Joseph Maynor

You're just aware of it -- like any other happening in Nature. That voice you thought was you all these years! This is a little disturbing to the ego, eh?

@Jhonny Start by clarifying goals and working on your optimism. If you don’t have clear goals you’re not even in the game. Make a list of goals like this: things I want to accomplish in 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year from now. Watch this video: Another good one. Do the exercise at the end too.

I’m thinking one of the downsides of social media is — our actual lives are hidden from view — and our actual lives are the most important thing to us, are they not? We ask every esoteric question imaginable except this one: the one question closest to the ground and furthest away from the abstracting mind. We get so caught up in the mental-masturbation questions that we don’t even ask the most simple and basic question — how has all this shit actually benefited your life? This stuff ain’t rocket science folks! I know the mind wants to turn it into rocket science, but that it is not. It’s about self-improvement.

@Brimstone Awesome! I love it!

Have you ever inquired into how much nothing actually says?

Here's a great video to watch if you haven't watched this one:

The answer to this question depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. You could question the existence/non-existence distinction if you want to. But to not go that far, and just for kicks, I would say this. What is sensed is real. But what the mind says about what is sensed is not real. So, you may see imagery that looks like a witch, but that doesn't mean that the belief "witches exist" is true. Of course you could question the real/non-real distinction too. The bottom line is that concepts are never true. Awareness just is. Awareness is mute. Anything said about Awareness using language is technically false. It's like trying to catch air with a net. That said, we can sort of speculate with language in a way that sort of gets at the truth but never very accurately so. We don't want to pooh pooh enlightenment "theory" work because it is useful. But it needs a huge caveat next to it, and it gets annoying to have to repeat this every time it needs repeating, but it must be done. The mind wants to take these ideas and turn them into ideology, which is a huge trap to watch out for (maybe the worst of all traps). You gotta maintain your independence in enlightenment practice and never get complacent with any ideology. Watch:

I'd say for me the biggest change is my relationship with the mind and corresponding decrease in suffering. By way of background: I've always been a very cerebral person and I kind of made a home for myself in my mind at a very young age. I was good in school and was an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science student at UCLA before eventually graduating with a BA degree in Philosophy. I became a freelance paralegal after college and eventually started my own legal services business, which I run to this day. I basically learned Law School on my own by buying all the law books and studying them on my own, but I'm not a lawyer, So, this is not to bore you here. This is to show you how much of my life has been about the mind. And I was/am writing my own original Philosophy to boot. So, mind, mind, mind, right? Lately in my enlightenment work, I've been really able to see the mind for what it is, warts and all. And the mind has a lot of warts. I can see now how much of my life was like holding onto the horns of a raging bull but not even realizing it. Kind of like the idea that we are all spinning really fast as the Earth turns but we don't even realize it -- we're not aware of it. But now I see the mind for what it is, and it's not me at all, contrary to common-sense belief. The mind is like a foreign entity, to coin a metaphor. And foreign entities are to be kept an eye on, not to be let in through the front door of the house. The mind has very muddy feet. All morning this morning I've been paying attention to the monkey-mind. I have a habit of walking to work in the morning and that's a really good time for me to observe the mind in action. I was floored today just how much was going on. It makes me realize why exercise in the am is good to calm that sucker down. When I focus on reality minus the mind I can ground myself now in a way that at least provides a perspective on the mind, like the white of a painting canvas or the silences in music. The disjointed, discontinuous melody of the mind is presented in high-relief and laid upon the table for examination. It's a frustrating examination too because I have a dog in the fight as it were, nipping at my heels as I do this work. The mind is too close for comfort, is it not? One of the things I lost with enlightenment work is my interest in intellectual pursuits. I was/am writing a book on Philosophy, my own original Philosophy, but now I don't know if I can continue that work. This is because the assumption there is that thought can yield a kind of truth, which now I am highly doubtful of. So, we'll see how that one plays itself out. I'm just gonna let that one sit for now and just watch it. I trust that my authentic self will do what is best at the day's end. But, I am at the point in this enlightenment work where I can see the mind for what it is and how it augments reality -- and most importantly how it causes so much suffering. The mind does great things -- but it causes an enormous amount of suffering too. However, if you understand how the mind operates, your awareness of it does work to clean it up some, and you can do things to calm it down with things like awareness, meditation, exercise, ample sleep, proper diet, staying away from dirty influences and information, etc. So, in conclusion -- the key benefit to me has been the dis-identification with the mind, which has led to an enormous decrease in suffering in my life.

I was addressing why the illusion of ego exists in my answer. Yeah — you don’t wanna assume that the ego exists. The ego is illusory.

Status is a creature of the mind not of reality. It is a concept. From God’s perspective there is no status.

Are you sure this is a real problem and not one invented by the mind? The ego will try to sabotage in this way by undermining confidence. That’s why you need to get to a state of not knowing to remove that fodder for the ego to exploit. Not knowing knowing. Not doing doing.

Is an oak tree superior to a weed? (Not the drug, haha)

@Deep Sometimes what you’re seeking dissolves right before your eyes. The mind can help and it can hinder — the trick is to know when one or the other is happening, to have that keen awareness. There is no gap-closing to be had; there is no real problem. The problem is the mind, and the mind is false. I don’t know what Leo has to do with my posts — my aim in all my posts is authenticity. I don’t even know in advance what I’m gonna write, it just flows out.

