jjer94

Somebody came up to me with a question. What do you think the question was? He asked me, “Are you enlightened?” What do you think my answer was? What does it matter! You want a better answer? My answer would be: “How would I know? How would you know? What does it matter?” You know something? If you want anything too badly, you’re in big trouble. You know something else? If I were enlightened and you listened to me because I was enlightened, then you’re in big trouble. Are you ready to be brainwashed by someone who’s enlightened? You can be brainwashed by anybody, you know. What does it matter whether someone’s enlightened or not? But see, we want to lean on someone, don’t we? We want to lean on anybody we think has arrived. We love to hear that people have arrived. It gives us hope, doesn’t it? What do you want to hope for? Isn’t that another form of desire? You want to hope for something better than what you have right now, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be hoping. But then, you forget that you have it all right now anyway, and you don’t know it. -- Anthony de Mello

Here's a nice long list for ya.

I think you're getting confused about what emotions really are. If I were you, I would make the distinction between emotions and feelings. Feelings are bodily sensations that occur during certain activities during the day, usually in reaction to the activity. Emotions are the conversation about that feeling. If you haven't noticed, attaching yourself to emotions leads to suffering. If the conversation in your head is a good one, there will eventually be a bad one to counteract it. If you take emotions too seriously and identify with the thought-stories, you ride the ups and downs and suffer as a consequence. Once you go along this journey long enough, you start to think less (have less emotions) and feel through more. You abide in what's real, the feeling, and forget about the conversation in your head about that feeling. I think that would make life even more enjoyable, would it not? The feeling that accompanies depression is just another feeling, and you can learn to be happy with it just as much as excitement. How awesome is that? Emotions are in the world of duality, feelings are non-dual. "Don't think. Feel!" -- Bruce Lee I can relate to this question because I'm a songwriter myself. The enthusiasm that you get for the idea of contributing is gone, but that's just an emotion. What happens when you write a crappy song or someone dislikes your music or you feel that you're no longer contributing? You suffer. What may start happening now is a general feeling of fulfillment while you're doing it. You're doing it for the sake of doing it. You're not doing it to acquire status or contribution or recognition, what you originally thought was happiness. You're doing it because you are already happy. I write songs not because I want validation as to how good they are. I write them because I like words, wordplay, and how not-knowing can magically lead to a finished product. I like painting a picture through sounds. I like the sound of my acoustic guitar, and I like to see how many different timbres I can get. But even those reasons are made up. Why do anything really? There's no reason other than for the sake of doing it. That's life. Living for the sake of living. It's really liberating once you can fully grok that point. Why anything? Because. The "why" question is a human construct. You'll never find a true answer to a "why" question. You can only speculate. The dream state is nice and cozy for most people. Sure, you may have wet the bed, but you can handle it no problem. But some people just don't like the stench and want out. Maybe we couldn't not leave it behind because our dream slowly became a nightmare. Eventually, everyone will have no choice but to leave the dream state of duality. For most, that happens when the body dissolves. We're just doing it early. Cheers!

