SOUL

Devil, devilry and evil are a construct of the human mind, it's a paradigm of moral dualism that does not really exist in the manifest as the mind believes it does. We assign the positions of the dualism to behaviors and identity and which ones we do assign them is influenced by so many different variables which often are ever changing. The 'ego' has it's usefulness in the way we evolved to survive and isn't broken or dysfunctional. It's just that when we are trying to transcend the appearance of separation to perceive the unity of all things the ego doesn't help us in that endeavor and through it's nature of identity it hinders by being an obstacle in awakening to it. One only sees this as 'evil' or 'devilry' because of assigning a pole in that moral dualism and the other pole in dualism of 'good' to the unity and...'angelic'? I guess would be a word that could be used for it that is the opposite assignment which is given to awareness that can perceive the unity that transcends the apparent separation.

This is a perfect example of what I am pointing to. The absolute isn't objective, you are creating a separation between 'relative' and 'absolute' from a dualism mindset. In my experience and perception of 'absolute' it is neither objective or subjective. Objective and subjective are qualities of the manifest and the absolute actually has qualities of it's own I couldn't even begin to explain to someone who still has a perspective based on separation in dualism without them transcending that in awareness. Absolute and manifest are not separate, they are in holistic unity in a way that one can perceive in awareness if one transcends the perspective of separation. How we perceive and interpret this any and all of this is subjective...even if it were something objective we are perceiving. Should I now say your awakening isn't complete? Am I to say your perception is 'false'? Does your expression need to be censored because it is misleading? Or mine? Since you refused to answer the simple question and instead answer for Leo by suggesting his perspective is law here, it is what is 'absolute truth' and oh by the way, you 'validate' it, too. You can try to claim that 'direct experience', being 'directly conscious' or 'mystical states' are 'objective' to employ an authority to your...and Leo's perspective but it's a self anointed one. You are suggesting that your(and Leo's which you are validating) experience and perspective is the truth for everyone so if they don't agree, theirs is false. There are many perceptions, interpretations, expressions and explanations that happen and everyone of us trust that our experience of them are what is, what is true and therefor they are our 'truth' but that doesn't make them everyone's truth. At least @TheAvatarState says we are all deluded so our perspective isn't in pure clarity to perceive what is as it is. This is accepting the diversity of expression.

That was the best way you could explain? Wow, glad you didnt offer the worst way to explain it. Although, I didn't ask for en explanation, I asked for a simple answer. If someone doesn't experience, perceive and now I will add explain it the same exact way as you do is it 'false' and invalid? It's a pretty straight forward question, no need to explain the unexplainable to answer it.

@Inliytened1 @TheAvatarState So both of you validate your own experience, of course you do otherwise you wouldn't view it as valid. You trust your experience is true, that it is what it is, you believe it because that's what the word means. Although, are you suggesting it is 'valid' for everyone? That if they don't experience and perceive as you do it's invalid? That it's 'false'?

Actually, no two people experience, perceive, interpret and believe identically so each one of differs in expression. It's as varied as dna is, in fact, it's even more varied than dna because identical twins share the same exact dna but they won't share experience, perception, interpretation, belief or expression. Very many including Leo teach about about the infinite potential but when it comes to expression it's quite limited? I'm now going to have to ask what do you mean by 'quite limited' and what is your definition of limited because ours must differ quite a bit. Wait, don't tell me because the answer itself will prove my assertion, it's all varied. I'm of of the few here who does speak about the psychological priming that goes on in people's minds with regard to spirituality and mystical experience. How all of this expression is influenced in our imagination through the books we read, the people who listen to and everything we are exposed to that corrals us into the similar ideas. Even with all that priming there is no two exact expressions, people would have to try really hard to mold their understanding to mimic another's and it's virtually impossible to accomplish such a thing. It's too complex to even be fully aware of own understanding let along transform our understanding to be identical to another's. So if any interpretation is delusion and it's all bullshit then how can anyone say to another 'this is false', call something misleading, that someone has 'incomplete; understanding or awakening and then *lock* thus silencing their expression? How can one teach truth let alone 'absolute truth' if it's all delusion and bullshit? Wouldn't this also be the blind leading the blind? Can we dilute the delusion with more delusion? Does the bullshit become less bullshit because it is anointed acceptable bullshit and the other become even more bullshittier if it is not? How do we teach or even speak any interpretation and expression in the context of it's all delusion and bullshit? If the mods want to intervene in obvious trolling and abusiveness then that makes sense. If they want to contribute in threads that have obvious traps and pitfalls which can lead to people experiencing real harm so they fill in the gaps stuff that fills out the teaching in hopes it doesn't lead people that way then this also makes sense. Although, if this forum becomes a place where only sanctioned by the authority delusion and bullshit is allowed to be taught calling it 'truth' and 'god' with everything and everybody else being silenced as 'false' and 'devils' it will become more and more like what it's critics have suggested it is....you know the word, I don't want to justify it by using it. I have encountered very many communities that have fallen into this behavior through my decades of exploration and it is one of the reasons why I choose to be compassionate about differences in discussion. I also emphasize a key benefit of any teaching is in it's leading to the cessation of self suffering, to liberation and not as much it's 'truthiness'. I don't know what the purpose of the forum is but in that context I hope whatever 'purpose' it serves in the minds of those who create and contribute to the discourse it also leads to the cessation of self suffering. Otherwise it's just deluded bullshit.....so you say.

