SOUL

Everything is predetermined.... to be indeterminate...... until observed.

Yes, exactly. Early in my path I allowed the plethora of spiritual practices and methods to distract me and I became too attached to them. After going in circles on that path for a short while I realized it wasn't working to cease self suffering and I instead focused on the simple techniques that are less about doing but more about not doing. When the mind conjures up thoughts, emotions, impulses, memories, concepts and everything else it produces to contextualize this manifest experience not attaching to them by not endorsing or agreeing with them is the thing not done. In not identifying with them and by recognizing the observer as awareness in us that doesn't have to identify with any of it to be what it is, it can just be. Eventually that sense of just being without the attachment became the natural state of being where as before it was the reflexive attachment to what the mind conjured up. In time the mind also produced less 'attaching' material and tendencies itself, the monkey mind got trained to be at peace with itself in an absence of a strong identity. This allowed me to go further into a non-local sense of awareness and abide in it more consistently. It wasn't complicated methods or practices that helped me to this presence though they may have some value to others, it was the simple passive observational state of being in awareness exercised in every moment. It's not what I did in 'practice', it's what is not done by 'exercising' the unattached awareness of being. Even though that can feel like standing in a tornado or cyclone and not being moved by it. Life can swirl all around and I may get battered by the elements but the core of being isn't moved by any of it to create self suffering. Isn't it so funny how many words I used to explain not doing anything? BAHA

Well, @Aaron p , because it's all bullshit, just ask Leo, he'll tell you.....among the other untold number of things he'll tell you. Most of the stuff that is talked about in 'non-duality circles' serves as more of a distraction from being present than it is a awakening to being present. The practice and theory of 'enlightenment' becomes a fixation of the mind masquerading as being present but not actually being present. So don't get too caught up in the ideology and ceremony of 'non-duality' and just use this as a call in oneself to awaken awareness of being present. The guy in this video has some insight, he's actually hitting on a very clear message about things being are as they are, it is what it is, there is no right or wrong of existence, no saved or fallen states. Yet he seems to be on some 'debunking' mission stemming from his desire to call bullshit on what he thinks he sees as a 'con' in others but he may fail to see the con his ego has perpetrated in his own life. Awakening is the process of continuing the expansion of awareness so that it grow beyond the limited scopes of the conditioned mind. Yes, it isn't that the conditioned mind is fallen or broken that some choose to demonize it as but it still is what it is, the conditioned mind that can limit our perspective to just the self centered consciousness. He's looking at all of it's parts thinking it is the sum of it's parts but not seeing the whole which transcends the sum of it's parts to be something that all of the parts and the sum of them aren't in of themselves. Although when I have time I will watch a few more of his videos to see if he actually does have a view of the whole that wan't clearly communicated in this one video.

Who doesn't think who can't be helpful to who? .... and a good one of what? BAHA

Who is asking who?

The one that asks who.......

The 'one' that asks 'who'?

Yes, exactly. So when you say 'one cannot go outside of Truth' I say expand outside of Truth because one can experience it directly.

On the contrary, I'm including in the whole everything you are trying to exclude.

You imagine that it's unimaginable and unpalatable to the self, apart from what you imagine it to be it doesn't exist as you imagine it to be. You can imagine it to be a universal supposition but you have only imagined it to be that for yourself....and is only just that for yourself. It's your 'truth'... not mine, not anyone else, just you.

You just confirmed this: You create an imagined 'Truth', suggest it can't be measured, which ironically is a measure in itself, and set it up as a universal supposition.

So you don't know but act like you do while calling others unwise?

So what is your remedy for this? Other than calling other people unwise of course.

