jjer94

Hi Stephanie, Thank you for being skeptical! Talking about enlightenment is some of the trickiest, most esoteric sh*t and it can be very easy to dismiss it or be skeptical. I encourage you to continue being skeptical. This is a very insightful thing to say. The short answer is no, the sort-of long answer is it can be. No: A barebones definition of enlightenment I use is the realization of your true nature. Your true nature is right here, right now, and it is absolutely perfect. Hope is imagining something better for the future. How can something perfect be better in the future? After realizing your true nature, hope is no longer necessary. However, if you're just starting out, you'll at least need some hope to motivate you to pursue enlightenment. It can be: Sometimes, people take enlightenment teachings that are only supposed to point to your true nature and spin them into a religion, i.e. a belief system. When that happens, "hoping for a better life" is usually included in the belief system. Why is it so difficult for you to accept that you may not be an organism with a brain that triggers thoughts and emotions? Here are some thought experiments to get you started along this line of inquiry: If I cut off your arm right now, would you still be you? Your cells apparently replace themselves every 10 years. Are you still you? You can't experience your apparent brain. How do you know it's there? Where does "Stephanie" fit in with the organism? Cheers!

Humor me for a second Henri, because there will be resistance if you read onward. Have you ever stopped to consider where this "fallen apart" world is? Where all the bad things are happening? Where is the "bad-ness"? Contemplate that for a second before reading on. You may notice that all the bad things in the world, the idea that the world is "fallen apart," is all in your head. Your mind created the idea that all the events happening in the world are somehow bad and need fixing, and because you are One with everything it is your duty to fix things and help others. Remove all these ideas, and things just are the way they are: absolutely perfect. Nothing ever needs to be fixed. I think it was Shakespeare who said, "There is no good or bad, only thinking makes it so." While your belief in service and fixing the world is certainly noble, you're going to have to see through it eventually if you're on the pathless path to enlightenment. All beliefs are fundamentally limiting, and your true nature is unlimited. That doesn't mean stop believing in this particular belief; it just means see through it. See it for what it is: an arbitrary belief; a bunch of random words strung together in a children's rulebook. Also, see if you can find any hidden agendas in your belief. The one I mentioned before about being validated as a saintly human being is likely in there somewhere. Look, I'm not saying that all that service/Yoga/heart chakra stuff is useless if you want enlightenment. Literally anything can be useful as pointers to enlightenment, because it is a pathless path. There are no true methods for realizing your true nature, because you're already it. However, your beliefs about service and all that other stuff being necessary is limiting your true nature and your true spontaneity. In my opinion, to say that Leo's way or anyone's way is just half the way is "low consciousness," (I really don't like that phrase but couldn't think of any others) and you may want to re-examine your claim. Cheers!

As nice as that sounds Henri, I disagree. By believing that you are One with everything, you're just as delusional as all the others out there. You still believe in a bunch of words, which are of the realm of duality. And the thing is, if you believe that we are all One, you are also likely to have a bunch of other hidden beliefs and agendas, and because you haven't transcended words yet, you likely won't be aware of those hidden beliefs and agendas. A perfect example of a hidden agenda is to treat others with love and respect so that they can reflect back to you how amazing of a person you are. Yet you wouldn't realize that if you don't know what you are (and what you are not). Agendas are egoic. They tell you that this moment is insufficient and something needs to be done about it. Very subtle. Can you see? Believing that you are One with everything means you should treat everyone with love and respect, because you are them. By having that "should," you're trying to convince yourself to act in a different way in order to fulfill the agenda of treating everyone with love and respect. In other words, you're trying to control the situation. Where does the illusion of control come from? Ego. Believing that we are one world family is just another paint color in the prison cell of beliefs that is ego. Become liberated from that prison cell, and you will feel no sense of obligation towards "others" because that "should" was seen through. By completely releasing the illusion of control, by being as spontaneous and agenda-free as a dog or a baby, people can't help but be affected in a positive way. Real liberation starts within you, and within you only. Change your perspective of the world, and you will change the world.