@daramantus Hi Mr. Skeptic, Your responses are perfectly valid. I used to be a skeptic too, so I see where you're coming from. Oftentimes, especially on this forum, when we discuss spirituality, there are lots of logical loopholes, contradictions, paradoxes, and the like. And oftentimes (most of the time, actually...) when we discuss enlightenment, seekers will have their cup full of enlightenment-related beliefs and preach them as though they actually have a grounded experience already of what they're talking about. Some examples are when they believe that the ego does not exist, or that suffering does not exist, or that wrongness is not possible. They may believe it, but they don't actually see it yet. So, to make those claims is pretty much the equivalent of holding a sermon in a church. I'd say that's pretty cultish. The skeptic or philosopher will feel the urge to respond to these seekers and angrily point out their logical contradictions, thinking, Helloooo! Can any of you make sense please? Put away your damn incense and talk to me like a real person! The seeker will respond, Oh, silly skeptic, can't you see that you are awareness, that all is One? Philosopher retorts, I don't see it. All I see is that I'm this body, and I'm stuck here. The world's out there. There is obvious separation. And on and on and on.... Which makes you wonder...what if your skepticism/philosophy is just as cultish as the neo-spirituality? The thing is, once you finally realize Truth, no words can apply anymore. What you finally realize is that all words are lies. Truth is only relative in the realm of words. Yes, no words, statements, arguments, beliefs, and interpretations about the world are absolutely true. "The ego is an illusion," "All is One," "You are awareness," "You are/are not the body," All lies. What I am writing to you right now are lies. And, of course, back on the merry-go-round of the mind, the skeptic may respond, Then what's the point of saying all this if none of it's true? What's the point of communicating? Imagine that I'm in your dream somehow. You're telling me about how these woo-woo people keep spouting out this neo-spirituality and it's driving you crazy. It seems so obvious to you that you have a brain, that you are the body, that the world is made of atoms and is solid, that your arguments have a solid foundation. I say to you, "What if you're all wrong? Look, dude, you're in a dream! Your consciousness is dreaming you and this world up, and you are the entire dream!" Let's say you actually take what I'm saying seriously, and you wake up and open your eyes in bed, simply amazed that your consciousness was able to dream up all that stuff. Do you think any argument, any words in that dream, have any absolute truth whatsoever? No! It was all just wisps of dreamstuff. But I had to use words to snap you out of your cultish stupor! I had to use lies to point you in the direction you needed to go. Let me lay it on you: You are stuck in your mind, in the realm of words and concepts and arguments. Just like the above analogy, these words are just meaningless wisps of dreamstuff. Even skepticism is an argument, because it is the belief that a certain things are false! But what if I told you that you didn't have to believe that certain things are false, that instead you can see for yourself? What if I told you that you don't have to say anything, think anything, know anything, argue for anything, or believe in anything to see that Absolute Truth is? If I was able to create just a little crack of not-knowing in your mind, then I did my job. It will begin to eat up your skepticism, and then maybe, just maybe, you'll be inclined to go look for Truth in your own direct experience instead of perpetually arguing in circles with everyone.

Hi Joe, Before you even consider going to a retreat or holing yourself up in some secluded cabin, you may want to ask yourself why you're separating your life circumstances from enlightenment work. I know Jed's books give lots of examples of seclusion and all that...but what if you can do both life-stuff and enlightenment-stuff at the same time, and in fact doing both at the same time may accelerate the process even more? Sure, have a few days where you do exclusively contemplation/spiritual autolysis/whatever you do that's enlightenment-related. But you can do that anywhere really. You don't have to go to a retreat or some secluded area. You're also putting salvation in the future. You're setting a time table in the future for when you think you'll be enlightened, and by doing that, ego is subtly trying to control the situation. Enlightenment work is done here and now. You really want Truth? You can do the work to figure it out right now regardless of your circumstances. And stop estimating how much time it'll take; it's different for everyone. An awakening can occur within months of learning about enlightenment, but deprogramming can take several years. "Why do you think I blew up your condo? Hitting bottom is not a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! Let go!" -- Tyler Durden, Fight Club I can relate to your situation. I recently graduated in December, and for a while last year I was considering doing what you want to do, go run away to some monastery or retreat. But I realized that life itself can be a spiritual practice. Anything that brings up emotional resistance in you is an opportunity to delve further into you psyche. In the beginning of my last semester of school, I was completely and utterly miserable. I could have dropped out and ran away, but instead, I inquired into my resistance and found that I had a subtle air of superiority over my classmates. I would have never figured that out at a retreat. I could go on even more about this topic, but I don't want to overwhelm you. If there's anything you can take away from this post, it's this: Question your belief that you have to be "somewhere else" to do enlightenment work. You are the only authority there could ever be. All of the answers are available to you in your experience right now and no amount of wordy circlejerking will enlighten you. Cheers! --JJ

Knock knock. Who's there? ..........

That's like saying, just because you haven't found Santa Clause yet doesn't mean he doesn't exist, so you'll keep believing in him. I mean, if you want to keep believing in his existence, go for it. Nothing wrong with that.

Your happiness right now is circumstantial. You refuse to be happy unless you're enlightened, unless you have a girlfriend, unless you have your dream career, etc. The happiness that the gurus are talking about is the subtle happiness of being, the I AM. It's right there in your experience, silent but full, right beyond the mind's stories, pervading every sense perception. The most difficult part about being happy is that it's too simple! "Being happy is a matter of being happy." - Peter Ralston "Well I’m telling you...you do have a terminal illness. It’s called Birth. You don’t have more then a few years left, no one does, so be happy now with out reason or you never will be at all.” - Socrates, Way of the Peaceful Warrior "A fool is 'happy' when his cravings are satisfied. A warrior is happy without reason. That's what makes happiness the ultimate discipline--above all else I have taught you." - Socrates, Way of the Peaceful Warrior

There is no "I" or ego to benefit from this. You'll have to give that up. The result is that you will have freed up a lot of space to do whatever the heck you feel moved to do. No more rules on how things should be, no more resistance to what is (or a lot less), just pure authenticity. It's important to come to the conclusion that no belief is true on your own instead of believing me, because otherwise that's just another belief. What you may not realize yet is that you live your life unconsciously to your own secret rulebook, your own sets of should's. And even if you've read up on enlightenment and no-self and ego, that rulebook will still be intact. It is your job to dismantle your own rulebook. That is essentially the pathless path to enlightenment: deconstruction of your beliefs, your should's, your resistances, your fear.

