Carl-Richard

You beat your meat and sleep? Surely you do more things. You are on here after all. Describe what you do in a day.

Yet you wake up in the morning and eat food and start moving for some reason. What is the abstract extension of that expression? Meaning. You've simply deconstructed the idea of an universal form of meaning, or maybe you are dissatisfied with your current position in life and extrapolate this sense of meaninglessness to all of reality. Regardless, what you then need is to identify your personal form of meaning which is tied to your innate drives and capacities. What are you really good at that you feel naturally drawn towards, as naturally as waking up in the morning and eating food? Pursue that and grow in that. To say that meaning is something you create is not quite accurate. It's rather that you sometimes have to go out of your way to discover it.

What do you do in a day?

Translation: how have intellectually curious introverted people become more social? Have they? 😆 I've definitely learned how to not steamroll people with my peculiar interests, but rather try to find common ground, which for me would be tapping into Si a lot (I remember learning about MBTI and quite deliberately trying to do this), i.e. when somebody tells about a personal experience they have had (which seems to be most of socializing), try to tell them about a personal experience you have had that connects with theirs somehow. What comes very natural to me is to connect it to an abstract idea and then start lecturing about that idea, but people often don't like that. But that might just be a result of getting older and seeing what works and doesn't work in social situations and learning about MBTI and deciding to put some of the concepts into practice, not so much about Leo's ideas.

It's definitely a thing.

The biggest themes on the forum are probably Spiral Dynamics (a pretty obscure developmental theory), non-duality ("reality is One thing"), and systems thinking (thinking in a very abstract way — but don't ask too much about how; they will say you're over-intellectualizing and wasting your time 😃😃). These only partially overlap with Leo's main focus. Leo also has his own spin on spirituality (Alien Consciousness) which some pretend to understand but nobody actually understands. Then you have the classic conflation of personal solipsism ("my limited screen of sensory perception is the only thing that exist") with cosmic solipsism ("pre-sensory, trans-personal, unlimited consciousness is the only thing that exists", a.k.a objective idealism or non-duality). This never fails to make its appearance at least once every other thread in the spirituality section. Then you also have the conflation of epistemological nihilism ("I know nothing", or really just "I don't know how to use language" — the language game that cannot stop shooting itself in the foot) with non-duality. We surely talk a lot about ostensibly non-duality here. Then you have enlightened leftism ("leftism kinda good, conservatism kinda bad"), enlightened pickup ("women kinda this, women kinda that"), and enlightened personal development ("what does my horoscop- I mean Spiral Dynamics chart say about my life?"). As for my personal favorites of Leo's videos: 40 Signs That You Are Neurotic Understanding How Paradigms Work Understanding Absolute Infinity Spiritual Enlightenment - The Most SHOCKING Truth You'll Ever Hear How To Meditate - The No Bullshit Guide To Meditation

How is he so predictable?

Somebody who doesn't say they don't exist.

Nobody ate the soup. Nihilistic language game is a language game. It's possible to speak about enlightenment like a normal person.

Virtually every spiritual guru except Ramana went on the spiritual path. And Ramana awoke at a certain point in time. Neo-Advaita is a partial picture, and ironically it's a kind of technique. Different techniques are useful at different places on the path. Who?

Ah yes, the Neo-Advaita guru, the guru who was apparently always enlightened and never went on the spiritual path. Mmmmyes... More seriously, Neo-Advaita pointers are useful for some people, for example people who have been on the path for a long time and have developed an attachment to the techniques and could benefit from letting go of them. I addressed this problem earlier. However, other people on the path should of course continue using techniques. If you can't close your eyes and sit still for 10 minutes, letting go of the techniques is probably not the best option.

Because I've been close to what I've intuited as enlightenment. And it agrees with the general religious and scientific literature and opinions by contemporary gurus.

