DocHoliday

@DrMobius Brilliant!

I realise that language is indeed a tricky and difficult tool to use in order to describe what I mean/meant here. There are certainly numerous valid and totally justified points of reasoning from all of you guys. What other way of things happening could there ever be? Surely, you could also say "everything happens as it can happen", but that's once again only referring to the sheer potential of how things can/could happen. But what I'm actually getting at here is the particular occurrence of things that actually "do happen". For example, when one person aggravates and ceaselessly insults another, eventually the one who's been insulted will punch the other one in the face. This happens because it must happen. On the other hand, in case the one who's being insulted is highly advanced in self actualisation and will not take the insults as seriously and decides to not punch him in the face - this also, happens because it must happen in this way, you see? Even vice versa if the self-actualised guy did punch the other guy in the face, that still happened because it must have happened this way. So, again, I'm not talking about the potential of things to happen but I'm talking about the actual act of the happening itself. This is what I mean when I said "things are as they are/everything is as it is". When a tree crashes onto my car, then I guess this is as it is and there's nothing changing that. Of course, one could come in with his (in this case absolute ridiculous and redundant) non-dual argumentation of "Well, it is and it simultaneoulsy isn't, so don't worry about it!". Fuck that, there is a tree rammed into the windshield of my car and that's how it is in this instance, so consequently, the tree falling onto my car happened as it must have happened, there's no way around that. Also, even though I did actually say in my opening post that "everything that could happen, will happen at some point (in consciousness)", I didn't really mean it in the sense that "absolutely everything just has to happen at some point" because in that statement the happening and non-happening of a particular event or occurrence is implied at the same time. So, even if something does not happen, this non-happening is still true to the statement "everything happens as it must happen". I apologize for phrasing it in such a weird way. Therefore, if something appears, it appears as it must appear and when something does not appear, it also does not appear, as it must.

@Serotoninluv That's right, that shit goes deep... that's what pretty much most of the times I'm trying to get across to people anyways.

Indeed a very beautiful video! You might also like this one...

I know that replying to this is kind of equivalent to beating a dead horse, but I'm going to do so anyway. You just don't understand what I'm saying here, that's why I was urging you to contemplate it for a while. In a sense my post was the most redundant post anybody could ever make because in it's essence it didn't really say anything. "You dont even care about the fact that you don't care", means what..? Exactly, you do care from time to time because it so irrelevant to you whether you do so or not. From time to time you do care about enlightenment and higher states of consciousness because, why not? You care about it because you think you can get something out of it, you think it will make your life better in some way and you think it will give you a one-up on everybody else who isn't enlightened, for what other reason would you do it? The pursuit of enlightenment and "higher consciousness" is one of the most egoic endeavours one could undertake. This is why when you simply don't care anymore whether you care or don't care, that is the point of true liberation. It just doesn't matter what you do or don't do because "life doesn't go anywhere". In that sense, @thesmileyone nihilism is what this will leave you with, but it's essentially nihilism taken to 110%, in the sense that all the negative connotations of nihilsim disappear and get converted in their counterpart: pure positivity. Yes, life is absolutely meaningless, yes, there is no point to life whatsoever, yes, it doesn't matter whether you shoot yourself right now or not, but, since we can realize that nothing at all matters, we might just as well care about things and take this game of life seriously. Taking it seriously is part of the game, but you have to come to terms with the fact that in the end, it just doesn't matter. The universe doesn't care about your enlightenment, it doesn't make you any differnt than the craziest, highly neurotic mass-murderer you could find. @SOUL So what? Whether you think that I am full of beliefs or not, does that change anything? And by the way, how could the fact that "everything is as it is" and "everything happens as it must happen" be a belief? It is the most basic and fundamental observation one could come up with (hint to you @Joseph Maynor , you master-observer of the universe:P), because if it would be a belief, there'd have to be a counter-belief to it to contrast it against, saying "everything does not happen as it must happen" and "everything is not as it is". For things to not happen as they must happen, there would need to be a plan accordingly to which "everything must happen" in the first place, thus, this plan is essentially represented by your ego and your desire to manipulate and warp reality accoringly to your preferred paradigm of the world. So, when you say that everything is in its essence perfect as it is, nobody gets offended or hurt by that, should they truly realise it for themselves. Reality just can't play out in any other way than it does. Every choice you make and every decision of yours is essentially already there, that is to say, it is predestined to some extent. The notion of free will therefore only occurs by the fact that reality is in it's essence absolutely infinite. Every choice you make and every decision of yours is essentially already there. @Mighty Mouse You've said it yourself there already. "Nothing as in without appearance." Yes, therefore it can take on any appearance it wants to take on - its possibilities of appearance are infinite. How could it be otherwise? "Nor does adding up countless finitudes ever amount to infinity" -> it's not necessarily about the adding up of it, it's about the mere possibility for the existence of finitudes and that the only possible way for finitudes to exist in the first place, is that they must be derived from the absolute infinite, that is by its nature boundless and includes all finitudes. You see, realitiy is so absolutely infinite that there can never exist anything "outside" of it, since that would make it finite and it would simply "break reality" - it's as if there'd be an "ERROR 404: universe.exe stopped working".

