snowleopard

@Mighty Mouse Well 'enlightened' is with inverted commas. Indeed, the Divine self-perpetuating Dream has no point of origin or end, whether its characters are 'asleep' or 'awake.'

I'd suggest that any such 'state' defies any defining or description of it -- language being inherently dualistic.

I'm not surprised

@Mighty Mouse For sure, it is a question of perspective. Yin and yang are equally integral, however, like an tide ebbing and flowing, there are times when one or the other dominates the cultural landscape. I'm not saying it isn't a natural phenomenon, and ultimately it balances out. Yet the pendulum swing is inevitable.

@Outer The patriarchal paradigm is the current societal construct and ethos wherein the masculine aspect is predominantly in control. Of course it's a construct, as is any ethos. Nonetheless, any ordered collective society is based on some kind of paradigm, and they all reach a point where a shift to a new construct is inevitable, the more the individual expressions of Awareness expand within the collective. Even an 'enlightened' society would still be based on a paradigm -- it would just be recognised as a convenient construct needed to determine the rules of engagement in the realm of relational experience, as opposed to being an extension of exclusive egoic identification. In other words, the dream won't end, it's just no longer taken to be not a dream.

@Angelo John Gage I tend to prefer the interpretation of the original 'Lucifer' mythos and meaning -- as opposed to the perhaps adulterated judeo-christian version, from wiki: ... "In classical mythology, Lucifer ('light-bringer' in Latin), Phosphorus (same meaning in Greek), Eosphoros ('dawn-bringer' in Greek) was a personification of the morning star as a male figure bearing a torch, 'the fabled son of Aurora and Cephalus, and father of Ceyx'. There is almost no legend about the Lucifer of classical mythology, but he was often presented in poetry as heralding the dawn." Leo's is just another voice now bespeaking that legend of tomorrow

Damn ! ... I look forward to dancing in the rain now and then

Safe to assume that the self-perpetuating dream expression of Leo will still be taking a crap at some point, and let's trust that it won't be shared on youtube !

I know that feeling, although it's like a pause without duration, if that makes any sense, because in the absence of the experience of the illusion of time there can be no duration, not even a fraction of a millisecond. Spira attempts to explain it, but of course any explanation is also trapped in the illusion of time, and so boggles the time-bound mind ...

@cetus56 "Eternity is in love with the productions of time" ~ William Blake

@Deep Time being illusory, if there is no experience of it, then there's zero duration of it between one conscious experience and the next, and so when was there unconsciousness?

I suppose it depends on what is defined as shocking. I find that the internet-fuelled homogenisation and globalisation of culture is now so pervasive that it is becoming quite challenging to find such a contrasting culture 'shock'. Perhaps in those rare remaining isolated pockets of rainforest or outback where there is still some semblance of a hunter-gatherer society, along with their shamanic paradigms. Beyond that, maybe there is still enough of a contrast between western and eastern worlds that it could be considered mildly shocking ... but better get moving fast if you want to want to experience what's left of it.

Setting aside the cultural baggage of the 'L' word, Being is in essence Divine Love, but it is greatly distorted, conditioned and preempted by the egoic overlay. To 'master' it, so to speak, is to simply divest it of those veils of limitation -- albeit, I'm not sure that is ultimately possible while there remains any concessions to 'self'-limitation within the maya masquerade. Love's limitation seems to be a trade-off, or a sacrifice, a price that must be paid, for the sake of experiencing life. Nonetheless, that ideal expression of Love, however distorted and elusive it may be, perhaps may be the ultimate point of it all -- like mastering an art, within the limiting context of the tools one has to work with.

@Charlotte From experience, the prolonging and the enabling of the suffering will only continue until such time that it becomes so unbearable that one is forced to come to terms with it. No-one else can determine when that point is reached. Ultimately, getting at the root of all suffering, will eventually resolve the other attachments and self-deceptions that stem from that root. Until such time, it's just some suffering self-identity leading and/or following another suffering self-identity into its inevitable demise.

Maybe God asks why the fuck not?!

@Nathan 'You' don't need to help those 'others'. As individual expressions of all that is, everyOne is actually playing their unique part, and following their unique path, in the self-perpetuating Dream, however it may appear otherwise. Thus everyOne must find their own way. At best one can be an example to follow, a guidepost on the journey, so to speak, which other individuals may or may not pay heed to, if so inclined. And meanwhile, if it is your unique calling to feel compelled to try to alleviate some suffering, and offer some comfort, then it will come naturally and effortlessly, as a mother offers a breast to an infant, without any saviour-like expectations, or out of any need to fill the void of emptiness.

Masochist !

@JustinS Isn't it just the difference between desperately seeking with some ill-defined expectations and identifications attached, rather than wondrously expressing/exploring the Divine dreamtime ... with no actual dichotomy between diviner and dream ... all there ever is, has been, or ever will be?

@Mighty Mouse Ooops, didn't catch that 'here' typo ... Maya is a bit dozy in the early morning tropical heat.

Is that dreamt up, or you been pillow-talking with Maya? I hear she's just Lila dressed up as some seductive temptress ... best experinced naked IMHO

Something other than an individual expression of all that is

@Psyche_92 They all seem like superimpositions of that which can dream any state. It just seems an individual expression of all that is, until it is further defined and locked-in as something other than that.

@Dodo Well, that belief too is allowed ... it's unconditional that way. But if it were true without exception then there would be no cultural evolution whatsoever. It all begins as an idea construct ... aka, a belief.

Clearly you've never been to the United Arab Emirates. But even if born as an hunter-gatherer in the Outback, where money is not factor in the cultural ethos, and isn't equated with happiness, there is nothing that precludes one from transcending that ethos. Granted, it may not be easy, but it is certainly not implausible. However, again, most seem to indubitably fall into the prevailing construct, and never really question that it can be transcended. Not that there is necessarily anything inherently wrong with that, if the construct isn't one of suffering.

@Dodo What conditions was I born into? True enough, if one is born and indoctrinated into a default cultural ethos then it can appear that one is hopelessly at the mercy of those conditions. The ones that break free of that ethos are the ones that question it and believe that they are not at the mercy of it. However it seems that most remain at the mercy of the default ethos. But that too is not a law.