I think judging whether someone has had a "legitimate" awakening glimpse or not is not that important. Glimpses can vary in strength and profundity quite widely. What I think is more important is that many people make the mistake of having an awakening glimpse and then thinking they're enlightened. This is understandable, as especially one's first awakening (depending on the profundity) tends to lead to a lasting change of some kind, and it can be experienced as quite radical. However, enlightenment is usually much more radical than that and comes much later after many many glimpses. When the glimpses start happening by themselves and outside of any control or intention (and you're not on drugs), that is a sign you're getting closer to enlightenment. I also think this mistake becomes more prevalent when there are drugs involved, especially drugs like weed that you take regularly and makes you "more present". And it becomes even more prevalent when there are egoic drivers involved, e.g. you want to be enlightened to fix some problem.

When I think perception, I think the processing of sensory phenomena. When I think of Truth, I think truth beyond the senses, as the senses are limited. So no People who talk about solipsism usually get very hung up on the idea that other meat bags do not come with a limited sensory experience.

I would posit we're not talking about solipsism, but that is just me

Do what you can do to the best of your ability.

Word use indicative of the problem You had an insight, an intuiton, maybe a thought. Is that really what people mean by solipsism though? 🤔🤔

He probably went from being a person experiencing life to life experiencing a person 😆

Awakening is a radical but largely temporary experience of elevated consciousness or non-duality. Enlightenment is when the non-dual experience is your resting state.

That's because so many people don't talk about enlightenment but awakening No problem

😂 I love you

No. There are some things I currently don't want to let go of. Again, you might be unconscious of some of them. Some of them go very deep. For example, the very notion of doing things, of seeing another day, of being in control of your bodily movements and decisions, of not being insane, of having a life at all, must vanish. These are subtle attachments. And you might not appreciate how severe they are. The feeling of doing things, and removing that feeling, completely, forever, not as an idea but as a reality, is extremely radical. You will never make a choice ever again. 1-1.5 hour seated meditation session every day, all in a single sitting. If you want, make it two sessions (one in the morning, one in the afternoon). Another trick is to regularly listen to or watch videos of people with high levels of consciousness, particularly people with high shakti like Jan Esmann (he is a very special case). Video technology should not be underestimated for these things. However, it's useful to avoid spending too much of your day practicing or thinking about enlightenment, again to avoid fueling attachments too much. Be immersed in other activities as well, fully. You have to allow yourself time to rest and just be yourself (which you'll see in the next paragraph). Maybe attachment is a confusing term here. Let's put it this way: complete relaxation won't happen if you don't completely relax at some point. That means while you're using the technique (e.g. focusing on the breath during meditation), you should "stop" the technique when it's time to do so, when your consciousness is elevated to the right level, which is usually as you are about to enter the no-mind state. The technique is no longer useful at a certain point and it in fact becomes a hindrance for abiding/resting in that state of consciousness. Enlightenment is about bringing the elevated level of consciousness to your resting state, and if you don't allow yourself to rest at that elevated state, that won't happen. You might also find that over time, some techniques might simply stop being useful by themselves. For example, instead of focusing on the breath during meditation, you might find that simply resting with eyes closed becomes more conducive to the meditation.

Write 10 short sentences then.

Then it's definitely possible. The trick then is to elevate your consciousness to the point where you notice every attachment you have and how it creates a feeling of resistance. Once you encounter the resistance, you have the choice to keep resisting or let it go. Of course you always have that choice, but generally, you are unaware of the resistance, so you unconsciously keep resisting, or you don't want to let it go. Another subtle trick is that you eventually have to let go of the techniques you use to elevate your consciousness. There is no enlightenment with attachment to enlightenment (techniques or otherwise). The simplest way to do this is to meditate for select times during the day and that is your only practice. Then when you enter states of no mind, you let go of the practice. It doesn't matter if you use focused techniques, devotional techniques or self-inquiry. All of it causes some form of resistance if you're attached, and it's a big magic trick you have to pull off to get off at the right time and land in enlightenment.

Tech-death / progressive metal anthem.