DocHoliday

@Faceless Fragmentation of what? The ego, or the self? This would have to mean that when full integration, contrary to fragmentation, has taken place time would no longer be a manifestation?! I mean sure, when you completely re-integrate into absolute nothingness after death, then time most certainly isn't an issue any longer (seems like there's a pun), but as long as we aren't dead "physically", time does remain relevant and "important" to some degree.

I think you meant slower, right? When there's less information to "digest" and process, just as in sleep, time goes by faster, doesn't it? Regarding the mere subjectivity of the same time span, this is where it gets interesting if we connect it (the subjectivity) to the degree of temporary ego or the amount of applied thought, because that's why I made the exemplified connection to "the state of flow", wherein time is losing all of its relevance. It would also be pretty interesting to hear from someone who has experience with psychadelic substances because you generally hear that trips can last for a considerable amount of hours, even up to a full day and whatnot - so I'd be curious to know how time is perceived during a strong trip or if it is even perceived at all anymore, just like in an intense "state of flow".

@Shakazulu Yeah, there's a lot of truth in that.

Damn, now the coin really dropped for me, right there. Yes, of course...! Time is just another appearance so it's destined to change and vary in differnt, relative ways. That really makes a lot of sense. Thanks a lot for that clear description. I just somehow wasn't able to make the proper connection between time and appearances, since I'd generally only regard "material" things as appearances so time slipped right through, due to its immaterial nature. But of course it's only another appearance.

@FirstglimpseOMG Could you explain what exactly you mean by cognitive dissonance and why time is dependent on it? I agree that time could very well fall away as a construct and concept, although just so much that we simply acknowledge and realise its surreality and illusory nature, since we still need it, just as you stated it in your example below, as a useful concept and construction to meet up and navigate ourselves through reality. There is only this infinite now, since you can never experience anything else anyway. "Tomorrow" will also be experienced in the same way you're experiencing this very moment right now - in the present moment. That's why past and future are simply conceptual, linguistic implementations for our human experience that we use to describe predictions and memories with. Although conceptual, they're still highly useful.

@Shakazulu So what's your explicit point you want to make here?:) Is it agitating you that you don't find enough time to do those things, or did you just want to make an observational statement?

Well, from all the RSD guys I've seen so far and studied more or less, he's certainly the one with the most experience in the field besides Tyler. I always felt like his approach is (obviously) a lot more mature and grown-up due to his age and he will give you more precise and accurate information from a differnt angle, so to say. Question is, why are you asking? Do ou want to attend a seminar of him or why are you interested in him? Because if you only wanna watch the videos, you can definetely learn from every RSD guy and combine the differnt perspectives.

@FirstglimpseOMG Good one! You can clearly see that her message is coming from a place of self-realisation. What I love most about it, is the way in which she presents herself and the matter she's talking about, because the presentation is in such a non-confrontational way and it isn't trying to be edgy or whatever. This is what's needed the most in our contemporary spiritual community, because so many people are seemingly trying to get spirituality across in a chellenging and "I've got a one-up on the universe and everybody else"-sort of manner.

@pluto So what would that be?

@FirstglimpseOMG They surely are Let it sink in deeper and keep surrendering to it, then Truth will come to you.

@FirstglimpseOMG I gotta say, this is the first time I'm responding to someone else's post about non-duality and enlightenment where he is asking for further clarification, so I have to say that I, personally, find it difficult and most importantly dangerous to advise others on this topic and their journey because I have the notion that most of the times people will only become more mislead by even more waypoints or guidances. But, what I can tell you is that you don't need to distinguish between "ordinary" consciousness and "higher" consciousness, that's why I highlighted your sentence. Non-duality will reveal to you that there is no particluar difference between them, what you're experiencing right now this very second is it, it's all that there is, ever was and ever will be. Elightenment, to me, is just the degree to which you can realise this and distance "yourself" from it, meaning how much can you depersonalize your subjective experience, so that you become free of egoic limitations and boundaries and simply "let the moment be as it is". That's why reality is a strange loop - you depersonalize it to such a degree that it becomes personal again, but now, you simply don't cling to it anymore, your identification with it has vanished. So, even when you don't let it be as it is, that is still the experience of the Absolute - that's why you cannot escape it or attain it, because it's always there. You're free, bruh. All the time...

@Leo Gura Exactly, that's why silence (especially verbal silence -> just shutting the fuck up for a while and keeping all the thoughts inside) is such a crucial stepping stone that many just can't implement over a longer period of time that would exceed their personal boundary - people just don't go far enough with this I think. For me, personally, listening to music all day long was what did it for me I guess (that is to say shutting up and keeping thoughts and mental chatter to yourself), although all my enlightenment experiences weren't even attached to the desire or goal of becoming enlightened, so to say. I discovered the entire field of self-help and self-actualization all post-enlightenment, therefore I can only support Peter Ralston and everyone else who says: "Let go of the concept of enlightenment, whatever you think you know about it, forget it". Because, of course, if you don't, you will get completely entangled in it, which is probably where all the vague- and pseudo-spirituality comes from - people just believing stuff or taking it on pure faith and thus, creating their own little spiritual realm of what they think is truly real and tangible.

@Danielle @cena655 I think in terms of the "staticness" of this, it varies with every person individually. I experience the exact same thing, that I always go to bed quite late (2-3am) and many times wake up at 6 or 7am completely rested and ready to go again and this hasn't changed since 8-10 months when it first occurred. But I have to admit, this can actually be just a short phase that you go through, as I've also experienced this many times prior to my current state of sleeping patterns.