Not crazy at all. In fact, that is exactly what mind will tell you. Mind, i.e. the domain of the character, does not want enlightenment because that means the end of the character as you know it! You want comfort and security. You've been playing the character for so long, and it's familiar. Sure, it's pretty miserable at times, but at least it's known, certain and familiar. The journey of enlightenment is one of entering into the unknown, into uncharted territory where "here be dragons." I have a suggestion if you choose not to take this journey. If you're not going to see through yourself, learn to see through other characters around you. NYC is a hub for egoic delusion. Watch everyone scurry around like salmon, taking everything so seriously as if it were all a life-or-death situation. Watch everyone bitch and moan about their circumstances, hoping for a better tomorrow. Watch everyone chase after materialistic possession, as if that will make them permanently happy. With any of your friends, see if you can dissect their character: their motives, their desires, why they do the things they do. By seeing all of this in others, you will learn to see it in yourself, and you will at least learn to loosen up and not take everything so seriously. Though something tells me that I implanted the virus in you...and it will only spread until you can't help but begin the journey Cheers mate!

It's okay to be skeptical; that's a good trait to have going forward. As the philosophical/analytical type, I was the same way. I'll give you a little preview of what enlightenment is, as concise as I possibly can get: You identify with your character. The problem with this is that you do a lot of things that cause you suffering...without even realizing it. Because it's a character, you constantly need to think it into existence, maintain it, protect it with all your might, because that's who you think you are, right? As a result, most of your life is lived in fear of losing the character. On the flipside, you're also working hard to add on to the character, so you have an endless number of desires to chase after fruitlessly. Not to mention that your potential is held back by the character's "rulebook": its set of should's and should not's. Enlightenment, in simplest terms, is realizing your true nature. This Truth is very special, because it's not bound by anything; it's timeless. It is what you were before you were born, what you will be after you die, and what you are right now. It sounds a bit airy-fairy, yes, but bear with me for a second. What if you discovered that you were not the time-bound, finite character? That you were not the body nor the mind? That what you fundamentally are cannot die because it was never born? That it is absolute complete perfection right now, and you are it? Can you imagine the sense of relief that would bring? There is no longer a need to constantly fear the character's death, to constantly strive to add on to the character. You don't take it seriously anymore, but you can wear it like a costume and play with it, as should normally be the case. Every single ineffable moment is perfect for you. You are quite literally reborn, and you now approach the world in child-like wonder. Life becomes a vacation. You wonder why everyone is so serious...and then you remember that they all identify with their characters. Those who must play...cannot play. However, all of this comes at a cost. In order to realize what you really are, you must realize what you are not: the character. Fortunately, the character never existed in the first place because it's just an idea, but it sure as hell won't feel that way when you start the journey. At times, it may feel as though you are dying. After the fact, you may still use the character (or another character - you're free to act however you want after the character is seen through) to interface with the world, but you will no longer identify with it. Hopefully that clears things up for you a little!

Here's an analogy for ya. The job of an actor is to don the role of a character. A character has a certain personality, memories, habits, etc. The degree to which an actor portrays the character sets the good actors apart from the bad actors. From this analogy, you see that the "character" is an imaginary costume garment: that entity with all the personality traits, habits, memories we call the "character" doesn't actually exist. It's just an idea that's portrayed through mind and body by the actor. All humans are the greatest actors in the world. We have come to identify ourselves completely with our character (i.e. the "sense of false self") that we don't even realize we're not the character. We actually believe that we are such-and-such: a lawyer, a carpenter, a mother, father, son, a boyfriend, an unworthy bastard, a worthy salesman, a powerful billionaire, a snarky person; that we are shy, stupid, smart, like this book, like this movie, have a grudge against this person...the list goes on. The journey of enlightenment is the process of seeing through and de-identifying with the character you created.

Yep

In my opinion, the "full power of your wisdom," if you are truly wise, includes the ability to cater to others' levels of consciousness. Wisdom is not just the knowledge that you know nothing, but it is also the ability to identify wrong-knowing in others. In other words, just from a few sentences the wise person can get a sense of what the other person assumes to be true and how seriously they take their words. From that, the wise person will naturally respond at the other person's level of ignorance. If someone were just learning about enlightenment, the wise person would not say right off the bat, "You are neither conscious nor unconscious, you are beyond all experience, the body nor mind exists, there is no external world. Wake up!" Based on the person's questions, they may just say, "Enlightenment is realizing who or what you really are. You can start by examining your belief that you are a separate self." The issue with this forum is that everyone's at a different level, and even if you reply to someone far down the pathless path, there will be others not as far along who will read what you wrote and be really confused. Imagine this were a forum about a Mario game and someone who's only on level 1 reads a post that says you have to get yoshi to eat a blue shell and fly into a secret door. However, that post was referring to level 2 and the person reading the post has no idea. So now that person is going crazy desperately searching for yoshi and the blue shell in level 1 when they'll never find them because they're in level 2! A bit of a long-winded analogy, but you get the point.

