Paradox: You are not enlightened and will never be (?)

[MTR]

This might be the hardest pill to swallow yet as @Leo Gura likes to say in his videos.

How can you be enlightened?

How do you know when you're enlightened?

Are you on the right path of the so called enlightenment?

How can you sit and judge how someone becomes enlightened?

Was Jesus, Budha, Ghandi, etc, enlightened? 

I am enlightened, ask me questions.

Now look at the above, commonly discussed here, and notice how egoic they are. I think this collective egoic behaviour is the brightest trick being played by our egos to date.

If you are seeking to be enlightened and if you make it a word, something to achieve, you are using desire as your energy and moving factor. Desire in itself is an egoic, negative energy that will drive you away from what you want.

Just think about it: you don't exist. 

If you don't exist, so doesn't enlightenment and everything you think about this word.

Enlightenment, you say, is getting rid of your ego. Ego death. But how can you get rid of you ego if it does not exist? How can you become enlightened if enlightenment does not exist?

Do you think the people who you thought were enlightened knew they were, or assumed at any stage they were enlightened? Like walking into a room or telling themselves how enlightened they feel, and if they did do you think it mattered?

How can I claim these things if I don't exist and how can you be reading this and try to rationalize if you don't exist?

anyway this is what's been feeling like to me and I want to hear what you think.

The more I meditate the more the universe seems to be telling me this: the more I try to be enlightened, the less I'm gonna be.

I don't wanna be enlightened. I am nothing.

edit: renamed subject so it doesn't sound controversial

Edited December 26, 2018 by MTR
renamed subject so it doesn't sound controversial

[Hellspeed]

54 minutes ago, MTR said:

This might be the hardest pill to swallow yet as @Leo Gura likes to say in his videos.

How can you be enlightened?

How do you know when you're enlightened?

Are you on the right path of the so called enlightenment?

How can you sit and judge how someone becomes enlightened?

Was Jesus, Budha, Ghandi, etc, enlightened? 

I am enlightened, ask me questions.

Now look at the above, commonly discussed here, and notice how egoic they are. I think this collective egoic behaviour is the brightest trick being played by our egos to date.

If you are seeking to be enlightened and if you make it a word, something to achieve, you are using desire as your energy and moving factor. Desire in itself is an egoic, negative energy that will drive you away from what you want.

Just think about it: you don't exist. 

If you don't exist, so doesn't enlightenment and everything you think about this word.

Enlightenment, you say, is getting rid of your ego. Ego death. But how can you get rid of you ego if it does not exist? How can you become enlightened if enlightenment does not exist?

Do you think the people who you thought were enlightened knew they were, or assumed at any stage they were enlightened? Like walking into a room or telling themselves how enlightened they feel, and if they did do you think it mattered?

How can I claim these things if I don't exist and how can you be reading this and try to rationalize if you don't exist?

anyway this is what's been feeling like to me and I want to hear what you think.

The more I meditate the more the universe seems to be telling me this: the more I try to be enlightened, the less I'm gonna be.

I don't wanna be enlightened. I am nothing.

 

You don't know what Awakening is. You are just going in circles with concepts. 

[MTR]

1 minute ago, Hellspeed said:

You don't know what Awakening is. You are just going in circles with concepts. 

you could be right. elaborate please.

[zambize]

You seem stressed,  and that's totally okay.  I feel like you talk a lot about "you don't exist" and "I don't exist", could you be so kind as to elaborate on what you mean by "I" when you say "I don't exist", it would help me to answer some of your questions.  Who is MTR?

[Joseph Maynor]

What does it mean to "be Enlightened"? 

Edited December 26, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Hellspeed]

31 minutes ago, MTR said:

you could be right. elaborate please.

The mind perspective is what made you write those descriptions about reallity. 

Reallity simply is, cannot be conceptualized. Otherwise is not Awakening. 

From a perspective of Awakening nothingness is something. But cannot be explained.

As much as one has experiences with awakenings and dreams, and sacred geometry etc, they are just EGO based perspectives, the fellings, the tripping. 

Awakening and Reallity are beyond thought and feeling. Is not a middle perspective of yin and yan, is a full circle integrating everything in the unspoken.  

[MTR]

1 hour ago, zambize said:

You seem stressed,  and that's totally okay.  I feel like you talk a lot about "you don't exist" and "I don't exist", could you be so kind as to elaborate on what you mean by "I" when you say "I don't exist", it would help me to answer some of your questions.  Who is MTR?

thanks. I guess my mind is coming up with paradoxes. could be that I am stressed and I don't know too. if the aim of enlightenment is becoming nothing and therefore everything then why we debate it as it was a formula or something that you become?

Who is MTR? I tend to think I am nothing but saying "I am nothing" is paradoxal by itself. I wonder if I'm trapping myself or everyone is trapping themselves into thinking they can "achieve enlightenment" or "awakening".