Awakening imhe(in my holistic experience! haha) is becoming aware of something we previously weren't aware of. Complete awareness is being omniscient and to make that claim is hubris no matter what type of powerful awakening experience one has. I am god! I'm omniscient! *knock knock* Who's at the door? There is certainly a significant amount of psychological priming that goes on that people are ironically unaware of that shapes the way they perceive 'what is' when having awakening experiences. This can form dogmatic types of interpretations.

Spirituality, 'enlightenment', awakening and consciousness are very subjective experiences so how they are perceived and interpreted can be quite varied and diverse. It would be an unfortunate circumstance if this forum became a place where the infinite variety of expressions were stifled so that they were limited to select interpretations. I understand this forum is the property of nobody...wait I mean the no self called Leo and he has a vision for it. There is a difference between people who are coming here to purposefully disrupt or mislead for whatever reason they may have and people who may have a differing experience of awakening so share another perception and interpretation. Let's hope this place doesn't become one where only the interpretations and teachings that are 'authorized' by the 'supreme leader' as 'truth' are allowed to be spoken and every one that doesn't fit in are called 'false' with the people who are espousing them 'devils' are shut down and silenced. That would be joyless and unloving situation.

Humanity is very abusive to the point it is blind to it, it's even normalized, not very humane. Online it's so much worse, abuse is celebrated, even more than it is in real life. On this forum it isn't all that abusive but it still is and as a place that I would think is about healing and improving it seems like it harms more because people are coming in vulnerable. It's like going to a therapist and having them hurt the patient. Maybe I'm asking too much but it's just a hope, not necessarily an expectation. So be it.

@VeganAwake Precisely, there was never really a suffer to have suffered. Only if we agree with it, believe in it, attach our identity to it and fill our being with it does it manifest as suffering in us. It's not just undesired thoughts...even desired thoughts. It may start out as releasing from what we don't want but even attaching to what we do want can be a source of suffering. The thoughts of wanting truth, enlightenment, awakening, freedom from suffering, bliss, love is conceptually perceiving a lack of it as if we don't already have all we seek, that we are incomplete. The 'desire' is a yearning as if we don't already have it like hunger is from an empty belly but that yearning is the desire in our consciousness that can fill our being with a sense of emptiness. In liberation there is a sense of fulfillment that quenches the yearning, a peace that transcends conditions, joy that emanates through everything we experience. What's ironic is that when I first did experience liberation I was pretty ignorant of so many things but I didn't even have any desire to understand, I was content in the freedom from self suffering. Yet my lack of desire for knowledge turned out to be the very key to the vault of insight like being served endless meals with already having a full belly and no hunger. So, yes, seeking 'truth' can put some on the treadmill chasing after something they perceive they don't have to feed the desire. It's a yearning that won't ever be quenched because the mind's craving for new knowledge and deeper understanding acts like a belly that needs to be fed 3 times a day to fill it...but only temporarily. The ego will use the search for truth and any perceived truth it gets to justify it's identity but that ego's desire is so difficult to satisfy, the ego won't let it.

Liberation is self unsuffering from whatever means it comes to be. If is happens through unknowing, unlearning, unbelieving, unattaching, unselfing, untruthing as long as the the quest for un-ning doesn't become a source of self suffering because we think need more or are lacking enough 'un-ness'.