Truth with a capital 'T', is a concept, and truth, lowercase 't' in the definition of the word simply means the state of being true. So capital T, Truth for capital T, Truth's sake is an ideological supposition, a self fulfilling psychological mindset. Where as truth, lowercase 't', is a conditional and relative state of something being 'true'. We can't really elevate 'truth' to some abstract ideal that is defined by itself just by capitalizing the word and deifying it into a mythical absolute. For truth to be truth there has to be a standard by which it is measured by so that state can be said to be true. Then truth for happiness sake has a little bit more merit in that happiness can be measured objectively according to it's effect and influence even though the standard of happiness is a standard that is assessed subjectively. What makes one happy or considers happiness is a subjectively set standard that's objectively measure to find it's 'truth'. We get psychological security in trusting in our own perceptions and understanding as being true, that it's the 'Truth'. This is why so many are intensely fixated on purporting to have and know the 'Truth', as in the capitalized divine act of absolutism and universal supposition when really it's merely a worshiping of one's own standard.

it pleases.... in pieces.... appeases.... en peaces....

Welcome to the plight of the human condition. Some may tell you that there is no meaning, no point so you should erase that meaning and point in your own life to reflect this nihilistic perspective. That this is the ultimate way of being, by non-being a nonexistence of nothingness in emptiness which is the pinnacle, the nirvana, the truth and everything else is an illusion. All they have done is taken the physical pursuits of meaning and gone to the extreme in the opposite creating meaning out of the non-physical ideology. It's more dualism mindset and that the Buddha came across in his path when he spoke of a middle way that transcends the dualism of indulgence and abstinence. This middle way is having peace and fulfillment in just being, simply being present in the moment and not in either indulging or abstaining ideologically and in practice from what life exists as. So in the fat or lean times, in gain or loss, in success or failure there is still peace because in those is not where meaning is derived.

Oh of course he did and Leo should fight him over it! Youtube death match! ARRGGG!

That's brilliant....and you just sneezed this wisdom all over us. Haha

It appears you don't know what the word esoteric means. I have been speaking about simple things for anyone, not things designed to be understood by a select few. Yes, that is funny.

Yep, that sounds about right.

Ok, sure.

Is there anything but the present state of consciousness? Is there anything but the present being? It seems you cannot imagine the things I have seen and likely why you are having such trouble accepting the paradox I present I will relax, I always do if I'm not already lax. Will you? Undoubtedly when we are asleep viewing through the veil of the conditioned mind everything is done out of an existential yearning. Even after being on the path in awakening still the ego's desire to justify itself through a duality mindset of knowing "truth" might lead one to trust that a personal revelation in experience is a universal one. So when that insight is challenged it can evoke a reaction. It has been quite awhile since I have tasted that yearning which now is quenched so that it doesn't even seem like it ever was a real impetus to motivate my being. Although, the ego does continue to cling to experience for self survival because life's tasks need to be attended to but the pain of self suffering evaporated since in awareness I cease attachment to the self identity. I presently do not desire to not suffer so I don't reflexively assume others do unless they reveal in deed or word that they may be desiring not to suffer. It may be true that we at first desire to not suffer but the source of self suffering is that existential yearning that manifests in desire and the absence of that yearning is liberation. We both know we both know this so let's not pretend the other doesn't, agreed? Peace.

It's accepting them for what they are, the mind trap is trying to resist what is. You reading desire into that phrase is a reflection of your experience and perception, not mine. Although, it seems I've offended you by not accepting your 'truth' as mine own, my apologies, need a hug?

That's humorous you say I'm overthinking it for stating things are what they are, it would seem that's more indicative of underthinking it. Then you insert the word "desire" to criticize for that word that I didn't use. This verbal slight of hand is obvious but pardon me for pointing it out if you hadn't noticed it. Maybe the insertion of the word "desire" reflects your own experience of it. You may want to contemplate that. Absolute has the condition of being absolute....really really absolute, if it wasn't absolute it wouldn't be it. It is what it is whether our "mind perceives" it or not and whether we accept what it is or not. Freedom is free, if it was constrained or bound to something other than being free it wouldn't be freedom. For freedom to be what it is freedom is that condition of being free. Again this has nothing to do whether the "mind perceives" freedom as free or not and whether we accept it as free or not. It may appear paradoxical that absolute freedom is characterized by the condition of what it is but if it wasn't that it would be relative restriction. Haven't you yourself spoken about how the absolute isn't logical? There it is.