Hi Felipe, Thanks for inquiring into all of this! That's where the journey begins. 1. Enlightenment = Realizing your true nature. Your true nature is what you are existentially. Another way of putting it is, what you were before you were born, what you really are right now, and what you will be after the body dies. 2. Yes. We all arrive at enlightenment eventually. For most people, that happens after the body dies. The "enlightened person" just found their true nature before the body dies. 3. It's hard to say, since we're not in their perspective. However, we can assume that they do not have an ego, which can point you in the direction of your true nature. That's why dogs are such great pets; they are zen masters in disguise! 4. You may not understand this at the moment, but bear with me. Anything written in words is invented. Words are concepts, which are basically depictions of what's actually there. Think of a menu. All the items printed on the menu (hamburger, shrimp, fries, etc) are not edible; they are merely depictions of what is actually edible. In this analogy, writing "enlightenment" is just a word on the menu; that word is invented. However, actually having a taste of enlightenment is discovery. 5. If it felt right to do so, yes. Enlightened folk don't have any sense of right or wrong; they are amoral. Like babies, they do whatever they feel moved to do, because they don't identify with their body. The body just does its own thing. 6. Who knows? Flying unicorns would fart rainbows across the sky? 7. Yes and yes. What you call happiness is better defined as conditional excitement: you get something you want, therefore you're happy. However, if you lose that thing, you're no longer happy. After enlightenment, your happiness is unconditional; you are happy for no reason at all, and you have no reason to label it as "happiness". It's just the natural state. 8. Yes. Just because someone is enlightened doesn't make them superhuman. Your true nature is right here, right now. It's just a matter of seeing it clearly. 9. Like I said before, enlightened folk are amoral. If they feel inclined to be vegetarian, then they'll do it. If not, then so be it. 10. I'd say the enlightened folk closest to mainstream media would be Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, or Mooji. You're not going to find any enlightened folk in the general newspaper. 11. If it felt right to them, sure! After enlightenment, there are no rules. In fact, part of the journey to enlightenment is destroying rules. Rules can come in the form of beliefs, attachments, assumptions, programming, etc. Your rulebook is essentially what's preventing you from seeing your true nature. Cheers!

I've lost my mind, 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) And I can see clearly once again (Once again) My fears are melting like water from the ice (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 violet 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 in my mind They don't haze me anymore They've been swallowed up 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)

??? ???

Ralston actually talks a bit about this in his book Pursuing Consciousness. He calls self-realization as "having enlightenment experiences" and self-negation as "transformation". Basically, he says that enlightenment experiences can help speed the process of transformation, but they are not a substitute for transformation. I agree for the most part. You may realize Truth in a flash, but your entire self-structure full of neuroses and hidden beliefs will likely still be intact afterwards. His bottom-line contemplation is an excellent tool for chipping away at that self-structure (that one's in The Book of Not Knowing). Also, writing/journaling can be used to uncover your psychological hang-ups. Even during meditation you can sometimes become aware of self-agendas. I'm sure you'll be able to find at least one technique out there that fits your preferences!

You are most definitely the queen of doing that Just because you have an excellent map doesn't mean you're an excellent driver. All words and concepts are untrue. I suggest that you pay less attention to semantics/wordplay/saying the 'right' things and more to what words are pointing at in direct experience. Not necessarily; this sort of inquiry is more for self-realization, or awakenings. There are other techniques for detachment, i.e. self-negation, that I'm sure you already are using (meditation, contemplation, etc.). Self-realization is the easy part; sloughing off bits of yourself little by little is the hard part. Do you at least see that you are everything? That is a huge breakthrough. Close your eyes for a second. Forget about the ideas of "inside" and "outside." Go into a room with some noise. Where are those sounds coming from? Where are they going? Do you see that you are not limited to the body? That you're not 'inside the skull'? That there is simply perception in this limitless blanket of empty "I Am"? Now play around with the ideas of "inside" and "outside". Touch, smell, taste, and thinking are just as much "inside" as seeing and hearing, are they not? P.S. Don't worry around trying to constantly flip back to the "I Am." It will become your natural state once you do enough self-negation.