I'm not doubting anything and much less criticising anything but trying to solve these paradoxes in my mind.

 

1 hour ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What does it mean to "be Enlightened"? 

the million dollar question

 

1 hour ago, Hellspeed said:

The mind perspective is what made you write those descriptions about reallity. 

Reallity simply is, cannot be conceptualized. Otherwise is not Awakening. 

From a perspective of Awakening nothingness is something. But cannot be explained.

As much as one has experiences with awakenings and dreams, and sacred geometry etc, they are just EGO based perspectives, the fellings, the tripping. 

Awakening and Reallity are beyond thought and feeling. Is not a middle perspective of yin and yan, is a full circle integrating everything in the unspoken.  

So it boils down to using this reality, this language and technology to try to describe something that cannot be described into this dimension on reality? I get that. But then my ego is gonna throw a "how do I know if your conceptualizations exist?" kind of thing. 

I guess what I struggle is that whatever is said here could be put to test on my paradoxal mind and I wonder if other people experience the same.

 

[SoonHei]

@MTR first of all. Thanks for that. Never thought about those thoughts as such

 

Especially a follow up you wrote about aiming for an Ego death

 

Had to analyze how i also had projected this many times

@Hellspeed wow. Thanks. Your addition at the end was great. That kinda takes this new perspective also full circle. 

 

I notice.how my ego did a few things after reading this post..

First was to do a quick replace of the current paradgim with this new look shared in this topic

 

Then it was to continue to read further (food for thought = more thought/story)

 

Then i read and @Hellspeed post kinda pulled me back

 

Next was to write this post! 

 

The ego always wants and craves and vreates what it wants next in the story thereby perpetuating itself.

 

I write this paradoxically as i realized this and yet back here to share the insight as a priority rather than dwell in it more.

[zambize]

While it's true that you are what you already are, it's also could be true that you haven't fully realized this.  As far as who is MTR,  the problem here I see is that when you think of who you are, you think of a sentence "I am nothing".  These words are popping in your head as you're reading them, just like the words "I am nothing" may have popped up when you thought of who you were.  But those are just thoughts, how do you even know if you have control over them and what they say?   There really doesn't seem to be a good answer to this that can be written, but don't get lost in words.  Fuck all the words and the questions, cause if you could be aware of exactly what you are, none of the words used to label it/categorizations etc. would matter to you, they could only water down what you know.  That's why I recommend just sitting down in your own awareness, don't make anything up, just ask yourself "what am I?"  "what is existence?" I can give you a list of questions I ask myself, but stuff along those lines, and then surrender as much as you can to the moment and just be aware.   

"but trying to solve these paradoxes in my mind." <<<<< DON'T ASSUME THE MIND CAN ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS

I think moving forward, i'd recommend two things.

1.  You have so many great questions but are relying on your mind to resolve stuff that can seemingly only be resolved through direct experience.  Don't think yourself to death, I do it too, it kind of sucks.  Use your direct experience to find your own answer to these.

2.  There seems to be an issue against desire, and I'm worried this is going to lead you to repressing desire.  It's totally cool to have desires, and it's perfectly acceptable to act on these desires when they aren't harming yourself or others.  It's not to say you should cling to your desires, but believing all desires to be bad and egoic will lead you to be a less conscious individual because you will be constantly expending effort to kind of shut up desires and thoughts that come into your head, let them be, they don't really matter that much.  I also believe personally that one of the deepest desires is to find out who we are, and what we should be doing, etc.  You gotta be super honest and aware of your desires, because some of them might take you home and answer a lot of questions you have.

[Hellspeed]

In the end there is only Breath and Change on wich we can rely completely, This 2 universal laws go all the way at the end of the tunnel, the other techniques and conceptualizations fit at the beginning of the tunnel. 

[MTR]

7 minutes ago, zambize said:

While it's true that you are what you already are, it's also could be true that you haven't fully realized this.  As far as who is MTR,  the problem here I see is that when you think of who you are, you think of a sentence "I am nothing".  These words are popping in your head as you're reading them, just like the words "I am nothing" may have popped up when you thought of who you were.  But those are just thoughts, how do you even know if you have control over them and what they say?   There really doesn't seem to be a good answer to this that can be written, but don't get lost in words.  Fuck all the words and the questions, cause if you could be aware of exactly what you are, none of the words used to label it/categorizations etc. would matter to you, they could only water down what you know.  That's why I recommend just sitting down in your own awareness, don't make anything up, just ask yourself "what am I?"  "what is existence?" I can give you a list of questions I ask myself, but stuff along those lines, and then surrender as much as you can to the moment and just be aware.   

"but trying to solve these paradoxes in my mind." <<<<< DON'T ASSUME THE MIND CAN ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS

I think moving forward, i'd recommend two things.

