Meditation vs. ‘THIS’ (& The Dangers of Neo Advaita Explained)

[Consilience]

1 hour ago, Nos7algiK said:

There is nothing to be found, so believing there is something is the deception. It's not truly an illusion or deception as in a malicious trick. But, rather what we perceive to be "grounds" to reality are impermanent and are not grounds at all. It's difficult to put into words, at least for myself, because like I mentioned before you can't point to it.

There is something to be found. There are depths and degrees to this realization as well, while there is a simultaneous equilibrium across all states, stages, experiences, and moments of infinite being's expression. Again, paradox. Embracing this paradox is how one discovers true liberation. Denying it, not recognizing it, still samsara. 

[Nos7algiK]

20 minutes ago, Consilience said:

Perhaps I got lucky. But once the recognition has occurred, all doubts disappear. Saying enlightenment isn’t real is like someone telling me color isn't real as I stare into a rainbow. 

I use to feel the exact same way. At one point of my life, all doubts disappeared. But, eventually all truths and knowings disappeared as well. Regardless we are able to create our own definitions of what we believe in. It is relativity true to us, but false as well for the paradigm that holds the belief can shift/evolve at any point. To argue the definition is futile. 

[Nos7algiK]

23 minutes ago, Consilience said:

There is something to be found. There are depths and degrees to this realization as well, while there is a simultaneous equilibrium across all states, stages, experiences, and moments of infinite being's expression. Again, paradox. Embracing this paradox is how one discovers true liberation. Denying it, not recognizing it, still samsara. 

There is nothing to be found, but nothing is paradoxically Infinite. We should not deny reality itself and only call it Nothing. We should not attempt to talk in non-dual ways and say there is no self or experience as the answer for that is not non-dual. Rather we should embrace the experience itself as it is. It just "is". There is nothing we can do wrong, because no matter how you see it you are seeing it correctly. No matter how much you unrealize it, you are unrealizing it correctly. I'm a firm believer the quote "Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." is one of the most profound and actualized statements. Once the illusion is truly seen, nothing is truly gained. For there was nothing to gain and because of this we allow ourselves to breath with the illusion itself. The middle statement of "enlightenment" is that of nothing gained as well. The only difference between before/after is we are content with  the chopping of wood and carrying of water after and before it was a burden.

We should take reality as is, always.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Nos7algiK

[VeganAwake]

25 minutes ago, silene said:

Interesting, so do you now just live a regular life with no 'spiritual' practice, apart from posting in the forum? 

Or, did you have an awakening in 2018 which completed your seeking and in effect turned your whole life into one unfragmented meditation? 

That's about right, I would just say it a little differently.

Travis was a desperate seeker doing daily meditation, yoga, and watching actualized.org and tons of other spiritual videos on YouTube.... it felt like I was going to loose my mind at times.

Then one day for no reason at all it was recognized that this apparent individual that was so desperately seeking for who knows what, was not a real entity. 

Things got really weird for a couple of years.(lots of confusion & impulse emotions) It actually wasn't until the last eight or nine months that things really started settling down.

❤ 

 

[Consilience]

6 minutes ago, Nos7algiK said:

There is nothing to be found, but nothing is paradoxically Infinite. We should not deny reality itself and only call it Nothing. We should not attempt to talk in non-dual ways and say there is no self or experience as the answer for that is not non-dual. Rather we should embrace the experience itself as it is. It just "is". There is nothing we can do wrong, because no matter how you see it you are seeing it correctly. No matter how much you unrealize it, you are unrealizing it correctly. I'm a firm believer the quote "Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." is one of the most profound and actualized statements. Once the illusion is truly seen, nothing is truly gained. For there was nothing to gain and because of this we allow ourselves to breath with the illusion itself. The middle statement of "enlightenment" is that of nothing gained as well. The only difference between before/after is we are content with  the chopping of wood and carrying of water after and before it was a burden.

We should take reality as is, always.

Agreed ??

[VeganAwake]

39 minutes ago, Consilience said:

This simply isn’t my experience. What I define as Enlightenment is available now and was not available when I was younger before seeking yet was always the case due to the fact that it was true. There was a direct encounter with my true nature, the culmination of the seeking dissolving into and as my true nature. There is something the words “Absolute Truth” point towards. 

It’s literally a paradox, a cosmic paradox that won’t ever make sense to the linear human mind. 

Perhaps I got lucky. But once the recognition has occurred, all doubts disappear. Saying enlightenment isn’t real is like someone telling me color isn't real as I stare into a rainbow. 

Well simply put if there is an experience that an individual became enlightened that would be the clearest sign that enlightenment is not being experienced there.

That's what's referred to as spiritual ego. The belief that an individual has attained something called enlightenment.

No amount of telling yourself you have become enlightened is enlightenment bud sorry.

❤ 

 

[Consilience]

28 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

Well simply put if there is an experience that an individual became enlightened that would be the clearest sign that enlightenment is not being experienced there.

That's what's referred to as spiritual ego. The belief that an individual has attained something called enlightenment.

No amount of telling yourself you have become enlightened is enlightenment bud sorry.

