easier. Regardless, surrender is victory. You achieve invulnerability through vulnerability. When you open yourself up to everything, what is left to defend? Spontaneity is a complete openness to what is, a complete detachment to experience. Not detachment in the sense of "I don't care," but detachment in the sense of "whatever's arising is perfect as it is! I could die happy right now!" Most of us are micro-managing each moment in order to run away from a past we fear and a future we desire. And by doing this, we deny that which is right in front of us. Spontaneity is living, moralism denies living. Spontaneity is open and vulnerable, moralism is closed and protective.

We're all crazy motherfuckers One possible method of dealing with others and these heavy topics is what I like to call "The Vampire Method." You know how vampires can't come into your house until you invite them in? The same thing here: Avoid talking about this stuff with other people unless they invite you to talk about it. As Arik said, you probably don't want to run through the streets and yell. Remember what happened to Jesus? You forgot this: !

Enlightenment is permanent. The enlightened state is simply your present experience, unfiltered! It's not a constant "feeling" of bliss or what have you. If you're chasing after bliss, that's just another one of ego's carrot chases, so beware. All experiences pass; enlightenment stays the same. Very subtle, and very simple. Fundamentally, nothing changes. On the surface, everything changes. How circumstances change after enlightenment vary from person to person. Some may become "bodhisattvas," others may become hermits. Some may vandalize a parking lot, others may feed starving children in Africa. It's all up in the air after realizing that the person has no control whatsoever over what they do, as well as realizing there's no such thing as morality. You're a caterpillar trying to build a conceptual framework of what it's like to be a butterfly. But that conceptual framework will only hold you back from metamorphosis. I suggest that you forget about the antics of the butterfly and instead focus on the inner work to become one! Cheers.

Notice how you're searching for an experience of enlightenment. You're expecting fireworks: some FEELING of connectedness or bliss. Realize that those experiences are fleeting. Your True nature is always here. If "Truth hath no confines," you already are connected to everything! Your present experience unfiltered by belief is enlightenment. I suggest you stop searching for a drug-hit of bliss. Instead, start by examining the belief that there is a "you" looking out at an external world. You'll soon find that Awareness, as you like to call it, is already not confined inside the body. Cheers!

People often confuse detachment with observing. You can fully experience something and be detached from it at the same time. Attachment is "this experience should/shouldn't be here." Detachment is "experience is exactly how it should be." Observing is analyzing experience using the light of awareness. You don't need to observe every experience; that's just silly! In fact, 'observer' is a dualistic idea, because it implies that there is an entity looking out at the world... Some food for contemplation: What if there is no such thing as an observer? What if there is no observer "looking out" at the world? What if there is only "out"? Cheers!

@Joe Schmoe Imagine for a moment that you are the number Zero. Zero is ground-zero reality: undifferentiated, untethered, just itself, not even an "it". Just the fabric of reality, eternal and unchanging. Synonyms for Zero: the void, Self, Brahman, Infinity, Truth, Pure awareness, nothingness, no-thing. Zero is sad because it can't be aware of itself. It is totally void of sentience and objects. So what does it do? It creates the finite illusions of One and Two. Zero inhabits One, the human I-perspective. This is where things get tricky. Zero wants to spice things up, so it inhabits many "One's" and tricks itself into believing in the illusion of Two. Another common word for Two is Maya. Two is the illusion of duality, particularly that there is a "perceiver" and there is the "perceived," as opposed to the One perspective which is just "perceiving." In that way, Zero can ride along in the One perspective and dream as Two: that it is a separate entity called a "self" or "ego." Two inevitably obstructs Zero due to identification. So enlightenment is like hide-and-seek. It's the realization and cultivation of your Zero nature. By creating the illusion of finiteness with One and Two, Zero can then use finiteness as a reference point to become aware of itself. Have you ever heard the teachers say that enlightenment is "Awareness being aware of itself?" Without One and Two, Zero can't be aware of anything (e.g. deep sleep). With One and Two, Zero can be aware of One and Two and itself. The path to enlightenment mainly consists of seeing through the illusion of Two. Seeing through your illusions is synonymous with disidentification, and it's often quite painful. But that's another topic. Many people see enlightenment as a good thing, some see it as a bad thing. Fundamentally, it's neutral. If it happens, it happens. Hope that clears things up a bit. If you're more confused, that may be a good thing. Cheers!

Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was—what difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as small. Marcus Aurelius

@electroBeam Hi electro, I never suggested that you shouldn't meditate. I just pointed out the trap in believing that you should or have to in order to reach enlightenment. You don't. Like I said, how do you get to where and what you already are? Fundamentally, there is no process. There's a quote from...Carl Sagan? I believe, not sure...but it goes something like: in order to make an apple pie from scratch, you first have to create the universe. In other words, fundamentally no one particular decision or technique has brought you to where you are now. The entire successional flow of the universe has brought you here. Meditation and contemplation for enlightenment work has brought you to where you are just as much as your dump on the toilet two weeks ago. I'm pointing this out so you don't spend decades of your life meditating with the heavy expectation of an explosion of bliss-enlightenment. We falsely expect these techniques to get us somewhere because ego desires to get to a better place, while the gurus do it because they know it's getting them nowhere. This is it already. It's just a matter of seeing clearly. Then what's the point of doing these things? Good question. This is where I contradict what I said above with the apple pie, so bear with me. Meditation, contemplation, spiritual autolysis, mindfulness and all of these other techniques are a hands-on approach to helping you see through your mind-made illusions. By doing these things over and over again, you learn more and more to see what is and see through what is not. That way, you suffer much less from your illusions. I agree with @99th_monkey that waking up is really the starting point to Self-cultivation, as I like to call it. Self-realization is the easy part. Self-cultivation is the hands-on part, where you slowly release control over your life by seeing through illusions. Ego doesn't want to release control. But by seeing through the illusion of ego, it begins to happen naturally. It's as though Self-realization is the spark that lights the powder keg, and then the fuse burns on its own through Self-cultivation. That's my experience at least. @99th_monkey I found that in a store. I was hoping the writing on the doll's sticky note would show up because I thought it was funny. It says "y'all need Jesus".

Like I said before, this is completely off topic. If you want to waste your time and make a "jjer94 debunked" topic along with your other 40 posts per day, be my guest. I'm sure you'll find more loopholes in my post history so you can be hypocritical and point out how "nonsense" I am to gratify your own spiritual ego. A great use of your time, I'm sure. Cheers mate.