@Leo Gura Yes, that's so on point. Many of us like to distract themselves with all kinds of labels and distinctions, not realising that they are exactly what prevent us from "seeing" the world as it is. We have to learn to pay less attention to all the small and smaller distinctions and not get hung up on them and much rather take in all of our sensations and experiences holistically. A metaphor that I like to use is that we have become more and more interested in the differnt layers of the onion, rather than acknowledging the onion as a whole. Once we have experienced the wholeness (and oneness) of everything, then further distinctions and mind-games become so irrelevant. I mean, that's exactly what was meant by one of the quoutes in the beginning of Leo's video "Understanding Meaning, Purpose & Value", saying "Life is so utterly meaningless, it's meaningful". See, it just doesn't matter how you slice up reality and how many times you do so, in the end, everything is just as it is, it won't change.

@star ark Yes, this instinctual behaviour is an interesting thing to look at. That's why I was hypothetically connecting the degree of ego to the subjective experience of time, because in case you have ever been in a really intense "state of flow" (you know what I mean), time was not noticeable that strongly anymore, probably it wouldn't even occur to somebody that time is even relevant at that point any longer; at least that's what I can say in retrospect to the intense experiences of flow. Because in a state of flow, even humans act so much more "instinctual" and "intuitive", since there is just no more thought, i.e. lesser to no ego at all, and only action.

That's a really nice way to put it, I like that.

@Nahm I have to admit, right now I'm having a hard time making proper sense of what you're trying to say but maybe later I'm able to formulate something of significance to this... although what strikes me the most, is the connection you made between the absolute being the speed of light and us "being it", and therefore being able to "step outside of the illusion". This sounds so weird to me and I wonder what purpose that would serve us to "step outside the illsuion", you know? What are you actually referring to with this?

@Maxx Not at all unsatisfying, I totally understand what you mean Non-duality is no mystery to me, this is why (yet again) I was not so concerned about whether there is time manifesting itself in some way or not, but I was merely curious about the individual experience of "time" - how it comes about that sometimes it feels longer or dragged-out and sometimes shorter as if it would fly by, you see? That's all. In my personal experience there is no more strong connection or boundedness to the experience of time, that is to say, the implementation of the "ever present now" (even though also that is of an illusory nature of course) has been successfully established. Yet, we still happen to have our measurment of conceptual time (which is of course nothing else but rhythm), so in some way there still is a certain experience of time in the sense that I'm obviously still aware of "the passing of time" (the rhythm of day and night) and so on , which is by its nature surely highly relative. And exactly how this relativity of time comes about is what is so fascinating to me.

That's an interesting thought. But what differnece would it make to you? Your fundamental perception of the "outside world" would....oh wait, well if it would be flat, you could grab "stuff" that is seemingly a lot further away from you like a tree in the distance or a car on the road or whatever. But since we can't really do that, I think that proves that our visual representation of the world is in fact truly 3-dimensional. But please correct me if I'm wrong here.

@Joseph Maynor I see what you mean with your question, although I don't tend to merely assume anything. If I did, I could obviously say anything I want, so I'm not making assumptions here, my basis is simply a quite peculiar notion of how things could be. But sure, "what is time?", that's the essential question here, or more precisely "how is time?".

@Maxx Well, do you perhaps have more information on the deeper nature of time? Seems like you know more about this, could you share it?

@star ark I'd say that animals can surely feel pain or pleasure, just as we humans can, I mean it's been shown that even plants exude symptoms of stress and agitation when they are being cut or teared apart... And I would agree that (measurable=illusory) time is only possible through the self-awareness of awareness itself (that is to say humans), because if you wouldn't have this kind of self-awareness, you were not able to attach meaning to certain phenomena or sensations. Therefore, it sounds implausable to me that animals would even differentiate and distinguish between certain emotions and sensations and thus, literally create time by applying thought and distinction to said sensations and phenomena. See, when there are no distinctions (by thought), everything really is truly One for you and illusory by nature, since the questioning or the act of scrutinising anything wouldn't even arise for you - therefore, time is not an issue for animals. I'd also say that this is why young children and toddlers at times are so oblivious to certain sensations or stimuli (especially time) because they just haven't made that distinction yet, they're still much more "in the pure flow of consciousness", contrary to us adolescents and adults who have been successfully fucked by our egos and society at large to make all of these further and finer distinctions between things to which we all attribute a distinct and particular meaning - that we now have to unravel and undermine on our way towards enlightenment, you see? That's the whole deal.

I see what you did there... What a good thing that all of eternity is at our disposal, right?

@Nahm You wanna play the enlightenment-game with me now?:P You know all the answers to your questions, so why do you ask me ?

@Nahm Saying that time is relative to illusion, to which I agree of course, what that would make me in this case, would be pure illsuion as well, obvioulsy. But in terms of the pure Absolute and the Relative, we surely have to distinguish. Saying that this makes me also just illusion does not need to mean that just because time is also illusory that "I am time", or something along those lines. As I've said, my personal experience of time is still there, it's still individual and relative but I'd say that the stronger our alignment to Absolute Infinity and consciousness becomes (most noteworthy in the events of enlightenment), the more absolute time becomes and therefore, feels as if it flies by.