Is "awakening" just discovering metacognition?

[Joshe]

It seems spiritual experiences are state shifts marked by metacognitive realizations. But this is not usually groundbreaking or earth-shattering for those who are  naturally highly metacognitive. 

Someone who naturally operates with high metacognition hears stories of "awakening experiences" and thinks "wait, you mean you didn't already notice that you were having thoughts? You couldn't already observe your emotional reactions as they arose? You never thought to question the stories you were telling yourself about who you are?"

When someone has lived 30 years identified with their ego suddenly realizes, "If I can see the thought, I cannot be the thought." and thinks that is a breakthrough, a highly metacognitive person feels like they're getting excited about discovering their own thumbs. lol.

What if the spiritual seeker's "profound realization" is just the introverted intuitive kid's everyday life? How can we know?

What if the metacognitive space is the substrate of spirituality and "spirituality" is simply a matter of exploring, reconfiguring, adding and/or subtracting in that space?

Edited yesterday at 01:32 AM by Joshe

[Hojo]

@Joshe No but meta cognition is required to awaken. Its kinda like the universe is farming identities. You start with nothing form an identity question the identity then realize nothing again. It is exactly like returning to a child point of view. When I had my awakening my vision was like a curtain blowing in the wind and I was like bro I remeber seeing this when I was a kid in the back of my dads car.

The child hasn't formed an identity yet tho. Awakening comes after forming an identity. Cause the universe is farming them.

Edited Monday at 11:29 PM by Hojo

[Human Mint]

Good for you for making the question. But no, it is not that. It is realizing that you're God creating Reality in this moment. That's really metacognition, not just being aware of thoughts. Being proficient at spotting thoughts is very good for achiving emotional mastery and not getting pulled by petty things. Awakening is an emotional peak, there is nothing like it. It is not casual, it is the most important moment that could exist.

Please do not dismiss my answer. Verify it for yourself, you are God.

[Inliytened1]

15 minutes ago, Joshe said:

It seems spiritual experiences are state shifts marked by metacognitive realizations. But this is not usually groundbreaking or earth-shattering for those who are  naturally highly metacognitive. 

Someone who naturally operates with high metacognition hears stories of "awakening experiences" and thinks "wait, you mean you didn't already notice that you were having thoughts? You couldn't already observe your emotional reactions as they arose? You never thought to question the stories you were telling yourself about who you are?"

When someone has lived 30 years identified with their ego suddenly realizes, "If I can see the thought, I cannot be the thought." and thinks that is a breakthrough, a highly metacognitive person feels like they're getting excited about discovering their own thumbs. lol.

What if the spiritual seeker's "profound realization" is just the introverted intuitive kid's everyday life? How can we know?

What if metacognition IS the spiritual space and "spirituality" is simply a matter of exploring, reconfiguring, adding and/or subtracting in that space?

No.  Its not. Right now you specifically believe you are the self. 

Awakening is realizing that was an illusion.  It is mystical. 

[Joshe]

19 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

No.  Its not. Right now you specifically believe you are the self. 

My default mode is observer operating within metacognitive space. 

When I dissolve the observer, I have direct experience of the metacognitive space itself. It's just one step away and it doesn't seem like anything magical or mystical because I'm already in that space, just with narration and content, which can be dropped if I want, but I don't see the point because it just makes it empty and neutral. 

[Joshe]

41 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@Joshe No but meta cognition is required to awaken. Its kinda like the universe is farming identities. You start with nothing form an identity question the identity then realize nothing again. It is exactly like returning to a child point of view. When I had my awakening my vision was like a curtain blowing in the wind and I was like bro I remeber seeing this when I was a kid in the back of my dads car.

The child hasn't formed an identity yet tho. Awakening comes after forming an identity. Cause the universe is farming them.

Interesting perspective. 

[Joshe]

39 minutes ago, Human Mint said:

Good for you for making the question. But no, it is not that. It is realizing that you're God creating Reality in this moment. That's really metacognition, not just being aware of thoughts. Being proficient at spotting thoughts is very good for achiving emotional mastery and not getting pulled by petty things. Awakening is an emotional peak, there is nothing like it. It is not casual, it is the most important moment that could exist.

Please do not dismiss my answer. Verify it for yourself, you are God.

I should have been more explicit. I meant "metacognitive space", not simply thoughts about thoughts. I meant the space the realization those thoughts about thoughts occur in. 

I suppose the term might just be "awareness", but I feel that's a loaded term with too much baggage. Experientially, "metacognitive space" makes more sense to me. 