❤ 

The recognition didn’t occur to an individual. It occurred as the substrate of what is real, reality as itself. This is what your message always misses, the recognition that this recognition can occur in and of itself for no one. 

There is no one home, only a spontaneous play of self activity. 
 

Who I am is no one.

What I am is utterly wordless. 

[silene]

28 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

Travis was a desperate seeker doing daily meditation, yoga, and watching actualized.org and tons of other spiritual videos on YouTube.... it felt like I was going to loose my mind at times.

Then one day for no reason at all it was recognized that this apparent individual that was so desperately seeking for who knows what, was not a real entity. 

How do we know if these were connected or not? You say the recognition happened for no reason, ok for some people it does, but maybe the desperate seeking and feeling about to lose your mind, made the mind more receptive to what was already the case?  

I'm thinking that if this nondual recognition flashes into the mind of someone who's totally unprepared, they'll just regard it as some aberration, mental illness, depersonalisation or derealisation disorder etc. 

[VeganAwake]

1 hour ago, Consilience said:

The recognition didn’t occur to an individual. It occurred as the substrate of what is real, reality as itself. This is what your message always misses, the recognition that this recognition can occur in and of itself for no one. 

There is no one home, only a spontaneous play of self activity. 
 

Who I am is no one.

What I am is utterly wordless. 

Starting to like what I'm hearing. 

It's unknowable and not because it's special or complex... because the individual that thinks it can come to know what THIS IS isn't real.

It's empty of meaning, purpose and value. Absolute perfection and freedom for no one.

❤ 

 

 

 

[Consilience]

2 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

Starting to like what I'm hearing. 

It's unknowable and not because it's special or complex... because the individual that thinks it can come to know what THIS IS isn't real.

It's empty of meaning, purpose and value. Absolute perfection and freedom for no one.

❤ 

 

 

 

 Lol... Yes freedom. Always was, before, during, after any seeking, before, during, after any realization, and before, during, after any altered states. 

So why practice meditation? There are no definitive answers. Any rationalizations aren't it. Any reasons to stop are not the reasons it was stopped. 

And as others have mentioned, all of life is one giant meditation. 

[RMQualtrough]

3 hours ago, silene said:

Interesting, so do you now just live a regular life with no 'spiritual' practice, apart from posting in the forum? 

Or, did you have an awakening in 2018 which completed your seeking and in effect turned your whole life into one unfragmented meditation? 

Look at Leo, all these God realizations and he's now going around hitting up hos in sleazy bars (or teaching such).

Why do you think that is?

No matter how deep you go, there's a door that is genuinely impossible to go through. There is no magic door where you go through it and there's a round of applause for "figuring out reality" and reality ends. Infinity as the totality cannot be directly observed. If it is it's cessation AKA non-experience.

Experience never ends. The dream (duality) is permanent.

So you just go back to doing whatever it is that attracts you in the dream. That is real freedom though, I think.

[VeganAwake]

1 hour ago, silene said:

How do we know if these were connected or not? You say the recognition happened for no reason, ok for some people it does, but maybe the desperate seeking and feeling about to lose your mind, made the mind more receptive to what was already the case?  

Yes agreed and simultaneously it's the opposite because everything the sense of self did to try to awaken only perpetuated the belief that it was real to begin with.

And the real kicker is in the end it's recognized that nothing actually happened at all lol. (try to explain that to someone) 

The experience of being a separate individual simply stops happening and simultaneously it had never started. 

I'm thinking that if this nondual recognition flashes into the mind of someone who's totally unprepared, they'll just regard it as some aberration, mental illness, depersonalisation or derealisation disorder etc. 

Possibly yes of course...

What I'm talking about isn't a state of mind, fleeting experience, or a temporary shift in perception or something like that.

It's simply the clear recognition that this individual called ME that seems to be localized within the body/mind is completely unreal.

❤ 

 

[VeganAwake]

40 minutes ago, Consilience said:

 Lol... Yes freedom. Always was, before, during, after any seeking, before, during, after any realization, and before, during, after any altered states. 

So why practice meditation? There are no definitive answers. Any rationalizations aren't it. Any reasons to stop are not the reasons it was stopped. 

And as others have mentioned, all of life is one giant meditation. 

Yes exactamundo, no one decides to do or not do meditation, it simply happens or it does not regardless of the thoughts about it.

❤ 

 

[Gidiot]

Great thread, ultimately it doesn’t matter but if I could choose to make reality it would be much better with no goal or apparent purpose or meaning, it would be total freedom. It sounds nice here.

I still feel like a person but I don’t know if that means anything.
 

I can’t stop seeking or doing practices and watching spiritual vids even if I assume they go nowhere, and I am bi polar and mystical stuff has happened to me but again I don’t know if that means anything.

[Gili Trawangan]

8 hours ago, VeganAwake said:

I don't know what Neo Advaita is, I think it means "a new not too" and that just doesn't make any sense.

There's no such thing as truth because there isn't anything false, there's only apparent misunderstandings.

Enlightenment isn't real bro. It's a concept within the dream story of being a separate individual that can one day wake up with enough diligent spiritual practice or meditation.