Matter is not conscious. The only non-thing that’s conscious is awareness. Matter is a mere concept — not reality

This is a great question. This is speculative, but I’ll bite! The mind augmented reality because we have been conditioned to identify with the mind and body instead of identifying with awareness. The mind screwed us up basically. The mind is a double-edged sword. The problem with the mind is we don’t know how to use it constructively without a lot of awareness. Maybe this is caused by the fact that thoughts and other mental events are hard to see because the information is not laid out plainly before us like other sensations are. It could be that simple — the mind operated for a long-time virtually under the radar and unchecked, and it mucked-up the system.

The only requirement to becoming a great sage is to help others grow because you are growing yourself — you’re just a few miles ahead of them and can swing ‘round to help them facilitate their growth. It can be a true expression of love — evidence of the breaking down of the ego. And it’s by helping others and teaching others that the guru achieves his or her extraordinary growth. You ever hear the expression, “If you really want to learn something, then teach it to others?” That’s the dynamic at work, and it’s a win-win dynamic if it comes from an authentic place. It can manifest as an upward-spiral of synergistic energy; of love. Be careful of the mind or the ego telling you what a sage is though. That’s gonna be false. A sage is a label, a distinction, a classification, a duality. All we have is authentic Being and awareness. A sage is just a highly-evolved, benevolent force of Nature — Nature loving and investing in itself basically.

Counter-intuitively, the more the ego is broken-down the more you will love in an authentic way that might be outside of any preconceptions of love that you or anyone else has. We need to make sure we separate authentic love from mental conceptions of love. One is true and the other is false. Authentic love just authentically flows-out without being forced or being guided by any rules. Unfortunately, we have a lot of conceptions of what love is that the ego will try to wrap its claws around. But that’s just mind. Your authentic love will transcend mind, so be prepared for it to manifest in ways that you did not expect. You gotta just let go and let the authentic self unfold on its own terms — outside of the rules and expectations of the mind. You will discover your authentic love if you do this properly. Beware of the mind commenting on what love is or is not! That’s a trap when dealing with love. You don’t wanna get stuck on rules or preconceptions. Just be and observe. Don’t force or try to control anything. That’s just gonna re-enforce the ego and build a nasty ego-shadow in its wake. Let the unique fingerprint of your love come into being without any sort of attempt to control it. Just watch it, be aware of it, be mindful of it — don’t judge it or manipulate it. The ego and the mind are gonna hate this, which is why you gotta numb down the ego for true love to start to flower out in you.

You can’t take the language literally. You gotta see that he is using language to point you to look within your own experience. Take what he is saying and self inquire over how it relates to your experience. Don’t try to believe, that’s a trap at this level of discourse. He even says so at the beginning. This is a well done story about enlightenment. But belief and being are apples and oranges, so you need to be reading between the lines too. Awareness is not a concept. The void is you. It’s an Awareness that can become “self conscious.” You are a self aware field of no-thingness — empty awareness. Look inside! You’re not gonna get any deeper understanding with theory on this point. You gotta look inside and just be aware more. Mindfulness over thoughts — being able to deconstruct the illusions — takes you far in this work I’ve found. How does what he is saying describe you? That’s where you’re gonna get the cash-value of the theory he presents. Otherwise you’re stuck in ideology mode, which side-steps the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is: you are that void he is talking about. This is not mere trading in beliefs. It’s a way of pointing you to observe yourself deeper. You are something very different from what you have assumed you are. Learn this by careful observation, careful mindfulness, at this point. The theory is useful, no doubt; but you gotta do the observing part a lot too. Lots and lots of observing, lots and lots of mindfulness. That’s what I’ve been doing for a while now myself — and man it’s paying off!

If you feed the mind fear it’s gonna riff off that. You need to figure out a way to dial down your fear. The mind is pretty stupid, it almost always riffs off what it is directly exposed to. Fear is tied to threat to ego. So, figure out how the ego is being threatened by what you are doing. You need to start getting into enlightenment work to numb down that ego, or else it’s gonna continue to cause you a lot of neuroses. The ego doesn’t like enlightenment work or meditation. It will fuck with you. You have to realize that this is part and parcel of the ego death aims of this work. You’re gonna be exposed to emotionally painful experiences along this path. But all in all your general happiness level steadily increases, so those are all temporary. Ride it out! Leo did a video on this topic: Watch:

Woah — have you been coaching Jesus reborn as a comedian Leo? Was he your last coaching client?

Lemme watch the whole thing so I can comment fairly. Gimme a few mins.

I have to say the anti thought/ word bias in Enlightenment is something that I find to be a regrettable dogma in this work. Everything has applicability someplace including thoughts and words. We don’t want to set a firm rule down like a principle. That is dogmatic. You don’t wanna be anti feet if you use your feet! Not very smart, right? The non-dual contains the dual. You gotta grok that. When you stick your head in the sand, reality eventually comes right back ‘round and bites you in the ass! And that’s foreseeable too, it’s not a coincidence. It’s called belief, duality, dogma. Reality laughs at those silly mental maneuvers characteristic of ego. The mind is used all the time! All the frigging time! Open your eyes! What we wanna avoid are the bad uses of mind. That’s the issue. It’s more subtle than get rid of words. That’s a ridiculous caricature of the true problem if you take the time to observe the true nature of it. Subtlety over this issue is often regrettably lost I’ve found. Why is that? The true skeptic is not dogmatic. Watch: Another vid on point: Watch:

There is no matter behind the scenes of your awareness. Watch: