Seek and ye shall find. That's the whole trick.

[Nemo28]

5 minutes ago, Joshe said:

You can make friends with Ultimate Satan if you train your consciousness that way.

Yeah, but would Ultimate Satan be any different from Ultimate reality? 

[Miguel1]

I don’t know exactly what you were looking for with this thread, but to be honest, it is quite empty man.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Perhaps the missing link here is that the truth is not found. It is what survives after all falsehood is removed.

You don't arrive at truth like a destination. It is what survives and speaks for itself. And this is done by removing and deconstructing. Peeling off all falsehood to see what remains. Not seeking. Which is why it can also feel negative. To be looking for the false. But it is the only way to reach truth without smuggling in some form of idea of what it could be.

I think looking at it as seeking is dangerous; seeking is directional. Direction carries with it desire. Desire is bias. Blindness.

Is this what you were attempting to point to?

Edited yesterday at 05:17 AM by Natasha Tori Maru

[Cred]

Yeah the problem is, when you train your mind to believe that everything is consciousness, that this will bias your mind to turn inwards.

"Why would I help this person materially if I could just imagine helping them, which would be the same thing?"

At the end, you will not be more right when you believe in philosophical idealism oder more right when you believe in philosophical materialism, the only thing that is shifting is what you tend to focus on. (Meditation, thinking, lucid dreaming, fantacising, isolation, etc. vs acting, socializing, political activism, improving material conditions etc.)

This is not an error. You need to focus on some narrative in order to act and make a decision. You can also empty your cup and act intuetively, but if you are here you have very much intact reasoning skills, it would be a waste not to use them at all. Also your intuition is biased towards your beliefs anyways.

Learning about marxism has provided me with an extremely important insight. It's that this notion, common in spiritual circles that "you can't change the world but at least you can change yourself through discovering god" is complete bullshit and capitalist propaganda.

No matter where you look in history, the concept of god was always used by the ruling class to make the oppressed class turn inwards and "forget" they are oppressed. "The reason you are doing poorly is because you are not enlightened enough!" 

I want you to research the horrendous conditions, the tibetan serfs were faced with under the supposedly so loving Lama system before the Chinese communists liberated them.

The thing is, this has never changed. It only has become more subtle, and this community is the proof.

Edited yesterday at 06:15 AM by Cred

[Cred]

The Tibet topic is controversial. Here is an article I found

https://redsails.org/friendly-feudalism/

I encourage you to get your own sources and make your own opinion about the subject.

[Nemo28]

4 hours ago, Cred said:

"you can't change the world but at least you can change yourself through discovering god"

This is accurate, in my experience. By discovering god all things fall in right place, the vision clarifies and the world didn't need to change.

I still have so much to learn, but I can see the larger pattern of perfection. 

[Joshe]

12 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Perhaps the missing link here is that the truth is not found. It is what survives after all falsehood is removed.

You don't arrive at truth like a destination. It is what survives and speaks for itself. And this is done by removing and deconstructing. Peeling off all falsehood to see what remains. Not seeking. Which is why it can also feel negative. To be looking for the false. But it is the only way to reach truth without smuggling in some form of idea of what it could be.

I think looking at it as seeking is dangerous; seeking is directional. Direction carries with it desire. Desire is bias. Blindness.

Is this what you were attempting to point to?

We often mistake choosing for discovery. Consciousness will validate whatever framework(s) you commit to. This mechanism is universal and unavoidable. 

If consciousness will validate whatever you commit to, then the honest move is to choose your framework knowing it's a choice - not to pretend you discovered actual reality. And even if you did, you should hold such things loosely. 

"I'm choosing to orient toward love because I prefer a life organized around it" is more honest than "I discovered reality is infinite love."

Seek and ye shall find. Subtract and ye shall find too. You aimed at "removing falsehood" and you got a remainder and called it truth. But subtracting is seeking. It's spurred on by preference.

What made you subtract? What made you call the remainder "truth" instead of "residue" or the "the stubborn parts that persist"? It is a preference to call what survives "truth". The vocabulary is selected for words that feel good, significant, profound. WHY? Values and preferences.

My point is consciousness can be trained to confirm any framework, including spiritual frameworks that claim to be framework-free. That claim is the framework.

You prefer your framework be framework-free, and you believe it is because that's what you sought.

"I just look at what's true" is the framework. It's preference acting like neutrality.

Your highest awakening is the same stuff as grandma washing dishes, with the main difference being the elaborate significance you add. 

These ideas are uncomfortable because they dissolve significance.

Edited 16 hours ago by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Just now, Joshe said:

We often mistake choosing for discovery. Consciousness will validate whatever framework(s) you commit to. This mechanism is universal and unavoidable. 

If consciousness will validate whatever you commit to, then the honest move is to choose your framework knowing it's a choice - not to pretend you discovered actual reality. And even if you did, you should hold such things loosely. 

"I'm choosing to orient toward love because I prefer a life organized around it" is more honest than "I discovered reality is infinite love."