[Hojo]

@Joshe There was a video I posted about digital aliens farming identities for currency and I beleive its kinda like that. The aliens can manifest whatever they want and everything is free but they can't manifest identities unless they live the life and farm the identities like farming bitcoin, the bitcoin isn't a bitcoin unless you complete the algorithm, once the algorithm is farmed the bitcoin becomes like God, a whole and unique thing, when the bitcoin is farmed it gets realized that its not the content of the bitcoin but an identity of ' bitcoin'. When your identity sees God 'itself as the identity' it can be uploaded into the mainframe and other digital aliens can purchase the identity from you.

Edited yesterday at 12:27 AM by Hojo

[Michal__]

12 minutes ago, Joshe said:

My default mode is observer operating within metacognitive space. 

When I dissolve the observer, I have direct experience of the metacognitive space itself. It's just one step away and it doesn't seem like anything magical or mystical because I'm already in that space, just with narration and content, which can be dropped if I want, but I don't see the point because it just makes it empty and neutral. 

You would feel like you're tripping 24/7 if you truly saw thoughts as just thoughts.

[Hojo]

@Michal__ Thats how you are supposed to live normally. Society tells you different. I was watching a Mexican spiritual person and he directly said you she feel like you are on drugs 24/7. Like thats how a normal person should feel. 

Edited yesterday at 12:37 AM by Hojo

[Inliytened1]

50 minutes ago, Joshe said:

My default mode is observer operating within metacognitive space. 

When I dissolve the observer, I have direct experience of the metacognitive space itself. It's just one step away and it doesn't seem like anything magical or mystical because I'm already in that space, just with narration and content, which can be dropped if I want, but I don't see the point because it just makes it empty and neutral. 

Awakening is very much like the Matrix only that you will awaken to realize you were dreaming that you were this self, this form, and all other.  It is the mystical realization that you were dreaming all of reality.  

So..now that's what it is.  You can act like its already known but the fact of the matter remains you say your default state is objectivity or the Universe itself or Consciousness itself but did you actually realize it or is it just you conceptualizing about it.

Edited yesterday at 12:57 AM by Inliytened1

[Natasha Tori Maru]

57 minutes ago, Joshe said:

When I dissolve the observer, I have direct experience of the metacognitive space itself. It's just one step away and it doesn't seem like anything magical or mystical because I'm already in that space, just with narration and content, which can be dropped if I want, but I don't see the point because it just makes it empty and neutral. 

I am not trying to minimise any experience you have had. Red markup by me.

I just see this statement/description, and it leads me to believe you experienced something direct or unnammable.

Perhaps not awakening. Or no self. I will never know for sure - it is your experience.

There could be more to be realised in that space, it was not reductive for me. There was paradox. 

In addition - trying to 'see the point' might be limiting in these arenas.

Maybe, anyway.

[aurum]

They are related, but I would be mindful about collapsing the distinction between the two. That's likely to lead to sense-making errors if done poorly.

When we say "awakening", we usually mean something more profound than standard metacognition. Everyone has metacognition to a degree. Not everyone is awake.

 

Edited 23 hours ago by aurum

[Inliytened1]

1 minute ago, aurum said:

They are related, but I would be mindful about collapsing the distinction between the two.

When we say "awakening", we usually mean something more profound than standard metacognition. Everyone has metacognition to a degree. Not everyone is awake.

 

Exactly. 

[Human Mint]

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

I should have been more explicit. I meant "metacognitive space", not simply thoughts about thoughts. I meant the space the realization those thoughts about thoughts occur in. 

I suppose the term might just be "awareness", but I feel that's a loaded term with too much baggage. Experientially, "metacognitive space" makes more sense to me. 

That's great, but still there is a different recognition about the nature of True Self, or Mind. You can be in that space which you are describing and recontextualize it in the way I just described. You must focus your attention to the fact that the whole experience is one living thing, and it is intelligent. You need to choose it because right now you are choosing being a human and living that limit, which is precisely why you describe what you describe. The room you're in, your body, the objects scattered there, the floor is one living thing and it is not just empty perception, but it is an intelligent being. You are it.

Your intellect and genius is a byproduct of it.

[UnbornTao]

I'd say that consciousness and cognition are not the same thing.

[Xonas Pitfall]

If by “metacognition” you mean increased self-awareness and consciousness, then yes.

The whole point is that awareness becomes so expanded that you start seeing self, self, self, God, God, God everywhere, both in the world and in yourself. At that stage, the distinction between self and other begins to collapse. The higher consciousness becomes, the more unified it is, moving toward oneness.