@ValiantSalvatore Yes, those who compete for status and rank are desperately trapped in their lower primal instinctual behaviour patterns, that's for sure. To me, it's just another branch of the survival game manifesting itself. Regarding your final question, yes, that's what I was referring to in my attempt to define the arising of status and rank, so when you get rid of your identification with your ego, then through that, the need to esablish rank or status completely disappears. That's what enlightenment is all about, realising that you are no differnt in any way than the person next to you or your prime minister or head of state or whoever - enlightenment makes everybody equal (as they already are by nature, but the majority of people just doesn't realise that because of self-deception).

@ValiantSalvatore Soooooo much text, dude. I've read like 85% of it hoping that you would arrive at some definitve point you'd want to make or at least some question that people could answer, but, as it seemed as if you wanted to know whether you can break out of the game of rank and status and all that and if there's a fast and effective way to do so, here's my take on that: yes you can "break out" of the game, but as Alan Watts already pointed out you can never quit it. Participating in modern day culture automatically makes you a part of that game, so if you didn't exactly live out in the woods all by yourself, there will always be that game of status and rank since our collective consciousness hasn't been able to evolve past that so far but what you can do is to recognize it for what it is - a game, just as everything else like politics, economy, education, profession or heritage is. It's all part of the ego, that's why people (have to) play it. Therefore, the only way to be less affected by that game, is to break down your ego and get rid of it as much as possible and build up compassion and empathy towards others. Competition and the illusion of status or rank are only then created, when you compare yourself to others, when you put yourself into contrast against others and therefore define yourself in relation to others. Thta's a big part of the ego - so, once you get rid of it, you're free from it.

@Outer It's kind of exactly what I was referring to in my prior explanation. Solipsism is the perspective one takes in which he believes that he is literally god, therfore, he thinks that his mind and only his mind is the creator of the world in which every other object and person resides. But since this is not the case because we only have ONE consciousness from which every individual "mind" or "ego" is derived, solipsism is in and of itself false - kind of.

@Outer Solipsism in my opinion destroys itself immediately because from my understanding, a solipsist believes that the entire world and all of reality is "only made for him" and that he literally is God and nobody else could be God as well, so that nobody else would be allowed to have that same thought of "Oh, wait, am I the only real being that is alive here?". But since many people share this world view, solipsism destroys itself because the very foundaion of solipsism would be that only one single human being would be granted to have this concept in order for it to work.

@Joseph Maynor Well, how could I possibly know this Joseph? I've experienced it myself and many others on their path towards enlightenment have too, so chances are quite high it will play out like this for him. Edit: It's the phase where you align yourself towards the middle-way, the Yin and Yang in harmony - both extremes equally represented. So, either it's that, or he might go through a differnt phase altogether, but based on his description it sounds quite similar to what this phase is like.

@Psyche_92 Yes this is a very common state or phase of fluctuation and oscillation. It will subside at some point but it varies in length individually, since it kind of represents the "last stand" of your ego - it's its final attempts to drag you back into it. In the end you will settle for the equilibrium.

@jjer94 I know that cycle between crying and laughing quite well myself...for me it started when I was really young, surprisingly, like when I was 8 or 9, I came home, sat down by the kitchen table and just started crying for no particular reason at all - the same happened when I was listening to a particular kind of music because I became so immersed, that I just kind of "lost myself" in it, just like Tyler in all the self-help groups; he is just letting go of his stories and conceptual frameworks - he surrenders a little tiny bit more everytime he cries (the laughing is then just the uprising from that purifying state, during which you catapult yourself back into life where it now appears so much more vibrant and alive).

YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB!! Why most of us have broken the first rule of fight club and what that entails as a sonsequence. / Why spirituality and enlightenemnt can't and won't conquer the world by storm. The resason why the first and second rule of fight club is to not talk about fight club, is because you mustn't introduce people to fight club who aren't ready for it. Spiritual masters and sages have done wisely in refusing disciples as long as they don't beg to be taken in by the master on the "grand secret". People who aren't ready to receive it either are completely crushed by it and it will destroy their lives (that's what's happened to Bob by the way), or, they will run a muck with it and distort the truth and twist it around accordingly to their needs and "own version of the truth". This is most likely what has happened to people we have prematurely informed about- and taken in on spirituality and self-realisation and it is a crucial mistake we have to become aware of in order to stop "putting the right means into the hands of the wrong people". This is the main differnece between the way ideologies work and how spirituality works: ideologies are forced upon people, so they either have to adapt to it, or face the consequences that go along with being a non-conformist. Spirituality on the other hand tends to behave like the man who wishes to catch butterflies, bot only sits down with his net until sooner or later a butterfly flies into his net by mere coincidence, fate or deliberate willingness and stays there, since the butterfly-hunter doesn't even make an attempt to keep the butterfly in his net. This is why the spiritual development of our collective consciousness can't transform simply over night. Just as Leo said it once in one of his episodes, an individual needs to naturally evolve through the stages of spiral dynamics one by one; so in just the same way the receptivity for spirituality has to evolve gradually by itself in a natural, unforced manner. For people who already are enlightened it can become difficult at times to withhold the fruits and benefits of enlightenment and to not take other people in on this "secret", due to his unbounded compassion towards others, yet he mostly doesn't realise the consequences that can bring to other people who aren't ready to receive it. So, the only differnece between the pratjeka-buddha and the boddhisatva is that the latter still takes in other people on the truth on non-duality as long as they prove to be ready for it and the first, just doesn't and refuses to teach and keeps his realisation to himself. If you consider yourself to be a boddhisatva, please keep this in mind as you go around presenting the Truth to other people around you.

@Girzo But it's sure gonna be lots of fun, that's for sure. And the effect will stack up once you can make other people more care-free as well. Would love to hear from you how it plays out!

@Girzo Glad to hear that! As a small bonus tip: try to catch yourself during your day-to-day activities and interactions with other people and just notice how a good laugh and more empathy towards others really brakes down any artificial barriers between them. Works like magic, I'm telling ya, if you can make people laugh, they will alomst do anything for you (and with you, together) - and I don't mean to say that in an exploitational manner.

@Samuel Garcia Yes you have to go through it. Thta's the important point - THROUGH it - you don't dwell in it. That's the thing they teach you in kong fu or some other kind of eastern martial arts, you gotta hit THROUGH the wall, not at it. Patience is important, and you need to have trust. Those two will get you through it, patience and trust - trust that'll be over sooner than you think. I've read this in the thread about enlightenment one-liners and cetus56, I believe, posted this marvellous quote where he said "I've never met a man who gave me more trouble than myself". So, there you go. Sooner or later you will come to terms with the fact that there is nobody and nothing "out there" that causes anything that arises inside you, it's all you. I hope this helped you some more, but let me know if you have any additional questions or obstructions that confuse you.

@Crauli Ah, now we can clearly see what you mean. Nice idea, but that won't change the fact that enlightened people are never activists of any kind - not really, unless they are the main activist who started a particular movement, but other than that, enlightened people never actually follow other people. They are the ones who lead, when it comes to true leadership.

@Crauli Sorry, but there's just not that much poetic about it. If you can't properly explain what you want or what you mean, than most likely nobody else on this forum will take the time to decode and decrypt it.

@Crauli Look, whether you think I'm enlightened or not really doesn't bother me and certainly nobody else either, but when you're going about looking for people to support your vision you might as well wanna explain it and elaborate on it a little more than just putting up one-liners.

What?!

@Crauli That is presupposing that you yourself are enlightened, since other enlightened people would then completely understand to follow your lead, isn't it? Truly enlightened beings don't care about anything anymore really, because they are no longer afraid of death. As long as you wanna fight for something and keep struggling to reach something...that's neither enlightenment nor will anybody who is enlightened support that cause.

@Crauli You serious, bruh? Enlightened beings don't really care that much about ecology, they actually care a lot more about the people who mess it up, so that the problem gets fixed by the root, ya know? And enlightened people especially don't "fight" for anything at all for that matter...

I really love this video, not just because my signature kind of replicates it, but because I think it reminds everybody who gets very serious in this work that life isn't always as serious as we make it out to be. Furthermore, I can relate to it a lot, since my "breakthrough enlightenment" experience was accompanied by the deepest and most heart- and mind-melting laughter you could imagine. Since then, I pretty much always carry a slight smile or smirk on face, especially when I run into people who are so deeply immersed in their negative thoughts an feelings, because I can always see my self reflecting in them during the time when I was just like them.

@egoless Yep, seems just absolutely fine to me, that’s how it goes. I just loved that period myself, it‘s so fascinating. Keep us informed about your progress buddy!