What else could it be? That emptiness around your perceptions is the "I Am." Notice how if you stop believing yourself to be a body and instead the "I Am" that encompasses the body and everything else, it feels as though everything - even sounds and sights - are inside you. And it's all very much alive. Do you see? Sights and sounds were never external to you - that was just an artificial distinction. All sense perceptions are manifestations of your true nature. Can you see from this that on one hand you are everything? "Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realize that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear. Even the sense of ‘I am’ is composed of the pure light and the sense of being. The ‘I’ is there even without the ‘am’. So is the pure light there whether you say ‘I’ or not. Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience — that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else." --Nisargadatta Maharaj

No one may be perceiving it, but there's an awareness that perception is happening. What is aware? Is it the 'nothingness'?

Further... What is the substance of an object? Do objects even exist?

Following along with @Toby .... Part of the pathless path of enlightenment is self-negation, which is essentially un-brainwashing yourself from not only your own beliefs, but also all societal assumptions (which in turn bring about societal norms). If you've seen Leo's video on 30 ways society f**ks you in the ass, then you get a sense of the beast you're up against. An example of one of the most prominent societal constructs is incompleteness. You are incomplete unless you buy this new car, marry this woman, have this career, become enlightened. You won't be happy until you have all of those things. This is my experience on the matter: If you ostracize yourself from that societal construct along with the others, you will likely act differently from the norm and be labeled as "weird". Friends and family may notice that you're not as excitable, that "you've changed." If you take this journey, there's no avoiding the possibility that you will change in some ways. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. In fact, it's very freeing. Relationships that were originally fuel for the ego will likely fizzle out, leaving you with more energy during the day. Relationships that are authentic and non-clinging will stay. You may or may not choose not to continue playing the conventional societal game. You will have no sense of obligation to anyone or anything. How is that not weird according to modern society? But even by the time you're labelled as weird, it wouldn't even phase you because you wouldn't take it personally; it becomes a non-issue. You can try to maintain your friends and family relationships the same way you have been @bernieboy20 , and if it works, it works. But in my experience, once you start waking up, something's gotta give. Either the relationships have to metamorphose, or they have to be dropped. It eventually becomes too painful, too futile, to maintain long-term ego-fueled relationships. If you're being reborn, there will probably be labor pains.

@shouldnt Might I say you're...turning it up to 11? I'll see myself out.

@TwoDays Again, when I said it was a fool's game, I was referring to the people that fall into the meditation trap, that enlightenment is somehow a destination they need to get to, and so they struggle and struggle and get nowhere. There are other methods...but if I told you I'd have to kill you Just kidding, I'll mention one: Peter Ralston's bottom-line contemplation. You can find it in The Book of Not Knowing. Cheers!

@TwoDays Thanks for the reply! If you read my third paragraph, that's exactly what I said. When I make the hydra analogy, I'm referring to the people who are in the meditation trap: expecting that a silent mind will bring enlightenment. I agree to a certain extent. It's a good idea to at least set aside time to do the inner work alone. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be sitting in formal meditation. Like I said, meditation can be a powerful tool, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. There are dozens and dozens of other techniques out there besides formal meditation that can be used as a catalyst for releasing control, and in fact, some techniques can end up being more efficient than meditation. You ever hear of those people who only meditated for a couple decades and got nowhere? I never said that there's one thing against another. I just said that meditation is not required for enlightenment; nothing is. Enlightenment is a pathless path. I make no claims except to negate the belief that formal meditation is necessary. Your belief that formal sitting meditation is a necessity is just that: a belief. You may want to open your mind up to the possibility that there are alternatives, or at least supplements, to your meditation practice. Enlightenment = realizing Absolute Truth, i.e. your true nature. There are stepping stones towards enlightenment that I like to call awakenings, but you can call them enlightenment "experiences" too. In my experience, there are two aspects of enlightenment: self-realization and self-negation. Self-realizations are the awakenings that come in a flash. They are insights into your True nature, or at least getting closer to it. You may realize Truth in an instant through self inquiry work or "spiritual autopsy" as you call it (do you mean spiritual autolysis?). Some rationalizing may accompany the experience. However, just because you realize Truth doesn't mean you're done; you still have an entire self-structure intact. The act of seeing through and deconstructing that self-structure I call self-negation. That's where things like meditation and contemplations come in handy; that's really where the brunt of the work takes place. Again, this is just my experience. I hardly ever meditate anymore, because I've found other tools to be more efficient and effective. I'm also not making claims for or against anything. I'm just simply offering another perspective.

......... Don't forget attention!