Metacognition is often used to mean thinking about thinking, mental observation, and conceptual relationships. In that sense, the term is not fully accurate here, because the final movement is not more thinking, but embodied being.

However, if we use the simpler example of mirror recognition, then yes, it applies. What separates a donkey from a human is that a human can recognize the reflection in the mirror as itself. That capacity is a basic form of metacognition. In that sense, you are already “higher” metacognitively than a donkey. But you still see a human in the mirror, not the total reality, not the whole self, not God.

LEVEL 1 — DONKEY						
   __
  (oo)\_______				
  (__)\       )\/\
      ||----w |
      ||     ||						

   Donkey  ───▶  [ Mirror ]  ───▶  ???
              "I don't know."


LEVEL 2 — HUMAN

     O
    /|\
    / \

  Human ───▶ [ Mirror ] ───▶  ( Me )
              "That's me!"


LEVEL 3 — HIGHER METACOGNITION / ENLIGHTENED HUMAN

     O
    /|\
    / \

  Human ───▶ [ Mirror ] ───▶  ( God )
              "That's God!"


LEVEL 4 — GOD

        ∞  ───▶  [ God / Self / Mirror ]  ───▶  ∞
               ◀──────── God ────────▶

   "I am God.
    The mirror is God.
    God is looking through God."
"I am Self, and the mirror is Self. Self is looking at itself, aware of itself through itself."

Meditation, psychedelics, ego dissolution, and other spiritual practices aim to move consciousness beyond that limited identification and toward that unified state.

self, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, self, God, God, Godself, self, God, God, Godself, self, God, God, Godself, self, God, God, God

[Xonas Pitfall]

As Consciousness / metacognition approaches → ∞ → distinctions collapse, everything converges into 1 Singularity/Self/Concept, which can be called |God|→ 0 (Even 0 “exists” as a concept, so 0 + 1 → 1 "concept" of Singularity)

As C approaches → 0 → pure nothingness: no distinctions, no ego, no God. Awareness is dormant.

As C approaches → 1 (singular focal consciousness) → ego / attachment emerges; distinctions appear relative to that self.

C = consciousness / awareness / metacognition
D = number of distinctions
G = God / unified Self
E = Ego / self-identified entity

C → 0: nothingness, D → 0, G → 0, E → 0
C → 1: E → ∞, D → ∞-1, G → 0
C → ∞: G → ∞, D → 0, E → 0

Equations:
  D = C * (1 - 1 / (1 + C^2))
  E = C / (1 + C)
  G = C^2 / (1 + C^2)

Limits / Behavior:
  As C approaches 0:
      D ≈ 0
      E ≈ 0
      G ≈ 0
      # pure nothingness

  As C approaches 1 (focal consciousness):
      D → ∞
      E → ∞
      G ≈ 0
      # ego and attachment emerge

  As C approaches infinity:
      D → 0
      E → 0
      G → 1
      # unity / God / Self

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Sugarcoat]

People define awakening differently. Although a trend seems to be to become more aware of something, and that creates a shift. But that can be on intellectual level, when people call it awakening that they’ve realized “society is corrupt” or something and they deeply question the mainstream and enter more spiritual thinking. And for sure it stirs up emotions and it can feel expansive so it’s not purely intellectual but they still stay on level of human psychology and the self. Or it could be becoming increasingly self aware, and connecting to intelligence of higher development (like deeper intuition).  But still on human development level.
 

But for me I feel there is one thing about reality that stands out from all those things and that would be insight/experience that goes beyond the self/mind. The term awakening can be useful for those above too but this is the ultimate I think. (I don’t know directly if reality is non dual but I resonate with the idea and have experienced shifts in my sense of self strengthening this questioning if it’s actually real)

So increasing metacognition I think can bring you a step closer to the ultimate truth because when you become aware of something more subtle in you, it might have required breaking down something greater in order to be able to notice the more subtle (or just moving your awareness inward) So it can be one step in process of deconstructing the mind/self.

It can maybe go both ways, if you are deeply immersed in something, someone may have temporary experience of “forgetting themselves” which might be a glimpse of some sort into non duality in some cases . But also by doing the opposite, focusing on your mind and self might aid in the deconstruction of it (my experience) so you tackle the very thing “in the way” by firstly having lots of awareness to it. 

So basically there seems to be layers and subtleties to our current reality and something like increasing meta cognition no matter your starting point might be a step to deconstructing that reality 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Sugarcoat

[cetus]

Metacognition and contemplation go hand in hand. Deep contemplation Is metacognition. It is where all higher Truth reside.

   -on the way to enlightenment.

Edited 2 hours ago by cetus