This is a fantastic point you made, because I can flip it around. When you talk about objective proof for something from scientists, are you talking from experience or is it just what you have been told and you believe it? When you talk about existing as a separate self, are you talking from experience or is it just what you have been told by society and you believe it? How can you trust anything I say, anything ANYONE says, if you can't actually confirm that they are speaking from their own experience? Sure, I can say that I'm speaking from my own experience, but you're not the one inhabiting this body or this perspective. How can you know? And this is what I mean by no belief is true. All scientific theories and interpretations are just that: theories and interpretations. There can never be any sort of objective certainty with any of them. They are only maps that allow us to manipulate reality as we see fit, and most of the time they work. That's how I'm able to communicate with you here online. But just because we know how to manipulate reality doesn't mean we know anything about the substance of reality, what it's made of. Science gets into a lot of trouble this way because they completely leave out the subjective first person, which is the aperture through which they make their so-called objective claims. Let's say you're in a dream, and you're a computer technician. You're telling me how the computer works by opening up the back and showing me all of its components: motherboard, CPU, etc... You tell me that electrons flow through each of these components sending electrical signals, which allow the computer to run. While on a conceptual level, this all makes sense, on the level of reality, it doesn't. What are those electrons actually? They are consciousness. The whole computer is consciousness, but you're taking it to be a solid entity external to you. Without your observing of the computer in the dream, it would cease to exist. Sure, this particular dream may be orderly enough to say that there are certain laws that describe how things work. But they're never set in stone, because it's a freaking dream. They are only descriptions, not explanations. What if the life you're living right now is exactly like this analogy? If you're into writing, I suggest trying out Spiritual Autolysis. I wrote a guide a while back that you can check out here:

Instead of asking whether anything can be objectively proven, you may first want to ask whether there is such thing as objective proof. What makes a proof objective, and where does it come from? This may help: when we talk about enlightenment, we're talking about Absolute Truth. We're talking about something that transcends time, space, and this universe. We're talking about what you are before you were born, what you are right now, and what you are after this body dissolves. How can something that is totally Infinite be encapsulated into a finite, logical objective proof? Evolution is just a theory. Theories are never 100% certain. Forget about evolution if you're pursuing enlightenment. You're also presupposing that consciousness exists within a universe full of atoms and molecules and space. But what if it were the other way around? What if the universe existed within consciousness? As crazy as that sounds, that may just be the case...you don't even need to believe it or have scientific proof for it either. Just look in your direct experience. But that link should help you dispel your ideas about an external universe. To me, it sounds like you're trying to pour yourself a cup a tea when there's already plenty of tea in there. Meditation and mindfulness are great and all, but you have yet to empty your cup. Enlightenment is not something you gain, it just reveals itself when you've removed all of your ideas about how you and reality work. It doesn't come about through progress in a practice; it comes about through seeing through your own illusions. Empty your cup of beliefs is my suggestion. Contemplate anything you think is true, and see if you can figure out why it's false. A newsflash for you: all so-called knowledge is actually belief, and no belief is true. Don't take my word for it; confirm it for yourself. Cheers!

