Emerald

The answer is that no one knows the answer to that question. But if your goal is enlightenment, trying to answer this question is just more thought content and can never produce awakening. To think that you're a small being in an infinite universe is an assumption. Thinking that you are the only thing in existence is an assumption too. Both fall on the other side of the horse because they are rationalizations. The idea is to become aware and present of the FACT that you really can't know. It is when you empty your cup of assumptions and beliefs regarding reality, that you can become ripe for a breakthrough of enlightenment which occurs beyond thoughts, understandings, and concepts. The best thing you can do is to get present to the fact that you really don't know. "Not-Knowing" is a state that Peter Ralston talks about as the state you must be in to have an enlightenment breakthrough. All that said, your subjective experience is closer to the concept that your field of awareness is all of existence. So, explore your subjective experience beyond the idea that you're a small person in an infinite universe. If you can't see your eyes, they don't exist in your field of visual awareness, so they are a belief. If you aren't in your house it becomes a belief that your house exists. It doesn't mean that they DEFINITELY don't. It means that you don't know and can't know. This is the radical openness needed for a breakthrough which will come whenever it wants to.

You're making an assumption that there are other beings. Emptiness is the container for your perceptions and thoughts. That is existence itself. Other beings are content within your perception. So, "you" are all of it.

Some people reach enlightenment in the dentist chair without any meditation or even knowledge of enlightenment. So, there's a chance. But spontaneous enlightenment through masturbation is probably more of a long-shot than getting struck by lightening the same day you won the lottery. That said, orgasm is called 'the little death' so I suppose it is possible. Even thought @Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj was probably kidding, you could probably ask yourself those questions if you wanted to do a masturbation meditation thing. But you'd be inquiring into questions like "Where is the pleasure coming from and where does it go?" "Is there a body?" and just focusing on the raw perceptions of the experience.

This is a really great quote. Maybe I should try to really live the truth that I have no control over my thoughts and the circumstances of my life. Right now, the knowledge is only abstract. But getting in touch with surrender will help me detach from the obsessive thoughts of control and the negative emotions that accompany the lack of acceptance.

I will do this. I've been warring against life for years. It's time to surrender. I need to stop wishing that I was somewhere else other than where I am. To try to find happiness in a future version of myself and my life, has been my biggest distraction.

Thank you. Dis-identification with thought has been the most valuable advice that I've come across on the path thus far. I will be sure to put this into practice much more by really paying attention to it. With my experiences, I heard the 'whisper of grace' very clearly. The clarity and wisdom that came to me just sprung up from nowhere. It didn't come from something that I identified as me. It was this deep feeling that I knew everything that I needed to know as a human being; no more and no less. My cravings for seeking knowledge were reduced. Because my experiences were catalyzed by Ayahuasca and not permanent, I'm almost desperate to come home. It was like getting a small taste of the most delicious food in the universe and wanting more.

This is exactly where I am. Nothing satisfies. All I want is enlightenment. It's a squalid place to be. But you made me realize something in your post. My mind keeps creating struggles to keep me from waking up. Then it creates pleasant fantasies of all sorts of medicate me against the bleakness of the struggles. It's all a big unnecessary back and forth distraction to keep me from acceptance and stillness. It's sort of like the scene in the movie "The Labyrinth" where Sarah is getting close to Goblin castle and all the talking heads are telling her "You're going the wrong way!" "Turn back now or there will be sudden death!" "Beware!" just to get her off track. Only I'm believing that those talking heads are me and share my goal of becoming enlightened. I'm onto you Mr. Mind.