Seek and ye shall find. Subtract and ye shall find too. You aimed at "removing falsehood" and you got a remainder and called it truth. But subtracting is seeking. It's spurred on by preference.

What made you subtract? What made you call the remainder "truth" instead of "residue" or the "the stubborn parts that persist"? It is a preference to call what survives "truth". The vocabulary is selected for words that feel good, significant, profound. WHY? Values and preferences.

My point is consciousness can be trained to confirm any framework, including spiritual frameworks that claim to be framework-free. That claim is the framework.

You prefer your framework be framework-free, and you believe it is because that's what you sought.

"I just look at what's true" is the framework. It's preference acting like neutrality.

Your highest awakening is the same stuff as grandma washing dishes, with the main difference being the elaborate significance you add. 

These ideas are uncomfortable because they dissolve significance.

Not uncomfortable, a total misunderstanding.

This does not even incorporate surrender. It also misses no one becomes awakened, enlightened.

It is not about looking for truth. 

It is about removing. Subtraction. There is no frame. 

Again, it is not about seeking. Not about meaning.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

There is no training of consciousness. This is an additive process. 

The process isn't additive.

[Joshe]

34 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

There is no training of consciousness. This is an additive process. 

The process isn't additive.

Can you sit with this question: 'What if my framework-free seeing is just another framework I trained into and then forgot I trained into it?'

Could it be that you trained so deeply into a way of seeing that it no longer feels like a perspective, but feels like actual reality? 

For example, you can train your consciousness to suspend interpretation, but the suspension itself is a trained orientation that originated from a preference and a framework, and over time, the training and framework are forgotten and what remains feels like raw reality. 

I'm not saying this about you necessarily, just pointing out that it is a real mechanism with big implications. 

This is exactly how people end up in the psych ward. They trained consciousness in a direction until the training disappeared and what remained felt like "just seeing reality". Same mechanism. 

Edited 15 hours ago by Joshe

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

Can you sit with this question: 'What if my framework-free seeing is just another framework I trained into and then forgot I trained into it?'

Could it be that you trained so deeply into a way of seeing that it no longer feels like a perspective, but feels like actual reality? 

For example, you can train your consciousness to suspend interpretation, but the suspension itself is a trained orientation that originated from a preference and a framework, and over time, the training and framework are forgotten and what remains feels like raw reality. 

I'm not saying this about you necessarily, just pointing out that it is a real mechanism with big implications. 

This is exactly how people end up in the psych ward. They trained consciousness in a direction until the training disappeared and what remained felt like "just seeing reality". Same mechanism. 

Yes, because it is surrender.

That's the whole point.

Give it all up. 

Do you think you can summarise the point of this thread in one sentence? 

Because the whole thing is so disjointed, it just seems like you are saying 'humans are biased/delusional'.

I don't get it. This is a given. This is intellect trying. This is one of Leo's core messages also.

Edited 14 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[aurum]

15 hours ago, Joshe said:

You are the example bro.

I agree that consciousness is the fundamental substrate of reality. But to call it "God" is kind of my point. You were presented with the idea of "God" and you were eager to see it as such and turned reality into that. 

How do I know? Because I made the same mistake. I called consciousness "God" for many years as a result of following Leo's work. But then I grew up a little and realized I didn't need Leo's words to describe my experience and that it was a mistake actually. 

Just because consciousness is fundamental doesn't mean you get to call it "God" and import all the metaphysical baggage with it. I hope you can see the point.

I use the word "God" because I grew up catholic. It's also the word that came to me during one of my first awakening experiences.

Otherwise I don't care at all.

I'm also fond of Pure Consciousness, Infinity or Source.

[Joshe]

3 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Yes, because it is surrender.

That's the whole point.

Give it all up. 

You practice. You make progress. You talk about "deeper" and "higher". You distinguish between people who "get it" and people who don't. You treat certain states as more valuable than others and use words like "awakening" and "enlightenment" and "realiziation". 

All of that implies a destination. A finish line. A place you're trying to get to that's better/higher than here. 

"Surrender" only makes sense if there's something on the other side of it. You're surrendering toward something. If there were no destination, why would surrendering be better than not surrendering? Why would you even recommend it? 

BECAUSE THERE IS A FRAMEWORK you're operating on with preferences driving it. You are not spiritual because you just so happened to surrender to reality and all was revealed. You selected for and aimed at what was revealed. 

16 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Do you think you can summarise the point of this thread in one sentence? 

Seek and ye shall find. You sought, you found. You thought you found that surrender is the way but what you really found is what consciousness produces when you train it toward surrender. 

22 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I don't get it. This is a given. This is intellect trying.

What I'm saying here isn't some elaborate intellectual maze. 

1. Consciousness confirms whatever you point it toward
2. Spiritual seekers point consciousness toward things they prefer (love, truth, peace, surrender)
3. They aim for those things and find them
4. They confidently call it discovery instead of construction

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 minute ago, Joshe said:

Seek and ye shall find. You sought, you found. You thought you found that surrender is the way but what you really found is what consciousness produces when you train it toward surrender. 