@Kelley White Shoot! Didn't get a notification when you replied. Thanks for the thoughtful reply. The thing is, when you say, "I am giving up ______", you're still regarding it as important. If you didn't regard it as important, it would be a non-issue; the problem would just resolve itself. But by renouncing yourself, you're trying to brute force your way out of your neuroses, and what often happens is that the problem comes back in full force. Take an overweight person for example. They have the neurotic need to eat junk food all the time. Do you actually think that cutting donuts out of their diet will cure them completely? No, of course not. They would merely be changing their external circumstances, when the problem is internal. They give importance to donuts. Maybe it's because they taste good. Maybe it's because they remind the person of their childhood. Maybe it's to mask another deeper neurosis. Oftentimes what happens when an overweight person tries to eat healthy for a while is that they accidentally start eating junk again and gain twice as much weight. If you haven't seen Leo's new video on fake growth vs. real growth, I suggest you do; it ties exactly into what I'm talking about. So now let's move to you as the example. You're trying to cut your time on Facebook and all these other distractions. But by cutting them out, you're resisting your natural tendencies, and while you may see progress now, it'll only make things worse in the long run. That's just my opinion. A couple years ago I quit video games cold turkey after being an addict for more than a decade, and it was a year later that I picked up the habit again. These neuroses will always come back to bite you in the ass...unless you look inside yourself face them directly. Why are these distractions so important to you? What are you getting out of them? Once you understand that the importance you give to these things are illusory, and you consciously see through it every day, eventually the neuroses will cease on their own. That's what I did with the video games, and my addiction is gone. Let's use another analogy. When a magician does a magic trick for you, you're captivated. You want to see it again and again. It seems like literal magic because you don't know how he does it. But then you decide to sneak up on stage, look under the tablecloth...and there's a trapdoor. Now you know how the magic trick works. Will you still be captivated when he does the trick again? Not likely, because you know how it works. Once you understand how the magic trick works, you won't be so drawn to it. Your addiction to distractions are like magic tricks. All you need to do is look under the tablecloth, see what's going on under the surface, and look for that trapdoor. Then you will no longer be so drawn to them. Are you running away from something by partaking in distractions? Do you secretly believe that you need them to be happy? Are you afraid that you will be worthless if you don't partake in them? All hypothetical questions, gateways to exploring your inner realm. I'm warning you though, looking inward can be painful work. You never know what you'll uncover... All the best, Kelley!

Yes, I think that is his main point...but some foolish ones like me decided that meant to just stop your thinking.... Yeah, I get it now, just didn't get it back then. But the way you say 'not to let your mind take over'...It always takes over in your current paradigm. Observe your thinking, as Eckhart says, is a great technique for the journey. But in my opinion, Eckhart's methods of trying to be present is like giving candy to a prisoner. I mean, if the prisoner likes candy, that's cool. But he/she then depends on a constant source of candy to function, to distract themselves from the fact that they are in prison. Why not just break out of prison first, and then you can buy all the candy you want if you still have the desire? Here's another analogy. Trying to be present is like trying to build a new house with the same rickety foundation. Why not just destroy the foundation first and rebuild? What's the prison and what's the foundation? Ego.

I prefer to use the word Infinity. Does Infinity have boundaries? Can you point to it and say "Ah! There it is!" You can't, because to try to label it would make it finite and therefore not Infinity. There is no such thing as 'beyond' Infinity because 'beyond' implies that Infinity has boundaries, which it does not. Infinity is so vast that vastness is not even possible. As you can probably tell by how paradoxical this sounds, the mind cannot comprehend Infinity. That is why in order to become conscious of Infinity, you need to go beyond mind, beyond rationality. Knowledge/belief creates illusory boundaries. Remove those boundaries and Infinity remains....except it's always been there "Truth hath no confines." --Captain Ahab, Moby Dick

It's been all there is your whole life. But your beliefs of others and your experience somehow being 'limited' are in the way of you realizing this.

You assume there are "other persons." You may want to re-examine that assumption in your direct experience. No, you won't be able to experience. Experience is unique to your particular mind and body. The Truth (nothingness, as you and Leo call it) is not unique. It's the substratum behind experience that's always been there for eternity. It's just not any particular quality. I have an analogy that may help. You experience the world through a space suit that comes with various attributes: height, weight, looks, intelligence, personality... Sorry to say, but one day, that space suit will cease to function, and it will break down. What remains? Just plain old space. You currently identify with your space suit instead of the space, what you've been for eternity. While it may seem like you lose something when the space suit breaks down, you never lost anything. You were always the space pervading the space suit. Enlightenment work is the process of dis-identifying with the space suit and remembering that you're space. Again, re-examine your assumption of there being "others". What if your experience was all the experience there ever was?

You sound like an analytical person just by the way you write, and by the fact that you're reading Ralston. Spiritual Autolysis would probably work really well for you. If you decide to take it up and need help with the general direction, here's a post that'll help you get started:

I don't know if you've gotten to the part in Ralston's book where he talks about bottom-line contemplations? This is exactly what he suggests. Jed also suggests this by using Spiritual Autolysis. I've found both techniques to be helpful.