This is a valid course of action. There is nothing wrong with choosing to live the illusion. It doesn't invalidate your life and it doesn't make you less of a person. That said, the egoic path is one of constant suffering, struggling, and unhappiness that you've become so unconscious of that you only occasionally notice it. This sounds like exaggeration, but it isn't. When I had my enlightenment experiences, I became myself again. All my pretenses dropped away and my self-lies became apparent. I was fully in touch with my being. I loved everything in existence, including myself, unconditionally. I could have felt genuine compassion even for Hitler, during those experiences. I no longer had fear of anything... including death. Actually, I was able to find beauty in the fact that I would die one day because I realized that I was a part of a beautiful divine cycle. Even tragedies became part of the beautiful divine order. I was in a state of complete acceptance, and wisdom sprung up effortlessly and I had complete clarity about what the best course of action was for me to take. All of the traits that I every repressed became conscious once more. It was a state of wholeness that even surpassed the joy that I felt in my earliest childhood memories. I had no more insecurities regarding my self-worth and I no longer based my self-worth off of my actions. I felt myself as an integral part of the fabric of existence, and knew that this was where my true eternal significance was. There is nothing to lose from becoming enlightened, and everything to gain. You may feel some uncomfortable emotions along the way, but that is because some of the abstract notions of enlightenment sound very bleak. Enlightenment is the exact opposite of how it sounds to the rational mind. If you had any small glimpse (even for 10 seconds) of what you had to gain, you probably wouldn't be throwing in the towel. But that's just my commercial for enlightenment. It is truly just as valid to live from ego, if that is what you want. But don't let fear of the unknown scare you away.

Well said.

Thank you. That's true. Accepting whatever comes is an important factor.

You have no control over your thoughts. If you try to remove Pink Elephants from your thoughts all that will come are more thoughts about pink elephants. So awareness is a separate thing from thought. So, when an undesirable thought bubbles up bring your awareness to an object of your sensory perception. The breath is a great one. So, if the thought comes up, let it come but disengage from it by focusing on the breath. If it keeps pulling your attention away, keep mindfully returning your focus to the breath. Thoughts are like paper tigers. They have no real power, and if you don't feed them with your attention, they die a gradual death. So, revert your focus and they will naturally fade. You are not your thoughts. You have no control over the content of your thoughts. What will come up will come up. But you do have control over whether or not you believe, identify with, or pay attention to your thoughts.

It might be true that you are a small person in a vast universe. There is no way to prove or disprove it. But this is also an assumption and a belief. It would also be an assumption and a belief to say that your perceptions are the only thing in existence. The point is to understand how little you know and how little progress your thoughts on reality will yield you. Either of these concepts exist in the content of thoughts. They are rationalizations. If they weren't, I wouldn't be able to write them. You must be able to differentiate beliefs from reality to get a real experience of your own being. So, it is a belief to assume that it is true that you are an individual in a vast universe. It is also a belief, to assume that the only thing that exists are the things that are in your present awareness. What is really true, lies beyond these two concepts. But if you can understand the assumptions that you have about reality, you can get into a state of genuine open-ness, where you're more likely to have a breakthrough and realize your own enlightenment. This was the intention behind my previous message.

The idea is that you are everything, and you do experience everything. The issue is that you don't realize your assumption that you are a small person in an infinitely vast universe. You take for granted that you are a small element in a larger existence. This is getting caught up in the illusion. But it is equally likely that your perceptions in the present moment are existence itself. So you have the content of your thoughts and the content of your five senses. These occur in the field of awareness that is nothingness. Imagine that there is nothing more than what you perceive right now in the present moment. Past is just a thought. Future is just a thought.

It is the difference between believing you'r a small ant within an infinitely large universe and being the container that holds all of the content of your perceptions. Your awareness is the empty space that is the container for the thing you know of as external reality which includes only the content of thoughts and the perceptions taken in by the five senses within the present moment.

Him saying 'I can't having feelings for someone that I slept with the first day.' sounds like a rationalization on his part of why he doesn't want the relationship to go forward in a serious way. The emotions just aren't quite there for him, is my guess. Or maybe he has a fear of intimacy. If he were really interested, that "rule" would be thrown swiftly out the window. If it were me in the situation, I'd say 'Look, I've had a great time with you, etc. But it seems like we're on two different wavelengths emotionally. I really like you a lot but it seems like you don't reciprocate in equal measure. So, I can't waste my time in a one-sided relationship. It makes me feel unstable and I value my happiness and peace of mine. So, I'm sorry but it's done." See what he does. If he leaves, let him. If he comes back be sure he isn't wishy washy.

Thank you. All this is very helpful. I'll definitely check out the resources, and I'll also check out "The Work." I've heard great things about it.

