Forestluv

I think you still have dualities and are conflating relative with Absolute. Absolute/Infinite Love is pretty straightforward. It includes Everything, which is the same as No Thing. There is no separate love of a self, narcissist, rock, pizza, me, you, flowers etc. That is all relative.

@Arkandeus You seem to be conflating absolute Self with finite self (distinguished by upper case "S" and lower case "s"). They are very different concepts. A narcissist is immersed in self-centeredness and nowhere near being the One Self. A narcissist may experience self love (lower case), which is a more immature understanding of love than unconditional Absolute Love (upper case). It's like asking "isn't a cat kind of like a bat because the words rhyme?" Terms like: God and god, Self and self, Love and love have different meanings depending on the stage of spiritual development.

@VioletFlame It's Friday night and I'm the only one here at work. I'm sitting in my office blasting your song and grooving to the spooky beauty.

@Winter I've always lived within two miles of school/work and would ride my bicycle. Only about a 10min. ride each way, so not much time. What I did at work depended on the stage of my career: whether it was as a grad. student, post-doc or prof. @Outer I could have only worked 40hrs, yet what would I do with all that free time? . My life and identity revolved around work. My motto was "Work Creates Work". The more work I did, the more work it created. More experiments to do, papers to publish and grant money to get. Plus, advisors put a lot of pressure on me to get results, publish and bring in money. Looking back, I think they could sense that I had weak boundaries, was a people-pleaser and could be manipulated to work longer. Also, there was a subconscious fear that I wasn't good enough and I had to work extra hard so they wouldn't kick me out of school. There was one point in grad school I was working looong hours to get a paper out. Another lab was catching up on my work and there was enormous pressure to publish before them (only the first lab gets to publish). I was so stressed I couldn't sleep or eat well. I was getting severe headaches and stomach pain. I told this to my advisor and he said "If all the pressure and stress is increasing your productivity it is a good thing". That's the type of environment I was in. There were also some really inspiring, passionate, exciting times as well - yet I wouldn't say that was the default.

Very nice. I love those moments. One thing that came to mind when I read your post is the experience of life prior to the thinking. I like how you said "trying to explain the unexplainable". That's perfect. I was so analytical about everything. I was afraid of letting go and being taken as a sucker if this was all bullshit. Yet, I also sensed that there was something I was missing in life and I yearned to discover what that was.

@AceTrainerGreen I spent many years conducting research related to cancer and tropical diseases. 70-80 hour work weeks were normal. Always after the next result, the next discovery, solving the next problem, getting the next publication, the next speaking engagement, the next grant, the next promotion. I never had children - they would have taken up too much time. I never got married - she would have wanted too much time. I pushed and pushed scientific research until I reached the terminal end - and it didn't look like what I thought or hoped it would. . .

@ivory Facing oneself with naked vulnerability can be uncomfortable. It seems super common for people to experience various forms of anxiety, struggle, discomfort, frustration, avoidance, a sense of losing one's mind etc. Yet through that, there is an ineffable stillness, peace and love within whatever is happening in the present moment.

Indeed. Most selfs will resist dying. It seems natural to me.

A nice poetic concept

Unfortunately, the "Just arrive without a path" strategy is not very effective for newcomers. I've never met anyone that "just arrived" without some form of a path. Generally, a self needs to search, learn, discover, integrate, let go, surrender and practice toward abiding One Consciousness. Newcomers can be told over and over again that they have already arrived, that there is nothing to seek and they are already whole and that they are the entire Universe. It just doesn't work. IMO, suggesting to a newcomer that spiritual practices / work along a path is unnecessary and leads to dead things is unhelpful and inaccurate. Every awakened being I've ever met or heard of had a spiritual path. They had to deconstruct and unlearn social conditioning of a self to realize and transcend the self. Even Buddha had a spiritual path. . . As well, one of the biggest traps at intermediate and advanced stages is the belief that "I have arrived and don't need a path of practice and work".