1.  You have so many great questions but are relying on your mind to resolve stuff that can seemingly only be resolved through direct experience.  Don't think yourself to death, I do it too, it kind of sucks.  Use your direct experience to find your own answer to these.

2.  There seems to be an issue against desire, and I'm worried this is going to lead you to repressing desire.  It's totally cool to have desires, and it's perfectly acceptable to act on these desires when they aren't harming yourself or others.  It's not to say you should cling to your desires, but believing all desires to be bad and egoic will lead you to be a less conscious individual because you will be constantly expending effort to kind of shut up desires and thoughts that come into your head, let them be, they don't really matter that much.  I also believe personally that one of the deepest desires is to find out who we are, and what we should be doing, etc.  You gotta be super honest and aware of your desires, because some of them might take you home and answer a lot of questions you have.

Beautiful answer @zambize

I started reading and, funny enough, my mind had a few "comebacks" but then by the end you got me: I might be repressing desire and I have forgotten it's ok to have desires even if it's deemed egoic. I've been following vedic meditation and one of the teachings is that when you let go of desire then charm is what gonna lead to to evolution and I felt like charm was throwing me paradoxes. 

Coming back to the "I am nothing", when I say that it's more like I have no idea what I am..

but if I'm nothing then... what is nothing... etc... classic ego trap.

It's so hard to describe exactly what I fell with words tho.

[zambize]

7 minutes ago, MTR said:

Beautiful answer @zambize

I started reading and, funny enough, my mind had a few "comebacks" but then by the end you got me: I might be repressing desire and I have forgotten it's ok to have desires even if it's deemed egoic. I've been following vedic meditation and one of the teachings is that when you let go of desire then charm is what gonna lead to to evolution and I felt like charm was throwing me paradoxes. 

Coming back to the "I am nothing", when I say that it's more like I have no idea what I am..

but if I'm nothing then... what is nothing... etc... classic ego trap.

It's so hard to describe exactly what I fell with words tho.

You don't have to describe anything to me, it was more to make a point and get you thinking haha.  No worries there.  If you have the time, I think this video would be valuable to listen to and it's only 30 minutes, other than that, good luck!

 

[MTR]

thank you @zambize will do

coincidentally I just stumbled on this great Alan Watts speech and been listening as I write.. it's incredibly on topic:

 

[ground]

5 hours ago, MTR said:

I don't wanna be enlightened. I am nothing.

you are already enlightened and something ... whiich reminds me of these threads with the topic 'why is there something rather than nothing?'.

isn't it funny that affirmation vs negation and acceptance vs rejection seems to be the never ending circle ('samsara')? That could be the decisive insight, right?

Edited December 26, 2018 by ground

[NoSelfSelf]

Enlightement is your true nature its always present they made a good example with when someone watches the tv screen and suddenly they start to believe they are the screen on tv ,not realizing they are observer of the tv screen and all confusion transe happens here "you" awareness believing you are body and thoughts that are seen and are the tv screen in this example

[MTR]

1 hour ago, ground said:

you are already enlightened and something ... whiich reminds me of these threads with the topic 'why is there something rather than nothing?'.

isn't it funny that affirmation vs negation and acceptance vs rejection seems to be the never ending circle ('samsara')? That could be the decisive insight, right?

wow, this is mind boggling actually @ground 

I have read and re-read but not sure if I get exactly what this means? I guess my affirmation that I am nothing is the egoic faith or belief  that I'm nothing except I haven't experienced that yet? Well I could say I had a few experiences of awareness in the past (decade ago) that faded away with time.. such as observing your hand and arms and completely not understanding why it exists and thinking I'm during a dream where I was actually just sitting at my desk at work.. and some other experiences such as walking around the city with quiet mind and suddenly experience a state of bliss...  but I didn't/don't want to fool myself into thinking I'm enlightened because I still have too many feelings I don't understand.

30 minutes ago, NoSelfSelf said:

Enlightement is your true nature its always present they made a good example with when someone watches the tv screen and suddenly they start to believe they are the screen on tv ,not realizing they are observer of the tv screen and all confusion transe happens here "you" awareness believing you are body and thoughts that are seen and are the tv screen in this example

Saw that thread, it does really make sense.

[SriBhagwanYogi]

@Hellspeed How is focusing on breath diffrent from mantra meditation or watching thoughts?

[Hellspeed]

42 minutes ago, SriBhagwanYogi said:

@Hellspeed How is focusing on breath diffrent from mantra meditation or watching thoughts?

Focus on Breath is superior to any technique ever. Is the only way to Enlightenment, there is no other way, try as you might. 

[zambize]

7 minutes ago, Hellspeed said:

 Is the only way to Enlightenment, there is no other way

We disagreeing again, but we had a good streak!  Could you elaborate on how you can say it's the only way to enlightenment?  Have you tried every path to enlightenment?

[non_nothing]

What do you want? Why did you open this thread?