Untruth-Unrealization sounds like an accurate descriptor. It would make sense that someone who had an enlightenment "experience" might have this issue with attachments to illusion coming back. With my experiences, they were intensely blissful so there were probably a lot of things that I missed as I was primarily focused on the bliss. It was primarily an emotional experience, so there was little exploration of there being "no me" it was more of a feeling of "no me." It was like dying and going to heaven, without actually dying. So, there were many illusory beliefs that bubbled up to the surface because they were no longer needed to build up and protect my ego, but the belief of there being a separate self didn't directly brandish itself. This lost in bliss phenomenon was probably compounded by the fact that my experience was catalyzed by Ayahuasca, so the body high and hallucinations were probably major distractions too. Maybe it was sort of like waking up from the dream but still having ties to the illusion from the waking state.

I'm not to that part yet. I'm just a little bit past half-way through. Someone mentioned Spiritual Autolysis the other day on the forum. I think I'll try that soon. It seems like it would be a really effective means of contemplation because it's more solid and you don't have to worry as much about being lost in thought.

Great stuff.

I just saw your above messages. I'd love some more links. I've recently been adopting the idea that the only thing that is true is what I'm perceiving in the present moment. So, I don't know if my memories even correspond to a past reality. They could just be thought implants for all I know. So, they are the content of thoughts. My fantasies and future projections are the stuff of thoughts too, of course. So that leaves me with my perception of the present moment. I see shapes imbued with colors on a flat screen which my mind interprets as a computer screen the bedroom that I'm in. I hear the sound of cars outside and little noises in the environment. I feel the sensations in my body. Thoughts are springing up and I'm involved with them by typing. Subtle tastes and smells that I'm so used to that they barely register. That is all I know. But there must be many unconscious things that I haven't debunked yet. I may have to actually go through every single assumption and belief to deconstruct them. But I'm not sure.

Thank you. I registered for the forum. It would make sense that emotions are keeping me attached to outcomes of the dream. I have a lot of urges and wants that come up. Social anxiety effects me because "I" want the emotional payout of being liked and to avoid the emotional hurt of being disliked. So, even though my mind realizes the truth of my awareness and I can perceive it objectively, I'm still not really living it emotionally and am thus controlled by this attachment. It will probably take practice to detach from the emotions as monkey chatter in the mind and corresponding sensations in the body. But this sort of contradicts the idea of a breakthrough enlightenment as this is much more gradual. That is, unless it comes like a big insight that completely flips my perspective. But these are just conjectures.

From one perspective, that is true. The quote "All I know is that I know nothing." comes to mind. But you know that you hold a lot more information in your mind about useful things than the average Joe does. Maybe I'm off base, but it seems like you're being modest. Why is it preferable to be modest?

I think I've been making some better progress over the past few days, than I have in years. I was trying to experience my perceptions as all of existence when I was at the gas station yesterday. I would get caught up in ideas of solipsism and different judgements about particular circumstances, but I was able to detach more from thoughts and recognize them as such. They were just more content in the field of awareness. But my understanding is still primarily conceptual. How do I get this truth to percolate through my system, so to speak. How can I live from this state without getting caught up in ideas and notions of it?

So, exploring phenomenon is still part of the illusion that "I" am a small person in an infinitely large universe. This is what you said Shinzen is doing. But getting a real experience of enlightenment or "being," is more akin to the idea that all of existence is couched within the field of awareness that a person thinks of as "their" perception. "You" are the space that all perception occurs in. But it isn't an idea, as it is in solipsism or as I say in this message. It is the experience of that state of being prior to all conceptual add-ons. So, exploring those perceptions is still getting caught up in thinking of them as non-illusory.

Is it being existence? Like "I" am the space where all phenomena in existence happens. Like, I'm not a small person in an infinite universe. But all of existence is consciousness that resides in the field of awareness I call "me" or "my perceptions." So exploring phenomena is more akin to the former idea about the universe, but true being is closer to the concept that all of existence is couched within the awareness that "I" am experiencing; but ultimately true being is beyond that as that is just a concept layed over the experience of being. Any thoughts?