Enlightment is the ultimate selfishness

[Carl-Richard]

In a sense, but it flips around, because as you drop the identification with the self, you experience yourself as other people. Their pain, their suffering, you experience it as your own. This is quite paradoxical and can be related to what Dr. K is talking about with "the deep hurt". Even though you are silent and peaceful, around you there may be suffering, and you become a pristine mirror, taking on this suffering. And that's the vow of the bodhisattva, of returning to the world and taking on the suffering and trying to alleviate it in others.

[Carl-Richard]

On 17.3.2026 at 5:11 AM, Natasha Tori Maru said:

It isn't actually possible to 'delete' or erase the ego. I think it is foolish to think one can do this.

All that happens is the we cling or identify to something new to replace the old that we think we erased.

Spirituality becomes the new ground. Nonduality becomes the new ground to replace XXX. God-consciousness replaces nonduality etc etc ad infinitum.

The 'ego-less' individuals I have met have been unconscious to the biggest and more detrimental egos I have ever encountered.

You know, when I started having spontaneous awakenings during university lectures, without me willing them, without me having the intention to go to that place, was the time I had been laying off "spirituality" as a #1 goal (and instead it became a #2 goal, after academics). When the identification and clinging to spiritual concepts softened, a new sense of depth of disidentification opened up. And then when it got so bad I decided to stop meditating altogether, that is when I was truly fucked, because then I had truly given up all clinging and identification with things that I had prior strong clinging and attachment to. Now I was free floating. It took years to stabilize in a more normal egoic identity again. Constant fear of death, every moment of the day, around the corner, I had to invent the most weird strategies to keep myself on the ground. But even from that state, it was possible to revert back. It's like how growing up when you're a child, you slowly put on the clothing of ego. It's possible to do this at an adult age as well. But it's not pleasant, at all. Every moment feels like confinement, even transcendent things like music felt like confinement and contraction of divine energy. And was there a meaning to it all. We're yet to see.

Edited 7 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Carl-Richard Thanks for sharing ❤️

Did you have any intention behind it, or it was spontaneous? Intention usually means there is an aim there... Maybe that made the difference

[Carl-Richard]

14 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@Carl-Richard Thanks for sharing ❤️

Did you have any intention behind it, or it was spontaneous? Intention usually means there is an aim there... Maybe that made the difference

In the moment, the intention was to focus on the lecture, and ironically, I noticed a tension while focusing on the lecture and having that intention, and when I dropped that tension, the awakening happened. So it was a dropping of intention on many layers simultaneously, but of course riding on top of a momentum of having had those intentions for a while. That is why spiritual practice is like a train and you want to find out when to jump off to get to the right station. That's why Jan Esmann is (probably) my favorite teacher of all time

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@Carl-Richard We are googling, we are in the rabbit hole. We are YouTubing.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's why Jan Esmann is (probably) my favorite teacher of all time

I say "probably" because there are of course many other teachers that have had a profound effect on me (actually Martin Ball comes to mind). Even Leo, despite me claiming him moving away from "enlightenment" as a pursuit, has given me one of the most profound pointers of all time: "you are creating everything". It doesn't just put everything in reality inside the confines of your identity, but also the live unfolding dynamic creative aspect of it, which has a palpable and powerful effect when grasped intuitively. Sometimes what you can call "higher states of consciousness" are just better ways of grasping a concept (or generally naming) that creates a resonance intuitively.

[Leo Gura]

In a certain paradoxical sense, yeah.

Your friends and family will certainly feel like you're being selfish for neglecting their survival.

Humans have a twisted sense of selflessness: where being selfless means serving their survival.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Sometimes what you can call "higher states of consciousness" are just better ways of grasping a concept

That's not higher states of consciousness.

[Rafael Thundercat]

This is the level of explanation I am talking about. 

https://www.actualized.org/insights/the-power-of-consciousness