Leo, can you talk more about the 2 directions of spiritual work?

[tsuki]

33 minutes ago, jimwell said:

To be alive is to be evil. So, yes, I am evil. But not as evil as the bullies and serial killers. What's your point?

You are talking of evil in terms of proverbs and morality, which tells me that you haven't explored this facet of yourself to a great degree.

[tsuki]

10 minutes ago, tsuki said:

You are talking of evil in terms of proverbs and morality, which tells me that you haven't explored this facet of yourself to a great degree.

45 minutes ago, jimwell said:

To be alive is to be evil. So, yes, I am evil. But not as evil as the bullies and serial killers. What's your point?

To be more direct, my point is that to study evil, you need to do it through experience, not by watching inmates like monkeys in a zoo. Don't misread it, don't go around killing people. You've done enough already for a  lifetime of learning.

Edited December 30, 2021 by tsuki

[jimwell]

8 hours ago, tsuki said:

To be more direct, my point is that to study evil, you need to do it through experience, not by watching inmates like monkeys in a zoo. Don't misread it, don't go around killing people. You've done enough already for a  lifetime of learning.

8 hours ago, tsuki said:

You are talking of evil in terms of proverbs and morality, which tells me that you haven't explored this facet of yourself to a great degree.

This is a confused response. 

[Nahm]

9 hours ago, jimwell said:

To be alive is to be evil. So, yes, I am evil.

This whole apparent alive situation is made of the unconditional love you are. It is not evil to be alive, it is simply impossible. People do some horrific stuff for sure, no question. But it boils down to conditioning, and essentially wether we perpetuate it or self realize and don’t. But it’s also perfect if we don’t. 

[jimwell]

15 minutes ago, Nahm said:

This whole apparent alive situation is made of the unconditional love you are.

That might be true in the highest level; but I have no access to it. So, I can't take it as truth. But I do see that unconditional self-love is the highest beauty.

 

17 minutes ago, Nahm said:

It is not evil to be alive, it is simply impossible.

 I wish that was true. But think about the suffering and death you inflicted on other living beings to stay alive. The truth needs to be honored no matter how ugly.

 

21 minutes ago, Nahm said:

People do some horrific stuff for sure, no question. But it boils down to conditioning, and essentially wether we perpetuate it or self realize and don’t. But it’s also perfect if we don’t. 

Humans do evil things because of conditioning and genetics. Nothing is random. But in the end, they still do evil; and to be alive is to be evil. 

If you insist that in the grand scheme of things, everything is good and perfect; I must say I have no access to it. I need to honor what I see now, which is existence is both beautiful and horrible.

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, jimwell said:

That might be true in the highest level; but I have no access to it. So, I can't take it as truth. But I do see that unconditional self-love is the highest beauty.

No one has access to it. No one is separate from or not, it. Everyone & everything already is it. The “access” would be in recognizing and relinquishing the conjecture of “levels” & “highest levels” as, “access”. It’s a conceptualization heard and believed, the ‘fall out’ of which is the belief unconditional love is in a future or in the right experience, or combination of experiences, which lead to the right level. These are just ideas, beliefs. Admittedly, these would have to recognized for what they are and rightfully discarded... but it can not be said in truth, in honesty, in accordance with conscience, that there is anyone who is without and thus needs to get, “access”.   

There is no suggestion here to take what I’m saying as truth. You are what’s so beautiful. You are the love that is. This is realized in understanding what you’re already feeling & experiencing, which in large part is a letting go of those conceptualizations & conjecture. 

1 hour ago, jimwell said:

I wish that was true. But think about the suffering and death you inflicted on other living beings to stay alive. The truth needs to be honored no matter how ugly.

If interested, watch some videos on Schrödinger’s cat. In short, alive is a thought, and dead is a thought, and you are nondual. All thought is dual, twoness, this or that, up & down, yada yada. Reality or experience, is nondual. Contrary to popular belief, thought appears in, as, reality, and can never define reality. Alive & dead are thoughts, and are no exception. But again, even that suggestion to look into Schrödinger’s cat is oriented to the conceptual. I suggest inspecting & understanding the emotions you are experiencing is the direct route. I’m available if you do take interest and have any questions. 

