SOUL

People trust that their perception is the truth, it's a natural mental process. If they were to have the state of mind that constantly doubts their perception they wouldn't be able to function in life. So I'm not going to criticize someone for believing their own perception is the truth, although I find it interesting how vehemently some will deny others perception. Especially with people who claim to be some sort of spiritually 'awake', one would think they are more aware of the potential diversity of perception, even while trusting their own perception.

A pattern of existence, a form, sure. Yet manifest existence in all its infinite forms is an expression of consciousness, the actual physical fruit of consciousness. In the bounty that is this 'universal thing' there are beings that have minds which perceive limitations that can present themselves as blockages to their awareness expanding to its infinite potential. The variations appear as a virtual infinite array of characteristics of mind that affect the behavior of those beings, without judging this as a negative or positive, it just is. Also, whether that conscious being aware of its own behavior can modify perception from a previous state to an intentional subsequent state is debated by those beings.

Are you ok? Just be well with whatever it is you believe...leave me out of it.

@Razard86 Believe what whatever you want but it's only in your imagination. Reality doesn't change because of your perception of it. You delude yourself if you think a few words creates an 'aha gotcha' for you...haha

Us being less or more aware, 'awake' or conscious, whichever the word one prefers to use, at different moments in different states is a relative condition about the degree of awareness in us...not consciousness having conditional degrees. What you suggest is that there are parts of reality that are less or more consciousness than others, which cannot possibly be if everything, all of reality, is consciousness. It's absolute infinite. Any perception of consciousness in degrees is just our awareness of it, not consciousness being it. The relative is an illusion, it appears in degrees and states of conditions. Which doesn't mean it isn't 'real', its reality is illusory, it does not appear as it really is. Consciousness appearing in degrees is an illusion of one's relative conditional conscious state within the 'dream'. This is so obvious it's hard to see how you of all people dare to deny it. I guess one can confuse or conflate that conscious and consciousness as being exactly the same, materialists do and even the dictionary meaning pretty much does. So it's understandable.

I hope you don't take this as me 'correcting' you, it is me just clarifying what you said because it seems like this point can be misunderstood without the clarification. If consciousness is everything and it is infinite there are no degrees of consciousness, it's always absolute infinite in its genuine nature. Our awareness, which modulates our perception of reality, can wax or wane, which alters the bandwidth of our perception so we can awaken or slumber to reality. Though, consciousness may appear in layers or degrees to us but it really is just our awareness of it that creates the appearance of them, not consciousness itself. So really, in this context the illusion would be that consciousness is in degrees when in reality its constant state is absolute infinite. I recognize you realize this but I understand how words can be a stumbling block.

@Princess Arabia To the edit part in your last post yea but allow me to unpack that a little more if I can. We realize our well being in just being it, so not dependent on the conditions of life. Our well being, our fulfillment is not dependent on what we know or don't know, do or not do, there is no sense of lacking so the desire that causes self suffering is satiated so to speak. The love and joy in anything we do happen to be doing is not derived from it which can be fickle and temporal, we are being that presence of fulfillment so bring the love and joy to the activity whatever that happens to be. Now let's see if I can bring it full circle and touch on the theme of the trippy wayback Leo video just posted here on mastery. He says that to master something we need to love the process, otherwise we won't do it. There is an emphasis on the love of the process itself. I offer that it's not trying to squeeze the love out of the things in life we are doing, it is bringing the love to it that is pouring out of the fulfillment through us and onto everything we do even if we don't do anything at all. This is the mastery of being.

To be fair, this is where language often feels insufficient for describing reality, but I will give it a go anyway. So please pardon me if I add more confusion. We have our perception and it is our 'all that is' yet it is not the infinite 'all that is'. Simultaneously, we can experience the fullness of well being, fulfillment or 'perfect' of the infinite 'all that is' no matter what our specific perception is at any moment even if it isn't the infinite perception. Now it's going to get even more abstract, so again, pardon me. 'What is' verifies itself by being 'what is' and this is how the perception's conceptual framework of the mind's belief in 'truth' comes about. It gets its paradigm of understanding from experience and trusts that it is 'true'...the mind 'believes' its perception is what is...whether infinite or not. We can expand our conscious awareness to increase our perception of what is but that isn't necessary for well being. We can use all sorts of methods of physical investigation, contemplation, meditation, medication and celebration to verify our perception is 'true' yet that isn't required for well being. All the 'truth seeking' and 'reality changing' of our conscious lives spiritual activity is a 'doing' that is not needed for and will be transcended by simply being...well. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone, but there it is.

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.