Self actualization involves a lot of practice and work, which can be very uncomfortable, anxious and painful. The self doesn't get anything, it is a total loss for the self. The self will struggle to maintain control as it dies. It's not like a trip to the amusement park in which we want to bypass traffic to get there quick, have some good experiences at the park and then get back to our lives. . . It's not like our bad habits and feelings will dissolve and only the good parts we like about our self remains. The whole illusion of the self dies - what the self considered good and bad both dies. Life as the self knew it is over.

I totally walked into that one ?

You say you have accepted there is no “I”, yet you speak from the perspective of a self. This is far more radical than you are aware of. It goes so far beyond logic, reason and objectivism. It comes prior to all the concepts in your mind. A rationalist will perceive both irrational and post-rational as irrational. It’s a formidable hurdle to get over, but it’s oh so worth the work.

I haven't heard of him. The thought just appeared in the ole noggin.

Yellow FTW!!

This is akin to Leo's hand exercise. Stare at your hand. Massage your hand. See and feel what is actual in the moment. Now put your hand behind your back and imagine your hand. Come to know what is actual and what is imagined. Most people conflate the two.

@GabeN It's not like a physical / scientific evidence type of thing. There is an energetic shift from seeking energy to finding/taming energy. After my first good look at the Ox, I sat dazed for hours. I was like "So thaaaaaaat's what those buddhists were talking about all those years". There was a knowing that needed no figuring out or verification. It just was. 5-meo-dmt is the best Ox bait available . . .

The video and statement is blue/orange looking at green.

I think you are assuming an external "god". I'd like to offer another set of "what ifs". . . What if Jesus was a human being that became fully enlightened and returned to society to teach others? This would be a stage 10 enlightened being with the Ox analogy. How would such an enlightened being be perceived by Bronze Age civilization? Well, in Spiral Dynamics terms, we are talking about civilization centered in purple/red. Mostly irrational, binary thinking modes of being. Could an enlightened being resonate with purple/red beings? I would imagine, yes. Could purple/red beings misinterpret higher level spiritual teachings? I would imagine, yes. Could an enlightened being appear threatening to the power structure of societal warlords and dictators? I would imagine, yes. Regarding the Ox. Who is this "us" that you think the Ox should come toward? Who is chasing the Ox? . . . The Ox story is a good analogy because most human minds are structured and conditioned to perceive duality within a timeline. There is me and the Ox. Over time, I shall seek, capture and tame the Ox. . . Well, why not just embody and be the Ox right here and now? Why not skip the epic journey / struggles and just wake up right here and now? One may need to go through their journey to discover the answer. . . Or you haven't embodied the Ox yet. . . Conceptual understanding needs to be integrated with direct experience to embody deeper levels. It doesn't sound like you've had a good look at the Ox. It sounds like you are imagining the essence of OXness as you walk along the path in search of the actual Ox.

That's a good question. I've only considered the relative human perspective. It's challenging to imagine consciousness from the relative perspective of a tree. . .

Hmmm. . . I am imagining there is One Consciousness, that fragmented itself into trillions of smaller consciousnesses and each has a self identity of that is separate from the whole. Then the name of the Game is that each fragment realizes it is within the whole. Perhaps a higher Intelligence, or Big Brain, set up that Game. I think it would be challenging to attain due to the evolution of the human brain and hundreds of years of infrastructure supporting separate self identities. But who knows, perhaps Enlightenment will "go viral".

Nice. . . Sometimes I ask my students: what percentage of the day are you immersed in stories of past and future? And what percentage is spent present with what is actually happening in the present moment? Then, I ask them to decide what percentages they would like their life to be like. So, if they say 90% past/future and 10% present moment - perhaps consider what life would be like if it was 50% past/future and 50% present. Always "being in the now" just doesn't resonate with them. It's some abstract idea that is impractical and unattainable. Yet, going from 10% in the Now to 50% in the Now is attractive to them. It's a start. . .