Joseph Maynor

Authenticity = BE-ing. It's funny, at the advanced stages, this material can be expressed in such simplistic ways. It's very paradoxical. Things are really very simple. The Ego doesn't want things to seem simple. But things are very simple at the advanced stages of this work.

No. The best way to think of this is like this. You have no Ego. The Dream is the dream. You are aware of the dream but do not control, do, or conceptually know anything in the Dream. The Ego is what you falsely believe is controlling, doing, and conceptually-knowing. What you are is Atman, unchanging Awareness. And that's what everybody else is too, Atman. Thus we have, Atman = Brahman. Brahman = Atman. It's that simple. Ego is what is false!

I define authentic as no Ego. Ego is the sense of controlling, doing, or conceptually-knowing. So, once you give Ego up, that's where authenticity begins.

In self-inquiry yes. But he doesn't really teach you the final bit. You gotta go back to Shankara and Nagarjuna and the Upanishads. The Samkhya, Yoga, etc. Maybe that's just the way he's interpreted by people. But I don't see Ramana telling people that reality is a Dream. He leaves that part out, right? You gotta go back to the Upanishads to see how they distinguished Atman, Brahman, and Maya. Those guys were on to a lot of really good stuff. Unfortunately our culture just didn't carry it. It doesn't support the Ego-Paradigm.

Cool. That's good. Unchanging Awareness has nothing to do with state changes. You can do psychedelics all you want, you're just not gonna become Enlightened solely through their use. Like I said, they're good on the path, but people get too stuck on them, and miss the point of this work. You're not gonna find Enlightenment using psychedelics. They can help you get up under a lot of beliefs though -- they can destabilize a lot of your beliefs. So, in that sense, psychedelics are more of a tool for self-inquiry than a direct path to Enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply the death of the Ego. Enlightenment is permanent. Once you get that final crack, that's it. But the Ego has to go piece by piece. You're not gonna get all of it in one go. That's why the path to Enlightenment is a path.

I’ll look into it deeper. Tibetan culture is a trip. Tibetan Buddhism is worth looking into.

Are you asking how long I like to meditate?

That’s a legit fear. This is my take. Always be humble about Enlightenment. It’s easy to delude yourself that you’ve reached the summit only to find out that the spiritual ego is clinging on for dear life. Full Enlightenment is the total surrender of the Ego. It’s letting ALL of it go. That’s kind of a tricky thing to “do” because it’s not a doing! It’s a constant resting as awareness. It’s a being. I know we say this stuff and it sounds like general cliches — but when you get to the advanced stages, this stuff is the most concise, literal advice you could receive on these matters.

So true. The Ego has to be let go of. That’s the only thing to do, and it happens by degrees.

No. He was super into identifying with a strong, idealized, Egoic perfection. Nietzche was one of the most Egoic of the Western Philosophers. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be read though. He makes some good points, especially about Christian morals. He argues that Christian morals are basically preventing Man from being as great as he can be. Like a self-imposed set of limiting-beliefs. Nietzche was big into liberating yourself from limiting moral beliefs and forging your own values based on perfection and growth. I think there’s a lot of Nietzche’s legacy in classical masculine-style Personal Development teachings.

What are you hoping to find as you continue to seek? What's the desired final endpoint?

Letting go fully. That's it. Just resting as Awareness. Not as attached to the fluxing Dream. It's like I'm always meditating or something. Just peace and stillness and mild bliss. I don't have any more illusions of control within the dream anymore. So, it's just a surrender to reality. There never was a me doing anything in the first place. But what is missing is the illusion of Ego -- the illusion of control, doing, and conceptual-knowing. The illusion of being an actor in the dream who is trying to understand the dream. No. I am simply Atman, or unchanging Awareness.