You don't have to meditate to reach enlightenment. Technically, you don't need to do anything to realize what you already are, because you're already it! All methods to reach enlightenment are just a matter of removing obstructions (desires, fears, beliefs) in order to see that you've been there the whole time. That's why they call it the "gateless gate." In fact, meditation can become a trap for some people when they imagine that they are getting somewhere, as if there's some destination they need to arrive to in order to be who they are. They believe that a silent mind (or feeling 'bliss' or whatever other bogus fleeting experience) means enlightenment, so they work so hard to try to silent the mind, as if you need immense effort to reach a state of effortlessness. Sure, earnestness is required to reach enlightenment, but in my opinion, trying to brute force your way to a silent mind is a fool's game. It's like cutting off the heads of a hydra when they're just going to grow back. I'm not saying that meditation is useless. When used as a way to release control, meditation can be a very powerful tool. And it doesn't necessarily have to just take place on the cushion. Life itself is your meditation. Every situation can be an opportunity to release control. Monkey mind is not the issue; it's the importance you give to your monkey mind that's the issue. Monkey mind will start to settle down a bit once you start seeing through your desires and fears (i.e. releasing control), and you don't need to be on the cushion to do that. Cheers!

@NoOne I think you may have a misunderstanding here. There's no need to persuade yourself of anything. In fact, I suggest you don't do that. You've been doing enough of that your whole life. Instead, what I want is for you to see your fears for what they really are: thought sensations along with bodily sensations. Don't judge it, don't desire for it to go away, don't persuade yourself of anything; just see it for what it is. You may get some resistance, a "dark night of the soul" here or there. Not much you can do about it. Ego doesn't like to be disrupted, and it will try to do everything in its power to maintain control. All you can do for the panic attacks is just let them run their course. The more you resist resistance, the more resistance resists. The spiritual path is one of allowing. No more of, "This thought/feeling shouldn't be here."

The "horror" of existence? Uhh... let me ask you a question: Where is the horror? Is it "out there"? Is it in other people? Where exactly is it in your direct experience? Contemplate that before reading further. If you actually contemplated the above, you will find that the "horror" is all in your mind, the exact same place where the ego exists. Now, humor me for a second. What if your claim is ass-backwards? What if it's ego that's evolved to say that existence is terrible so that it can keep on surviving? Terrible, wonderful, good, evil: these are all interpretations made by the mind. They are overlays to what's actually there, which is neither good nor bad; it just is. To abide in what is is to be free from all of your problems. The problem with your problems is that you think they are real, tangible things when they are all in the mind. Part of the purpose of this spiritual work is to see your problems and attachments as illusion, as having no substance. You can't get rid of your internal mind-stuff problems by shuffling around your external circumstances the way you've been doing for awhile now. I'm sure you've figured that out by now. You're going to get several different opinions on here, all perfectly valid. I suggest that you learn to see your problems as illusion. Question your assumption that the horror is "out there", and instead look deep within to find the substance of the horror. What you'll find is that all your problems have a thought-story and a bodily sensation attached to them; that's it. The thought-story is just a story, and the bodily sensation is just a sensation, but you give solidity to your problems by actually believing the thought-story. A story is a story: never true. There is nothing wrong "out there." Work through each and every one of your problems to discover their illusory nature. In the meantime, go for realizing your True nature. There are too many books to name out there that'll help you with that. Just based on your writing, The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston may be a good fit. Cheers!

Hi there Tim, You will lose your fear of death after enlightenment, when you realize that what you really are was never born and can never die. Surely the body and all of its faculties, including the sense of existing (i.e. "I Am") will die, since whatever is born must die (as of current technology). However, the Truth of you will always be, and that is at least something you can lay claim to. You're afraid of death because you've put your identity and its attachments in things that are transient, i.e. your body, beliefs, memories, family members, friends. Acquire a direct encounter that you are none of these things, and your fear of death will go away. Easier said than done! Enlightenment work will help you realize what you are not, as well as see through your attachments, so I suggest keep on trucking along with that if you're already doing it. IMHO, death is one of the greatest gifts to life, because it turns life itself into a gift. When you continually remind yourself that your time here is limited, you will begin to feel overwhelming gratitude for the mystery that is life. It will also put a fire in your ass to find out what you really are, because identifying yourself with a finite body can be pretty miserable. The process of dying may be unpleasant, but the idea of death itself is nothing to be afraid of, once you realize that what you really are is eternal. Here's some food for thought to get you started on contemplating death: I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. --Mark Twain Cheers! P.S. Here's two more quotes about death that are worth contemplating: "Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another." Aleister Crowley “Fear does not prevent death. It prevents life.” Naguib Mahfouz