Okay. This is just is not correct.

There is no seeking. There is nothing to reach. There is no level. Whatever you are describing has nothing to do with spirituality. Nothing. 

I think there might be a confusion because you have stated truth is not for you. You don't actually know what you are talking about - and I mean no offence - you admitted this in a few threads. It appears to be an attampt to understand from the intellect. Surrender that.

You can't train something to surrender - it is a total misnomer. You're even giving up 'train'.

I can't go any further with this. 

It is a concept you are trying to squish onto spirituality.

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

I would look at my statement above as I think of it; I am not good enough at finding the words and descriptions to bring clarity to this. 

[Joshe]

10 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

You can't train something to surrender - it is a total misnomer. You're even giving up 'train'.

🤦‍♂️HOW did you get there? You practiced. You read. You learned about surrender. You liked it. You oriented toward it. You tried an failed. You tried again. Over time, the effort became less visible and started feeling effortless. This is "training". You didn't just wake up one day into it. 

After you found it, the training disappeared - which is exactly what I've been saying. 

I think this might hit a little too close to home for you. 

16 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I think there might be a confusion because you have stated truth is not for you. You don't actually know what you are talking about - and I mean no offence - you admitted this in a few threads. It appears to be an attampt to understand from the intellect. Surrender that.

No offense, but you don't know wtf you're talking about. I never stated "truth" is not for me". I said something like I'm not currently optimizing for spirituality. But you don't know how far I've already come. I am very humble/cautious in what I claim to know regarding spirituality. I don't make grand claims such as yourself and I sure as hell don't blindly adopt framework terminology that will skew my view. Don't let this fool you into thinking you know something about my spiritual development. 

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

No offense, but you don't know wtf you're talking about. I never stated "truth" is not for me". I said something like I'm not currently optimizing for spirituality. But you don't know how far I've already come. I am very humble/cautious in what I claim to know regarding spirituality. I don't make grand claims such as yourself and I sure as hell don't blindly adopt framework terminology that will skew my view. Don't let this fool you into thinking you know something about my spiritual development. 

I apologise if my words offended you. I did not mean it so. I was attempting to describe spiritual endeavours without using the word seeker, and to do credit to what you yourself described. It is a simple misunderstanding, no offence meant. I am open to not knowing. Because I do not know anything for certain.

I make no grand claims, nothing about what I have experienced is remarkable at all.

No-thing can cause awakening. 

Do you have issue then, with engaging in things that make one 'accident prone' to reaching awakening? 

The process you highlight, this : 

1 hour ago, Joshe said:

🤦‍♂️HOW did you get there? You practiced. You read. You learned about surrender. You liked it. You oriented toward it. You tried an failed. You tried again. Over time, the effort became less visible and started feeling effortless. This is "training". You didn't just wake up one day into it. 

This isn't surrender, though. This is gaining something. You suffer. Then boom. Suffer, surrender. Surrender is giving up practice. Giving up reading, giving up liking, giving up orientation. The thing is, you don't even need to do those things, then give them up. None of it is necessary. So there doesn't even need to be seeking or training or orientation. In my own experience, I never learned of this surrender to try it. Suffering was so great, surrender just happened. As if it were so natural, as if to breathe. Surrender nullifies.

I think I felt some charge behind this line of enquiry, as it is along similar lines to several other conversations. IE I believe taking action causes the brain to rewire to bias to action, and rewiring the brain does not come before action. Similar line of enquiry here. 

Indeed, I am not sure if it is clear - beliefs being smuggled into the process can happen. Confirmation bias - surrender exhumes this. Not sure if it was clear that was agreed upon. I claim this is not spirituality. Seeking isn't the path. 

Regardless, I do not want to upset you.

So I will respectfully tap out 🙏

Edited 11 hours ago by Natasha Tori Maru

[Joshe]

48 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Do you have issue then, with engaging in things that make one 'accident prone' to reaching awakening? 

Of course not. The issue is when people dress it up as "discovering truth" rather than "I trained toward states I value and got them." The first one creates needless developmental hierarchies, levels of awakening, on an on with the hierarchies. Always arguing over what or who is deeper, more awake, more true, etc. - without realizing the hierarchy itself is a preference, not a discovery. 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Just now, Joshe said:

Of course not. The issue is when people dress it up as "discovering truth" rather than "I trained toward states I value and got them." The first one creates needless developmental hierarchies, levels of awakening, on an on with the hierarchies. Always arguing over what or who is deeper, more awake, more true, etc. - without realizing the hierarchy itself is a preference, not a discovery. 

Hmm. To be clear, I tactfully avoid those sorts of discussions and hierarchies. 

I see it as more attachment - the opposite of surrender. A deception.

It's just making spirituality another ground, after erasing all other grounds. When everything needs to be thrown away, including all seeking, all spirituality, in the end. 

Spiritual ego.