Enlightenment is much rarer than most expect

[Someone here]

11 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

No seriously, my face is on here.

Link it.

[UnbornTao]

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, Jodistrict said:

What I see on forums dominated by men is mostly intellectual head tripping.  The mistaken notion that awakening is an intellectual achievement that makes you smarter than the rest of the class.  I don’t see much discussion of suffering or heart.  Trying to come up with a definition is just what you would expect from the head. 

Are just realizations of the ego, flat, without depth. When the point is precisely transcending the ego . But the egos do a kind of splitting and imagine they are enlightened because their structure has changed. Now they are not matter, they are consciousness; there is no self, there is emptiness; there is no reality, there is dreaming. All of that is the same matrix of the structured mind functioning in a different structure.

[Miguel1]

Most people here haven't even mastered their survival, including me. Forget about enlightenment.

[UnbornTao]

14 minutes ago, Miguel1 said:

Most people here haven't even mastered their survival, including me. Forget about enlightenment.

Why separate them? It's a false dichotomy and an excuse.

It's best to eliminate whatever notions and ideas we may have of enlightenment. I suspect you're holding it like a sort of ideal or fantasy.

Monks still have to clean up, cook, and maintain the monastery, while pursuing enlightenment.

[Ishanga]

30 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Why separate them? It's a false dichotomy and an excuse.

It's best to eliminate whatever notions and ideas we may have of enlightenment. I suspect you're holding it like a sort of ideal or fantasy.

Monks still have to clean up, cook, and maintain the monastery, while pursuing enlightenment.

I think what he means, could be wrong, is that if one super concerned with survival, accumulation process of collecting food, money security, residence/housing, and other basic needs, then Enlightenment is out of touch for them, even though it is always there as a Potential to be tapped into or explored.

Monks still have cores to do because we still have to deal with the body and mind while pursing or attaining Enlightenment for the most part.  Ramana spent lots of time in a cave, didn't do any chores or was concerned with his Bodies condition, enough so that magots were eating his body up, until they got him out of that situation... In a normal Householders situation we cannot do that, we have mouths to feed, and stuff to do, but deeper down we know our direction and true purpose here....

[UnbornTao]

@Ishanga In your example, it was after his major breakthrough, not before. He was just a normal teenager living a normal life.

If one doesn't care now, then such reasons are merely excuses - "Someday, maybe, when the right conditions are met." There's no such thing as the right conditions; it's true now. Maybe you can't do an intensive monthly retreat at home, but you can always contemplate, regardless of life circumstances. And life doesn't stop, until it does. 

Edited Sunday at 04:22 PM by UnbornTao

[Ishanga]

2 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

@Ishanga In your example, it was after his major breakthrough, not before. He was just a normal teenager living a normal life. If one doesn't care now, then these types of reasons are used as an excuse. "Someday, maybe, when the right conditions are met." No such thing as right conditions, it's true now. You can always contemplate regardless of life circumstances. 

It's True Now as a Potential only!  If One is not in Experience of this Potential, then it is not really True Subjectively.. So Objectively (me looking at You and saying You have the Potential of Enlightenment!), and You not in Experience of it and saying I am not close to it..

Of course in the beginning we have "Ideas" of Enlightenment, what it means, what it is, etc from outside sources, this is just the past masters and those that experienced it sharing, this is good for Us, its gives us hope and a method to a way out of "not knowing"..  Its like this in everything in Human Life, we learn from the past and should become Wise via that process, most do not for a variety of reasons!!

[Carl-Richard]

12 hours ago, Someone here said:

Link it.

Your laziness means you suffer.

[Carl-Richard]

13 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

 What I tried to communicate is not what you have understood.

Try harder.