What I found is that there is both. There may be some events where you contemplate and have a huge awakening and it completely revolutionizes your perspective... but then your good ol' self-agenda comes back, usually in full force. Sure, you may be able to "flip" between self-mode and observer-mode, but it doesn't mean much if it isn't abiding. That's why seeing through your own illusions (or 'destroying the self' as Jed says in his books, a bit dramatic) is really the only way to make efficient 'progress' (really a regression) on this journey. Another phrase Jed uses for enlightenment is untruth-unrealization, and I've recently found that to be very fitting. This also explains why all those meditators stagnate. They may have had some non-abiding enlightenment experiences, but their whole self structure is still intact. It's like trying to chop the regenerating heads off of a hydra when instead you should be plunging your sword into its heart: your heart.

Just as a heads-up to others: This is not to be confused with excitement. What often happens is that ego looks for happiness in excitement and then equates excitement with happiness. However excitement is just a fleeting emotional state. It won't last forever. The happiness Leo is talking about is more a kind of contentment/gratitude/sense of completeness regardless of external circumstances. You can still have highs and lows, excitements and depressions, but this sort of happiness is always there no matter what. By the way: you don't need to be enlightened to experience this sort of authentic happiness, although enlightenment will make it abiding. "You can be happy in your anxiety. Isn’t that crazy? You can be happy in your depression. But you can’t have the wrong notion of happiness. Did you think happiness was excitement or thrills? That’s what causes the depression. Didn’t anyone tell you that? You’re thrilled, all right, but you’re just preparing the way for your next depression. You’re thrilled but you pick up the anxiety behind that: How can I make it last? That’s not happiness, that’s addiction." --Tony de Mello

Jed's books will do that to ya. They scared the bajeezus out of me after I read the entire trilogy. Keep in mind that this is one perspective of the path to enlightenment. It's not the only way. Sure, you'll deal with some pain and suffering on the journey, but it doesn't have to be so dramatic where you become a raving lunatic holed up in a cabin with a golden retriever to prevent you from killing yourself... Although that may well be a possibility. In his books, Jed is pretty narrow-minded, but you may not see that because of how convincing and eloquent his writing is. He shuns meditation and consciousness work and basically says the only way to enlightenment is to become like Captain Ahab....And yet, countless others claimed to have become enlightened through meditation and consciousness work. Enlightenment is a pathless path. You don't have to do anything in particular. There are certain techniques that may help accelerate the process such as contemplation and Spiritual Autolysis, but those aren't the only ways. In fact, Jed McKenna today has mellowed out, saying that trying to destroy illusion as suggested in his books is futile, and instead you ought to learn to see through your illusions. Yes, enlightenment work is essentially 'killing' who you think you are bit by bit. But you don't have to nuke your whole life in one whole sweep to get to the end. Who you think you are is illusion. Your beliefs about what reality is are illusion. How do you destroy something that appears to exist but doesn't actually? By seeing through it; by seeing that it doesn't exist. You don't necessarily have to slit your wrists and cut ties with everyone to do that; seems a bit unnecessary, don't you think?

Now that I think about it, yes I am.

Yep. When I had my awakening to the I AM, I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed to the point of crying, and then I just flat out cried of joy. It's so silly. There was no 'me' this whole time! What a joke! It depends on what you mean by awareness. I'm guessing you're equating awareness with Truth, that which is eternal. The I AM is ephemeral, which you can prove to yourself by simply going to sleep. The Truth of you is always there no matter what. The I AM is a stepping stone, a gateway, to Truth. "When the state of [I AM] is totally swallowed, whatever remains is that eternal 'I'." --Nisargadatta Maharaj

Others, as in, other people, other bodies. What are they really? Listen to any sounds. Where are they coming from? Where are they going? In order to really get what I'm saying, you may need to re-examine your ideas of an external world. Currently, you believe that your consciousness is a subset of the universe, a little ant among vast space and matter. What if it were the other way around? What if the universe was a subset of your consciousness? Contemplate that. Use this as a resource. Make that small little adjustment, and seeing through ego to find the "I AM" will be automatic.

There is no "Mom" for you to kill. Surely there's an animated body that is labelled as "Mom," but "Mom" herself doesn't exist. Just as I can say that there are fingers typing these words right now, but nobody's typing them. All there is in "my" experience are sense perceptions and sentience. Any "I" entity comes from thought, but that's just a sense perception, so in reality there is no "I" entity. There's only a puppet without a puppeteer. I won't even bother saying that you can confirm that in your direct experience...