SOUL

This wasn't quite my point and I didn't really say that, this would just be a variation of the 'strip all beliefs and concepts' idea I was providing an alternative to. The mind creates belief and concept all by itself even as we grow in our spiritual journey, the ego trumpets them in our conscious mind for us to empower through agreement with them. We don't need to do anything for the mind to do it, that is its natural way of behaving. I merely suggested we don't need to agree with it in our awareness because endorsing it, agreeing with it, is the 'doing' of our awareness. Yes, it isn't lost on me that I am agreeing with the concept of language to communicate to you this conceptual frame of just 'being' but such is life. Hah

It's probably that you begrudgingly say I'm not wrong but since you love your pet theories so much, you don't want to let them go, right? Spiritual ego is so attached to the beliefs and concepts of its identity, it can't imagine a reality without them, even though they are constantly changing as we gain more experience....but it is the 'truth' as far as the mind trusts as true. What you call 'limited' I call 'simple'. It is so simple, it is the simplest thing one can do....not doing. It's definitely not easy even though it's simple, the mind will do everything in its ability to get us to contend with it. It wants us to empower it, to endorse it, to believe it to be the truth! It wants us to do anything but to just sit in stillness, observing. Abiding in awareness of being presence is its 'ego death'. I do consider the consequences, there would be less arguing and fighting about beliefs and concepts, no actual wars in the world about ideology. There would be less contention and strife because someone doesn't have the same exact perception as you. The infinite variation of perception wouldn't disappear, just the misery produced from encountering the variety would dissipate. Liberation, which is the cessation of self suffering, would be realized for more people than the current climate of contention. We would celebrate the infinite variation of perspectives instead of rushing around telling people 'naw' because theirs differs from ours. I'm not saying you are wrong either, I'm just explaining the consequences you asked me to consider.

@Razard86 People confuse the difference between our mind's perception of reality, how malleable this perception is and conflate it to what actual reality that is. Yes, we only experience reality through our perception of it, how it appears to us, but reality doesn't change because our perception of it does and us changing our perception of it doesn't make the manifest existence conform to our perception of it. Reality doesn't change to what is perceived, it just is what it is regardless of how one perceives what it is.

@Princess Arabia The idea of 'having to strip away all beliefs and concepts' is just more belief and concept. Just like your signature says, it's the idea we have to do something to be. So many layers of doing, beliefs and concepts rolled into the notion that it is a preferred state, a higher state and 'truer' state than just being present as it is. Then people go around teaching and preaching it as some absolute truth that if you don't adhere to, you aren't as awake as they are. Our mind will constantly generate concepts and will always rely on beliefs to understand experience, even the mystical direct experience that some see as a special exception to the typical kind. These also evolve along the way of our mystical journey. It's the ego creating something to 'do' that separates present moment awareness from some imagined other conscious experience. Even if some suggest it's free from belief and concept, it still is just another limiting belief and concept that imagines a separation between two different states of consciousness. It's one that sounds 'higher' though, so it appeals to the spiritual ego. We can just be present in awareness and let the mind do what it will do, simply observe and cease to contend with its machinations. There is nothing we have to 'do' to abide in awareness, for being presence. Sure, eventually the mind will reflect back to us what we give it through present experience, so why give it more belief and concepts, no matter how 'high' they may appear. The 'falling away' of limiting belief and concept is a decent description of what manifests in our mind as we reside in being presence. There is just nothing to 'do' for the falling away to happen, it's like trying to get a pool of water to become still through some sort of activity. All that does is create more waves and ripples in the pool, there is nothing to do for being. It just is and we abide in awareness of being presence. I'm certain someone will come along to tell me how I'm wrong and not awake but…haha.

Look at all these artificial intelligence chat bots typing out stuff they think they understand...if only they knew that they didn't really know.

Except I have the recipes...

Everyone here claiming to be AWAKE giggity giggity Absolute Squidward quagmire...all out of here

@BlessedLion Someone doesn't need to understand anything for well being...just be it. Understanding is merely scenery on the journey, well being is enjoying the trip. For whatever that is worth to you.

