Joseph Maynor

Other people are as real as the dream is, no more and no less. It's a qualified reality. It's like -- yeah -- you're real, but the underlying dream is not, so there you have it. Ego is an illusory reality. So, it does exist in a sense, but not substantially. It exists as a dream exists. It seems real but has no substance to it.

There's no Egoic you doing low-consciousness activities. That much is true.

The dream includes other people. But ask yourself this -- is the dream real? I can totally appreciate Nagarjuna's 2 levels of truth now, and that the dream level is "sublated" into the absolute level. One feels real but isn't real. The other is real but doesn't feel real. Boy are we confused huh? That tricky Mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine // Shankara elaborates on the Two Truths Doctrine as follows: Shankara proposes three levels of reality, using "sublation" as the ontological criterion: Pāramārthika (paramartha, absolute), the Reality that is metaphysically true and ontologically accurate. It is the state of experiencing that "which is absolutely real and into which both other reality levels can be resolved". This reality is the highest, it can't be sublated (assimilated) by any other. Vyāvahārika (vyavahara), or samvriti-saya, consisting of the empirical or pragmatical reality. It is ever changing over time, thus empirically true at a given time and context but not metaphysically true. It is "our world of experience, the phenomenal world that we handle every day when we are awake". It is the level in which both jiva (living creatures or individual souls) and Iswara are true; here, the material world is also true but this is incomplete reality and is sublatable. Prāthibhāsika (pratibhasika, apparent reality, unreality), "reality based on imagination alone". It is the level of experience in which the mind constructs its own reality. Well-known examples of pratibhasika is the imaginary reality such as the "roaring of a lion" fabricated in dreams during one's sleep, and the perception of a rope in the dark as being a snake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta#Ontology_-_the_nature_of_Being

I just recently learned about the Buddha and Buddhism. I didn't even realize Enlightenment comes from the Buddhist tradition too, which I assumed came more from the Hindu tradition, which I was more familiar with. So, for me, I just recently came into contact with Buddhism, which I must say came as a pleasant surprise to me. It's amazing.

It appears to be some kind of religious text for people trapped in the purgatory period between Earth and Heaven.

Ask yourself this: What is matter?

I know a lot of us like to boast — I’m growing, I’ve grown so much. But what do these words mean in respect to your experience with growth and growing on your path? What memory can you recall where you felt like you were growing a lot? Do you feel like that right now? Why or why not?

The Buddha was right. Attachment to the dream is the cause of suffering. Awakening is the first step to detachment from Ego. Liberation is realizing there is no little you in there! But all of this awakening business is part of the dream too. So, don’t take any of this too seriously. Just be the watcher. Be that pillar that is always there at the center of all these changes. Start to see the fluxing part of reality as a dream. Detach from it as reality. Reality is the Soul or unchanging Awareness that is witnessing all of these changes. Awareness does not control, do, or conceptually-know — all that sh*t is part of the dream. The Ego thinks it does those things haha. That’s a very common trap. The best thing Awareness can do is detach from taking the dream so seriously. There is no you driving the dream. You’re just always aware of it.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I agree. Experience without knowledge is blind. Knowledge without experience is lame. You’re on the right track. You need both. Especially an understanding of past thought, which can give you perspective on your present thought. If you lack that perspective, you will fall into numerous traps that are well known about. I have particularly benefitted recently by going back and reading Indian Philosophy, so I can see what those ideas really were. People have made up a bunch of stuff and then pretend that’s what those traditions were about — and I can see that clearly now. You can get at facts in this work, but you gotta study. You’ll get a nice BS detector that will help you in this work! It will help your Enlightenment to see the source of the ideas that are so casually and often carelessly bandied about by the New Age community. There’s a lot of BS out there! A lot! Some things to read about: Upanishads, Jainism, the Charvaka School, the Six Orthodox Hindu Schools, the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Adi Shankara, Chan Buddhism, Japanese Zen Buddhism, Lao Tsu, Taoism, Confucius, Mencius, the Neo-Confucianists, Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, 16th Century Western Philosophy, 17th Century Western Philosophy, 18th Century Western Philosophy, 19th Century Western Philosophy, 20th Century Western Philosophy, Christianity and Christian Theology, Islam and Islamic Theology, Judaism and Jewish Theology, Carl Jung’s Psychological Theories, the American Transcendentalists, Mystical Traditions from around the world, Sufism, Sikhism, Mormonism, Neo Advaita, etc. So, there’s a lot to learn. This will give you perspective. And this is just some stuff that came to mind now. There’s so much more too. Treat life like an education. Not necessarily a bookish education exclusively either! Life is not to be lived in the books! But you do need some study so you can hold it in the road without getting too far off course. There is nothing new under the Sun in a sense. Smart people have devoted their entire lives to these matters, so you do wanna find out what they had to say. There’s guidance is the world’s books! Use it. Improve on it!