[Breakingthewall]

On 9/11/2025 at 0:46 AM, Breakingthewall said:

Anyway, about enlightenment. Here they say, enlightenment is realizing that the self isn't real, or that you are God, or that you are infinite love. Those are just realizations of the ego. The ego knows that the self isn't real. Good for that ego. But enlightenment is being the direct substance of unfiltered reality, being one with the dance of existence and letting yourself be permeated by its vitality. Be open, without limits in heart and mind, flowing without resistance. Without ego. Breaking down the separation between observer and observed. Then being pierced by the ultimate nature of what you are, of reality, and to be one with it. Sat chit ananda. That which is, shining in its glory. The absolute limitless in its abysmal opening. There is nothing else to know, it's the fundamental, the being that is and that is everything. The fact of being is always everything. But of course, just one second after that I was open to it, I'm closed to it. Then a empty feeling appears. I know that the absolute emptiness alive blah blah. But who knows that, is the ego. If the ego is here, the door is closed. 

 

13 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Try harder.

Read again, it's simple in structure, not so simple to do, but possible

[UnbornTao]

Actual listening is much rarer than people expect.

[AerisVahnEphelia]

 op is not enlightened on what even is enlightment, it can't be helped

[AerisVahnEphelia]

On 09/11/2025 at 2:27 PM, Miguel1 said:

Most people here haven't even mastered their survival, including me. Forget about enlightenment.

You never going to master something that is an illusion

[Miguel1]

@AerisVahnEphelia Let’s see again how you feel when you are starving to death.

Edited 20 hours ago by Miguel1

[AerisVahnEphelia]

2 hours ago, Miguel1 said:

@AerisVahnEphelia Let’s see again how you feel when you are starving to death.

 immortal and always fed well, thank you for caring
 

[Inliytened1]

On 11/6/2025 at 0:19 AM, VeganAwake said:

For example, I have only come across maybe 2 members on this forum since around 2018 that even remotely reflect a clear, solid recognition if you will.

And even on YouTube, I have only noticed maybe 7 total in the last 6 or 7 years. Even more interesting is that most can seem very convincing for a while, but then fall back into the dream story/matrix rather quickly.

See, its not an achievement or something that can be worked towards with spiritual practices. 

In fact, just the very knowledge of there being an achievable goal in the future called Enlightenment, seems to be the biggest spiritual/religious trap of all time. The very act of pursuing it only reinforces the illusory experience of being a separate individual that can one day become whole and completely satisfied! But self illusions for some apparent reason, never become satisfied. They endlessly seek and long for something better in the future. 

Self illusion = Unsatisfactory experience.

Either the self illusion ends or it doesn't. Nothing can be done. Its completely hopeless in that sense.

Ultimately it doesn't matter at all.

Why? because the individual labeling things with a scale of importance,..........Isn't Real!

❤️ 

This is false.  You know nothing of enlightenment.  It's very real and it is not conceptual or just the concept that there is no self to be enlightened.  If you understood the difference between concept and actuality you might have a shot. But you don't.  This is the problem with you neo-advaitans.  You've turned it into a religion.  It is not.  It is actual spirituality. 

Edited 9 hours ago by Inliytened1

[Ramasta9]

The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao.

So... its better to drop it.

 

[VeganAwake]

7 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

This is false.  You know nothing of enlightenment.  It's very real and it is not conceptual or just the concept that there is no self to be enlightened.  If you understood the difference between concept and actuality you might have a shot. But you don't.  This is the problem with you neo-advaitans.  You've turned it into a religion.  It is not.  It is actual spirituality. 

This is a great example of how a self illusion reacts when its belief system is challenged or threatened!

It attempts to discredit the threat at all costs.

See, if you can kill the messenger, you don't have to take seriously the implications of the message. 

It's just a lazy survival tactic of an insecure self illusion.

Maybe the self illusion will be seen through over there, maybe not. Either way it doesn't matter because that individual isn't real.

It lives in a dream story/matrix where meaning, purpose and value are inherently important.

❤️ 

[VeganAwake]

4 hours ago, Ramasta9 said:

The Tao that can be told is not the Eternal Tao.

So... its better to drop it.

 

Everything is the Eternal Tao including the attempts to use words to point or tell.

It's not somewhere else, it's everything.

That what nonduality is pointing out.

There isn't a "not that" to point at "what is that" ❤️ 

The separation is an illusion 🫶