The seeker also spent a lot of time meditating back in 2017/2018 until the it was recognized to be completely unreal. 

❤ 

It's Neo Advaita, it's new, because spiritual traditions have always had the wisdom of acknowledging that there is ignorance. Ignorance being the belief in being a separate individual. And it was recognised by all spiritual traditions that there is a pathless path to remove that ignorance. The removal of that ignorance is called enlightenment. But this new kind of Advaita, very recent historically, simply doesn't acknowledge that there's a pathless path, it doesn't admit the paradox of the unreal individual walking it, and it bludgeons everyone with the message that there's nothing to be done.

However, when you look at the life story of each neo advaitan, there's always seeking there, usually for many years. I don't know, it's just kind of silly. But funny too. A part of me always smiles with advaita bears.

Ultimately, the neo advaitan message isn't likely to contribute to the removal of ignorance, whereas spiritual practice is.

[VeganAwake]

1 hour ago, Gili Trawangan said:

It's Neo Advaita, it's new, because spiritual traditions have always had the wisdom of acknowledging that there is ignorance. Ignorance being the belief in being a separate individual. And it was recognised by all spiritual traditions that there is a pathless path to remove that ignorance. The removal of that ignorance is called enlightenment. But this new kind of Advaita, very recent historically, simply doesn't acknowledge that there's a pathless path, it doesn't admit the paradox of the unreal individual walking it, and it bludgeons everyone with the message that there's nothing to be done.

However, when you look at the life story of each neo advaitan, there's always seeking there, usually for many years. I don't know, it's just kind of silly. But funny too. A part of me always smiles with advaita bears.

Ultimately, the neo advaitan message isn't likely to contribute to the removal of ignorance, whereas spiritual practice is.

I get what you're saying.

On one hand the constant seeking and spiritual practices perpetuate the belief that there is a real separate individual that can one day find what it feels like is missing.

On the other hand when the constant seeking and spiritual practices start to become overwhelming/exhausting and rendering no lasting results, the methods start becoming questionable and are brought to the forefront of the investigation.

"Do not seek Enlightenment unless you seek it like a man whose hair is on fire seeks water"

There is a way and there simultaneously is not a way which is what the pathless path means.

It's almost as if the seeking energy simply burns itself out.

❤ 

[Salvijus]

There's a simple way to test if you're enlightened or not.

If you can't do this, you're not enlightened. One who is fully aware of his immortal nature has no fear of death, and is beyond suffering. Because you need ignorance to suffer. You need to be unaware of truth to suffer. You need to be deluded to suffer. One who is fully dissolusioned and fully aware of truth is incapable of suffering.

Every fool can understand intelectually that he's immortal, but when you put it the test, why do you react like you gonna die? Because it's only intelectual, not experiencial. That's the danger of neo advaita. Not that neo advaita is dangerous, but that people who get intelectual understanding think it's the end of the path.

[gettoefl]

there is realize and there is real eyes, one is mind one is mine my birthright my destiny my true nature my godness waking up

meditation is the only thing i can do for myself, even sleep is just to survive, in particular all spiritual practice is futile and keeps me fast asleep, all books all youtube all forums all austerity complete waste of time

Edited November 21, 2021 by gettoefl

[VeganAwake]

3 hours ago, Salvijus said:

There's a simple way to test if you're enlightened or not.

If you can't do this, you're not enlightened. One who is fully aware of his immortal nature has no fear of death, and is beyond suffering. Because you need ignorance to suffer. You need to be unaware of truth to suffer. You need to be deluded to suffer. One who is fully dissolusioned and fully aware of truth is incapable of suffering.

Every fool can understand intelectually that he's immortal, but when you put it the test, why do you react like you gonna die? Because it's only intelectual, not experiencial. That's the danger of neo advaita. Not that neo advaita is dangerous, but that people who get intelectual understanding think it's the end of the path.

"The Greatest Obstacle to Discovery Is Not Ignorance—It Is the Illusion of Knowledge"

- Daniel J. Boorstin

Inquiring into anything with preconceived notions and biases about what something is or is like will keep what's being sought camouflaged in plain sight.

It requires an openness and an empty glass. The surrender and admittance that what is being sought is simply not understood currently.

❤ 

[Salvijus]

@VeganAwake do you understand that Truth-realization is the end of suffering? If you do, than obviously you should understand what end of suffering looks like. It looks like that monk. That's how it looks like. Only someone who is rooted in Truth absolutely can do such a thing. Suffering is the greatest test how deeply is someone rooted in Truth. 

Yes, seeker is just a thought believed in. But to brake the illusion of the seeker, it's not enough to grasp this intelectually. One has to become deeply aware of impermenant nature of the seeker on experiencial level. When one sees that seeker is just a thought on a deepest level, he realizes himself as pure awareness. This knowledge and this awareness liberates one from fear of death and suffering. 

If one is capable of suffering than he's not aware of his true nature as pure awareness. He's disconnected from the truth. Suffering and unawareness go together. How unaware of your true nature you are, that's how much you suffer.

Makes sense?

Edited November 21, 2021 by Salvijus