Do you have any lowest teaching? I'm not smart enough for the highest stuff...hehe

Should we also list the detriments? Just asking...hehe

Hopefully not as the last chance to save a dying civilization....

Yea, because there aren't the ages worth including this current one filled with 'masters' talking to seekers and even cashing in on people listening to them talk. So they scamming?

It is said that nothing matters so kiss the bunny already

This concept of 'nothing matters' is to motivate a release of attachment to 'things'. Yet, that can be without the concept which proves for very many who encounter it to be an obstacle to the cessation of self suffering from the attachment to things, not ironically having attachment to the idea 'nothing matters'. I probably could have just lead with that but I doubt it would have changed much because people really do cling tightly to their ideas. Also, if 'god' is 'unknowable' why do people ascribe meaninglessness to 'god'? Didn't you say it's unknowable? Haha... I likely started a whole new 'thing'.

Woah, someone said I was a little hard but this here turned into a dog pile....hah Not to 'do' it. Be it.

Well, it's laughably simple and obvious, cease to be attached in awareness to them. Haha Oh...and release any desire to be aware of it... that's the challenging aspect.

I can appreciate your eloquent and poetic words in describing the knowing you have grasped about what you claim can't be described, grasped or known. We can be aware of the whole and I suggest keep transcending the perceived limits on what can be described, grasped or known. Here is a hint...when you get to 'I am god'...keep going because even that can be transcended to where 'I'....'am'... and 'god' cease to be....not just in concept, but in awareness. Peace.

@Inliytened1 Perhaps, although, I've seen Leo go way harder on people here and I would even perceive it sometimes as bullying using his stature to do so. Yet, I do apologize if I did, it wasn't my intention to harm anyone. If you follow the exchange we were having maybe you can see what I did in it and this was my intention by prodding them into examining and addressing what I was exploring. I will leave it alone though, again, my apologies.

@VeganAwake Your belief system is yours... it isn't any sort of absolute or universal truth, it's just your own truth, no matter how many others agree with you, how much you believe in it or polish your ego with 'no higher teaching' rhetoric..... it's all in your imagination. It's not the middle way, it's a modern version of aesthetics that Buddha encountered in his day but the belief is centered around psychological self. The extremes are the egocentric on one side and the no-self on the other. You may eventually awaken to the genuine nature of being and come to understand how the meaning/meaningless conceptualization is another way the ego uses dualism in it's 'spiritual self'. Holistic being embraces, honors and celebrates the whole. There is a oneness that we relinquish our attachment to the individual self to awaken to but once we do that oneness empowers our individual self to be a genuine unique expression of the whole like one facet out of infinite number on a gem that each glows when the light hits it. I awakened to it through an autodidact path experience but I'm aware that some people require an internet guru to say it so here.....

Your words are meaningless yet you glorify them, curious...hm You believe it isn't belief..... interesting, hm.

@Inliytened1 I think something along that theme was addressed in the first couple pages. Too often the spiritual 'path' as presented by so many of the 'no-self/nothingness' teaching is just a rejection of everything physical which isn't an accepting way to live life but it also presents a conflict with actually living life. What I speak about is embracing life in it fullest but isn't dependent on the circumstances of life to be fulfilled. Don't seek it.... be it.

A circle has one side.....but that still fits with the story you are telling though.... infinite and one ...haha.

I'm sure this was replied to in the thread, probably multiple times but I'm not reading it all to find out and it likely was more mystical mumbo jumbo so I will address it in another way for you. Our mind generates a sense of self to motivate us for survival and with what people call the ego this is expressed as identity which included in that attachment is meaning, purpose and fulfillment. Since the pursuit of identity, the 'I matter', creates so much self suffering in us the spiritualists have chosen to embrace the complete opposite expressed as 'nothing matters' and believe it as the 'absolute truth'. Let me present a middle way instead of running from one extreme to the other. Instead of seeking out meaning... what 'matters' in the external world of circumstances find that fulfillment in being... in just being. Not in doing, attaining, achieving or identifying with to have fulfillment, we just be fulfilled. Be it. Then everything in life we experience is empowered with this unconditional fulfillment. Hopefully this brings some clarity and can be useful to you in being at peace.