Forestluv

Ime, visualization and imagination can be helpful for personal development and creativity, yet are generally a distraction from raising awareness. Actually doing your exercise via astral projection would be pretty cool though.

@Paul92 You are conflating relative with absolute. That is a source of your confusion. Imagine the picture that is an optical illusion of an old woman and a young woman. Your whole life has been conditioned to only see the young woman. You just got a glimpse of the old woman and are saying things like “the young woman doesn’t exist! The young woman is actually an old woman! The young woman isn’t real!!!” It seems like your mind is making all sorts of assumptions and trying to define and make sense of things, causing confusion. I think it’s best to let go of pre-conceived beliefs and assumptions. Relax and open the mind and explore. This goes much deeper than you are aware. You've barely scratched the surface and making up all these stories isn’t helpful. Observe and be aware of what is actual in your own direct experience right now. Meditation is great practice for this.

There is a mind-body. Within that mind-body, thoughts and feelings arise. There is awareness of those thoughts and feelings. Come to know that awareness. It might be helpful to imagine that all those thoughts and feelings arise within a more expansive “you”. Yet, this expansive “you” goes way beyond thoughts and feelings. In a contracted state, the mind-body is limited to identifying as being thoughts and feelings and is unaware of the expansiveness beyond that. During meditation, by labeling thinking as “thought” (without judgement) and returning to the breath increases awareness. Everytime you acknowledge a thought, let it go and return to the breath, awareness becomes aware of itself. Your mind is giving all relevance to thought. A thought is a thought. From this perspective, a thought is an impulse and has no more relevance than a bird chirp. This opens a realm of awareness that is highly liberating, yet unpalatable to an ego that wants to control the narrative in one’s mind.

@Viking These types of personality patterns can be deeply conditioned into the mind. Many people are unaware of this and subconsciously act out conditioned patterns. The self awareness itself is significant.

@ingurix I try to avoid suggesting a person is enlightened. Who would become enlightened? There is nothing to become enlightened. To me, it feels closer to true to simply say “there is enlightenment”. That way, there is no ownership associated with it. When using terms like “conscious”, be mindful that there are different levels. At the human level, we may say a person is highly conscious, they are highly aware of their self and surroundings. As well, there is social consciousness as illustrated in bird murmurations. There is also the ultimate level of Conscious, in which all is One. At the human level, to say “I am god” would be quite delusional and egotistical. The person may need psycological help. Yet, at the ultimate level, “I am God” is a deeply profound spiritual truth. At the relative human level, I am comfortable saying there is good and evil. At the ultimate level, I am confrtable saying there is no good or evil (or good = evil). I think it’s helpful not to conflate different levels. So the question “how can internal be the same as external?” doesn’t make sense at the relative level. At the relative level, of course internal is different than external. At the ultimate level, there is no external and internal (or internal = external). To gain understanding and experience at the ultimate level, I try to go prior to the distinction. I like inquiry questions like “from what does both internal and external arise?”. or “What is the source of both internal and external”? Or, “Where exactly does internal end and external begin”? The problem with categorizing things into “this” and “that” is any category is cut away from a nondual whole. It is a fragment of the whole. When one says “beautiful”, ugly appears. When one says “honest”, dishonesty appears. With joy brings sorrow. Just by saying “enlightened”, unenlightened appears.

Enlightenment is not a something that a person gets or becomes. In terms of lacking awareness. I would say an extremely drunk person.

@Paul92 Your mind is trying to interpret and create a story about what this means. It wants to control the narrative in the mind. Rather than let go and surrender, it will fight back by saying things like “this is awful, this is evil, we can’t go there”. Your mind is trying to claim understanding for terms like “nothing”. Yet, spiritual beings use this term differently than what you currently understand. You are catching a glimpse into some deeply profound insights. This isn’t some new truth that suddenly occurred. It’s been this way your entire life. It’s like realizing Santa Claus doesn’t exist and going into a depression that you won’t get any more presents. Yet, Santa Claus never existed and was never the source of the presents. Discover your True Self. It is an amazing journey. Beyond what you can imagine. The love for your mother and girlfriend goes much deeper than your mind can currently imagine. The mind will continue to think, it is the relationship to those thoughts that change. Right now, you strongly identify as being your thoughts. To see beyond that, start meditating and focus on the breath. Everytime a thought arises, label it as a “thought” and return to the breath. Eventually you will come to know that the real you is not your thoughts. There are other practices that relax the mind and allow for insights, such as yoga and listening to spiritual teachers - such as Lisa Cairns, she is very gentle.

@Paul92 This is a common reaction to the realization that the ego is an illusion. The self will resist and come up with all sorts of strategies to keep itself relevant and to control the narrative inside the head. Saying everything is meaningless, is itself assigning meaning. It’s not meaningful or meaningless. That the self is an illusion is to say it’s not what you thought it was. It’s not like you used to have a self and suddenly “lost” it. There hasn’t been a self your entire life and you’ve done just fine. That whole life you described that you love was without a self. Life after this realization is liberating. The joy, appreciation, wonder and curiosity go beyond what you can imagine. The realization just needs to mature. As well, there is an energetic shift toward self-less motivation. You will begin to want to do things not based on needy fears and insecuruties, but from a higher source. I would recommend starting a daily meditation practice and learn to observe thoughts that arise in the mind without judgement or criticism.

Microdosing boosts my creativity and ability to connect the dots in the big picture. I haven’t noticed any increase in focus. If you are questioning wether effects are due to placebo or microdose effects, then take a mini dose just above threshold so the effects are unquestionable.

Stating “our lives are empty of value” is itself a value judgement. You are judging life to be empty of value. The mind and body can assign any value it wants (including “no value”). My mind and body would judge touching a hot stove as “negative” and would be repulsed by it. If you don’t want to assign value, then go prior to the value judgement (including “no value”) and reside there. Conflict arises when the intellect tries to assign value or “no value” contrary to the value the mind and body are assigning. If the intellect tries to convince my mind and body that touching the hot stove has no value and it doesn’t matter if I touch it or not - there will be inner conflict because that's not what the mind-body is trying to communicate.

Because the mind is conditioned into perceiving a timeline.

@Yonkon I’d recommend doing a 30 day series of Yoga with Adrienne on Youtube. Each January she does a new series. Today is day one of the 2019 series (called “dedicate”). It's great for beginners.

Do thoughts arise in your mind? Do feelings arise in your body? Do you get hungry?. . .

I understand that the mind may interpret it that way. I’m referring to the direct experience of surrendering all control. Including all thought processes, all memories, all sensations and perceptions.

@Key Elements Gotcha ?

Perhaps the now is also an illusion, just a different flavor of dream.

Becoming aware of attachements and identification is not a soothing process. And surrendering control associated with those attachments/identifications is often terrifying and painful.

Yes, quite the paradox. Within the timeline, will you and everything else be exactly the same an hour from now? I don’t think so. The mind-body is dynamic and always changing moment to moment. If you are perfect now, how can a different you also be perfect an hour from now? You are perfect now as you continuously evolve as perfection toward perfection.

Would this be analogous to the description of subjective as “relative” and objective as “absolute”? And the merging of the two?

You are perfect in this and every moment. You are a work in progress toward perfection.

Hmmm, does this go back to the hunter story in which the enlightened being did not “see” the running deer appear and disappear?

You describe absolute unconditional perfection. There is also relative conditional perfection.

How can we determine whether this objective isness is being accurately perceived?

What is this objective “Manifest universe”? Can it be described in words?

Who/what is this “I” that is following the instructions of the “Voice”?