One relief of inspecting direct experience is the discovering there is no experience of inflicting suffering & death. Kind of a bold statement, but suffering is directly experienced in the ‘yours’ sense, and never on behalf of any other thing, person, animal or entity, and is directly related to thoughts, beliefs, and misinterpretations. Again, ‘living beings’ is an oxymoron, a concept, a thought believed. Also again, there is no implication here that love is ‘gotten to’ at a ‘level’, but is just prior to the beliefs (conceptualizations). Love is fallen into, allowed to arise within, and is not an achievement or attainment in a future. 

Even subtle judgement like ‘ugly’ can veil the truth, love. Such a thought can be believed such that it seems objectively true, when it is subjective & private, and basically opinion. That which is being thought to be ‘ugly’, very literally is the beauty and love that you are. Again, it’s allowing. Not figuring out, not the right experience, etc. 

1 hour ago, jimwell said:

Humans do evil things because of conditioning and genetics. Nothing is random. But in the end, they still do evil; and to be alive is to be evil. 

If you insist that in the grand scheme of things, everything is good and perfect; I must say I have no access to it. I need to honor what I see now, which is existence is both beautiful and horrible.

Though it is relieving, it is indeed most humbling, but that there are humans, any separate individuals or selves in any real way, is only a belief, and is not true. That is conditioning, and that holding of that belief is how the conditioning is handed down and perpetuated.  I hope you deduce, if not in what’s said here, in the vibe, that this is not meant personally. The primary belief is that you are a human. The secondary belief is that there are multiple humans. The third belief is that some are good and some are evil. The conclusion is to be alive is to be evil. But the conclusion is founded on beliefs which can be inspected and realized to be, beliefs. 

Nothing is unconditional love, you. No implication here this must be realized or accessed in a future. To be clear, I am saying this is what already is, and is felt as such, without exception. Nothing is appearing as reality, as in everything. Nothing is neither random or determined, as these are once again, conceptualizations of unconditional love. Random is only a thought, determined is only a thought. While the actuality is ineffable, and can not be thought, as in thunk. My suggestion is inspecting conceptualizations, conjecture & beliefs and dispelling them, falling into & receiving, actuality. 

The ‘good news’ is that all there is, is, our infinite self, which is good and is perfect… and beliefs to the contrary. Without exception, the discord is felt when these beliefs to the contrary arise, and again, I’m suggestion inspection of that via utilization of the emotional scale. It does work, but only as direct experience. It’s utilization does not require any effort.  

When it is said ‘I need to honor what I see now’, it can also be noticed beautiful and horrible, in this usage, are thoughts, judgements, conceptualizations of perception, and thus are not ‘what I see now’. It is what I think now, and it is discordant, and it is suffering, and there is cessation from this suffering, and it is letting go of these misinterpretations & misunderstandings. Which is to say, letting go of discord and suffering. 

Also for clarity sake, there is no implication here that there aren’t beliefs and concepts to let go of ‘to see reality as it is’.  Only that there is no ‘work’ to do, no effort required, no thing in need of being attained or achieved, no means of special access. It’s only a matter of inspection, emotional understanding, and letting go of every belief that doesn’t even feel good, to you. 

It is entirely possible (see scale if interested) that you experience the emotions of blame, hate, rage and or anger, very rightfully so - but confuse the experience of these emotions, with the thought that you are separate. 

[The0Self]

2 hours ago, jimwell said:

If you insist that in the grand scheme of things, everything is good and perfect; I must say I have no access to it. I need to honor what I see now, which is existence is both beautiful and horrible.

i.e. unimaginably beautiful.

Think of it like this: If it were any different, it would be worse, in a way you may not understand currently. The serial killer must play the role of the serial killer for there to be heroes that rise to the occasion to stop him. No evil = no drama = less wake-up calls = less amusement = less good. Therefore, evil is not wrong, it’s just not preferable to those which prefer good... Not only that, but one’s good can be another’s evil — grounds for even more drama (perhaps remember that word unimaginable).

^^^ Very, very roughly speaking.

I don’t know though... but literally — i.e. not in the sense often meant ? — It is direct here that there is no actual dualistic knowing of truth in any way because it is not even conceivably possible, nor is there a potentially real framework which it could be possible in.

Edited December 31, 2021 by The0Self

[jimwell]

5 hours ago, BenG said:

Don't tell me you understand empathy toward these people and then instantly prove otherwise. There's an enormous difference between understanding and judgement. I don't get the impression that you understand this difference. In a nutshell, understanding is to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, judgment is making evaluations from the outside. It's essentially the difference between calling something "self" and calling something "other". Calling something "other" is already an untrue approach. There is no "other".