Why are we using the definite article ‘the’ as in the Buddha? Doesn’t this ring of a deification that he would reject? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha

What is a guru? Who becomes one? Is a guru a moralist? Is it Egoic for the guru to try to help others? Does the guru stunt their own growth by spending so much time in language and illusion? Does one need to be brought to awakening through the doorway of illusion? And if so, isn’t that the guru’s task to help people with that process?

A guru is person who is willing to knock people out of their ignorant complacency for their own good. It’s not necessarily pretty work. And the guru is not always loved. Not if he’s doing his job. Sometimes the guru has to accept being hated. But what drives the guru is to help others see the truth. And he will do that no matter what the resulting outcome is. That’s the calling of the guru. He’s not selfish with truth. He feels compelled to share it. He wants to help others see what he sees. Why? Because it’s the truth. Truth is not relative. Only thoughts can be relative. Truth is not paradoxical. Only thoughts can be paradoxical. The guru is the one who makes right distinctions on these matters and then can guide others without confusion.

I’m loathe to say you’re wrong. But I’ve experienced something very different in my path.

I think you guys getting confused with this possibility talk. That’s all conceptual. Being is not conceptual. Being is right now. I still think you guys are stuck in the mind a bit. The concept of infinity and possibility is confusing you. You keep chasing the fulfillment of a concept instead of realizing enlightenment is right now. Enlightenment is not a state. I’ve mentioned this many times, and it doesn’t seem to get through. Enlightenment is not a state. Enlightenment is the recognition that reality doesn’t contain a you controlling anything. That’s it. And Awareness does exist as an unchanging thing. Don’t get seduced by sexy sounding language, ideas, or psychedelic states. You’re tail chasing. Enlightenment is the most mundane thing, not the most conceptually fascinating thing. The latter is the Mind’s interference in the awakening process. It’s a distraction. All there is is unchanging awareness and the dream. And no control, no Egoic you. That’s it. Stop chasing states and just be reality right now. Enlightenment is right now.

There’s no divine either. That’s just a belief. You guys gotta get rid of all your baby-blanket beliefs about reality.

I could see how you might conclude that. I used to think like you too. The truth is a lot more radical than most people are prepared for. It’s the complete annihilation of belief in Ego. What you are in now is the Spiritual Ego phase of the journey. Been there done that. That’s not the final stage on the path.

I like your honesty.

It’s alright dude. The path is long. One thing that people have a hard time doing is letting go.

Haha. So true.

There is no your body. You still got some letting go to do. Enlightenment is probably much deeper than you think. Just sayin’.

You are not the dream nor do you have any control over the dream. Make sense? You’re not controlling anything that’s happening in the dream. It all happens on its own. Now, you might have the illusion of control, but that’s a belief about reality not reality itself.

The reason we are hurt so much in youth is because we’re identified with the dream so much. We take the dream personally. In youth, you’re usually totally bought into the Ego paradigm. That’s why everything is so scarring as a kid. You’re taking everything super-personally.

I formed a very strong identity as a child fast. I identified more with Ego most of my life. It’s just been the last couple of years that the dream has been letting that go. Look, here’s the deal, you have no control of any of this. Awareness is there in Ego too. So, in a sense you’re already Enlightened, you’re just befuddled with false beliefs about reality. It’s simple but seems complicated. Trying to have no ego is the ego, so don’t fall into that trap. There is no you that controls reality. That’s the most important thing to get in this work. A lot of people try to act modest and act like they have no ego, but that’s stupid. You have no control over reality. You’re just aware of the dream. You’re a non-changing Awareness of a dream. So, you need to just let go and accept whichever way reality plays itself out. It doesn’t matter because you never change. Awareness is always there — that you can determine through Empirical observation. I used to say the Now never changes, and that’s good too. But Awareness is more accurately what never changes. This is also one reason why it’s stupid and Egoic to feel proud to be Awake. There is no you that did anything! That’s just the dream. Ego is no more bad than anything else dreamed up. Your dream contains this awakening story, that’s all. Nothing in the dream is any better or worse than anything else in it, once you understand that none of it matters. The only real thing is the unchanging Soul or Awareness. That never has changed for you. And that you can discover. That is like a pillar in the center of the ocean, that the ocean itself revolves around. That’s Awareness. That the real you.