I just cling to life much less seriously because I realize there is no Egoic me acting in it. Reality is gonna play itself out whatever way it does without any of my Egoic control. So, nothing I do is gonna change my life. All I do is rest in peace and bliss in detached awareness. It's been that way for a while for me now. At least a month, maybe two months. I've recently changed my Enlightenment theory a little bit and improved it for the better. But the moment I started to rest as awareness and let go, that was basically when I hit the Enlightenment jackpot. Everything else has been just a refinement of that. Getting the theory together to communicate that process to someone else, basically. It's been cool to develop my own theory so when I explain Enlightenment I can do it in my own words. But, keep in Mind, Enlightenment is simply resting as Awareness, nothing more, nothing less. Everything else said is just a conceptual exposition of this. And notice that Resting as Awareness is not a controlling, doing, or conceptual-knowing! So, you can see why concepts are technically irrelevant to Enlightenment. You really don't need them. But we are so trained on concepts that we need to use concepts to get out of concepts! So we do have to deal with concepts in this work very heavily. Otherwise nobody would ever become Enlightened! They would never get out of their concepts. So, life is a Dream that just runs on its own. Just sit back and watch. Enjoy your story, whatever that may be! It looks like I'm gonna be one of those annoying Enlightenment people haha. That's a trip. I never thought this would be what I became -- because I never had any control! See? It's so obvious to me now. There is no Egoic me -- literally no Egoic me. It's that simple. Enlightenment becomes simple when you get to the advanced stages of this work. Enlightenment becomes simple when you get to the advanced stages of this work -- but its extremely complicated in the early stages. That's because you have a lot of ignorance when you start the path, mostly of a conceptual sort. You've been programmed with a lot of concepts that you need to begin to examine. That takes hard work and some time to do! Everybody starts this path and this work in the weeds. Best advanced Enlightenment video I've ever seen:

What is your understanding? Don't look it up!! I want you to just write what you actually think it means.

I read this a couple of times actually. Highly recommended!

Please write short definitions/ descriptions of each of these words as you understand them and use them in your work: Maya Atman Brahman Awareness Being Dream Ego Reality

@omkarshetty this is hilarious!

Does it all sound like monkey-chatter? Like a troupe of monkeys squawking?

Maya is illusory. Atman is what is real. But Maya does rear it’s ugly head within Awareness, so we can treat it theoretically as a dream. Obviously that’s a metaphor. Language is not to be taken literally. It’s what’s being pointed to by the language that’s the intended effect.

I’m rather atheist in inclination, so I say no. God for me is Awareness. But then that’s just me. Saying I’m God does no work for me. It’s just playing with labels.

What about your awareness? Is that ever affected by any of these puzzles?

The only thing wrong with Islam is that other Muslims wanna tell you what's right and wrong a lot. It's a religion where people think they know God's will. It's a very rule based religion. The Koran is viewed as not very different from God's tongue. In other words, the Koran is taken to be more or less authoritative and literal. Not entirely literal, but damn close. And then you have the numerous Hadiths that document the actions and sayings of Muhammad. Muslims try to copy Muhammad because they believe he was a perfect man in his beliefs and actions. So, one of the problems with Islam is the sheer number of rules that people think a real Muslim should follow. It's a very strict, law-based religion. Your behavior has to conform to certain rules. It's very egotistical in the sense of -- I am going to be saved, I'm the most pious, I have the direct hotline to God's will, I am God's servant, etc. All of the Judeo-Christian religions are like this, although differing in other ways. Christianity is more Philosophical than Islam because it grew out of the European Philosophical Culture. So Christianity is more focused on right belief whereas Islam is more focused on right conduct.

Materialism is a belief system. Reality is not affected by belief systems. Belief systems don't get at the essence of reality.

Oh yeah. The only reason I spend time on here is because I am growing. If I were to stop growing, I would not be hanging out so much on here. I like to help others too. But make no mistake about it, the reason I am here is because I've done a shit-load of personal development on here. In 1 year I have grown so much, it's amazing. It's phenomenal actually. I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but it happened for me -- in large part I must say -- from interacting on here. The best advice I can give someone is use this Forum like a sounding-board for your own growth. You gotta really want to grow, to become more and more Enlightened. And there are something like levels to Enlightenment. I don't think they can be crystallized into one-sized-fits-all stages because they depend on the personality that's becoming Enlightened. And every personality is so different.