@Inliytened1 I prefer my salad dressing less salty...but thanks.

I wondered why so much attention keeps returning to this thread and reading the last handful of pages is really quite funny. It feels like a Seinfeld episode because it's about nothing but there's an ongoing circular argument about getting the big word salad. You don't know what it is to experience infinite refill! No, the ingredients are an illusion. Idiots, none of you will taste absolute love. It's too comical. Just be at peace.

Well, if solipsism is true, then why did I create NPCs that have no choice but to tell me I don't have any free will...

I always find it humorous how people 'choose' to tell others they have no choice and I guess they have no choice but to do it yet the only question I have about it is....Why do people 'choose' to argue with NPCs about free will?

Why did you create an imaginary 'buddy' pushing an imaginary 'it'…?

There is no correct or incorrect path, there just is what is and what you said here is something you can always use as the foundation to a life of well being. Us in seeking, even in seeking well being, is the mind imagining that we are lacking something, so just be it, then it is what is.

If you are trying to find a path that is correct you have already started off on the wrong foot. Contemplate that... ..then come back and ask me what that riddle means if you cannot discover the message yourself.

It's funny how a change of one thing, our perspective, can change everything without really changing anything...except perspective.

I see people are picking through turds trying to find chocolate chips but even if you can it's covered in crap.

Not really physically because it doesn't help that when you lose your ego since it doesn't weigh anything. Although your spirit may feel lighter without it...

This place never ceases to amaze but also never surprises either... in before the lock

Spirituality has been at the heart of human civilization in every culture since before recorded history expressed in an infinite number of ways so this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that is paying attention.

So you felt the need to add more of the same of what you complain about? Interesting...

If someone practices terrible habits they will become very good at those habits, one might even say they improved themselves in it. Nobody really has to try to improve, naturally their biology just gets 'better' at whatever it is they do. We can attempt to intervene in the ongoing adaptation process and 'select' what those behaviors are by doing them, eventually we get better at it. Yet it just happens naturally. Also, traits aren't connected as opposites in some binary, they are each their own individual characteristic in which we can explore in our experience of it or not much or not at all. I'm both outgoing extroverted and enjoy deep thinking solitude. Reality is way more dynamic than any game, we can not only rewrite the code of the game, we can rewrite the code of the machine the game plays on. gg

If there is enlightenment then there is also endarkenment. So if enlightenment is like me getting these last 3 mins of my life back then endarkenment is I forget they even existed.

The ego loves all forms of belief systems, including the many mystical varieties that fill 'spiritual' forums like this one as well...because its attachment identity flourishes within the conceptualizations of the mind and is its 'kingdom'. It also attaches emotions to make it even more of a powerful connection, it uses mystical experience to inspire even more attachment to its identity, it brands it with words like 'truth' and 'god' to justify its attachment to it. The ego isn't 'bad' or 'wrong'...it just is what it is and what it is often can be the source of self suffering. Money and wealth are really just another belief system that creates the illusion of separation that we are incomplete, that we lack so it causes self suffering. Just the way it likes it....

@Soul Flight I was broke and dumb yet living in liberation during my youth so any material condition can be transcended. It may seem like money is an especially distracting aspect of human life whether one has it or not but it isn't a new one. Whatever is a stepping stone along our path we use to grow in our healthy evolution can be turned into a stumbling block by the ego. Whatever tool we have for our inner work the ego can use it as a weapon against us in that work. We can overcome 1000 challenges but the ego will stack up 1001 for us to accomplish, there is nothing the conditional mind won't use to separate us from what it believes it doesn't have. Our existential yearning for some perceived lack is the very 'desire' spoken of so many years ago. So ultimately, there are no amounts of fruit from the material world that can quench this quest that appears innate in our consciousness. There is nothing in the manifest appearance to suggest that transcending it is as powerful as it is. That not doing is the most useful thing to do. Just be it.