Don't get me wrong, you seem to have compassion for victims, and I respect that about you. Also, don't think I'm telling you that I always have empathy for Psychopaths and abusers, I don't. I judge them too; I sometimes hate them. But this isn't understanding, and it isn't truth. It's survival, it's ego, it's game playing.

You conflate understanding and empathy. So, you limit understanding. The deepest understanding is holistic. It includes many perspectives and the associated emotions, not just empathy.

I look at bullies and serial killers (psychopaths) from various perspectives, hence I feel various emotions such as empathy, compassion, disgust, and hate.

Understanding is very similar to love in a sense that it doesn’t discriminate any perspective. It welcomes various perspectives instead. Understanding and love are not only connected to each other; they are also very similar. It’s intriguing. 

[BipolarGrowth]

On 12/8/2021 at 11:30 PM, Leo Gura said:

There is a feature of consciousness which I would call self-comprehension or self-understanding, and also a feature I would call interconnectedness. These are what I would call the upward direction as opposed to the downward direction of deconstructing sensory experience through formal technical meditation like Vipassana, or stilling the mind to the point of cessation.

So what's required for God-realization is a crazy degree of self-comprehension and interconnectedness.

The problem with traditional Buddhist practices is that they still the mind and produce cool higher states, but they don't give you that crazy degree of interconnected necessary for total self-comprehension. And so therefore reality, self, other, God, and Love are never really understood for what they are, even though there might be ego-loss. Ego-loss is not the same as a deep comprehension of things. This comprehension is not merely the human mind at work, it is God-Mind comprehending itself at an Absolute level.

It would be awesome to see you combine the power of mastery of the downward and upward directions both someday. I have faith that it’ll happen. I reached cessation mainly through the methods you teach and only got into meditation to a degree I would now call serious after cessation. Meditation before cessation is chopped liver IMO/IME, but afterward, it’s quite amazing comparatively. 
 

You might be one of the best on the planet with the upward direction. You might grow four arms and have blue skin after mastering both ?

 

I’m also assuming you haven’t had cessation yet, which I could be wrong about. 

[BipolarGrowth]

On 12/13/2021 at 10:45 AM, Mu_ said:

What I'm sharing and what your asking are really pushing the boundaries of my current depths and understandings, so I'm not great at fully communicating these matters, nor am I a sure I can put this communication in language, but I'll try and maybe I'll use traditional metaphors to hopefully convey what I mean.

Neither resonate more.  But I do think each has their place at the right time.  I think when you do deeply understand on some level that God is prime and by extension of this understand you understand you are thus God, the "You are dreaming/imagining x, y, or z" make more sense, but still there's subtlety in what this means to each awakener confronting this realization, the bounds of which I do not know. 

For example one awakening to such could see this to mean, they are an alone entity dreaming, which still is concept in my opinion, or another could feel dreaming is happening as a broad entity that is fully connected, but not by a in the moment willing intention, like a human may feel like they are up to when they concentrate continuously on a burning flame, or the awakener could feel like a broad entity that isn't experiencing concepts and experience referred to as "alone" or "together" but understands what ever moment to moment happening is taking place is Gods manifestation. 

I also think if said awakener is say a Alien of some sort, there will be aspects that are radically different in so called moment to moment experience that may shed Truth on things that are not accessible to a human awakener, even though ultimately neither human or alien is a actual subject taking place.  Which again comes to a subtle, but perhaps radical difference in how I see and thus communicate, in comparison to Leo (even though there are perhaps more similarities than not), is God "in control" imagining, or God arising in a particular coconscious/unconscious kind of manner that both learns, adapts, and wills stuff into existence.

And as I type this, I can't help but feel its neither of these absolutely, but something that could be said to encompass them all, yet is not bound by nor limited to such graspable notions as this incarnation/mind/human body is only able to imagine (and yes even though these don't actually exist as any particular things).  We are all being done by god, and yet this to is a limited idea, perhaps enforcing notions called "determined", "not in control", "arising, "happening".  Really a paradox of paradoxes, that isn't a paradox.

I think the things we can ultimately take away with certainty as awakeners is nothing is ever out of place or wrongly happening or happened, this event is eternal, and Love is intricately intrinsic.  And perhaps one that I don't always like to let in, is that it "may" not always feel smooth, easy or pleasant, and that when it is this way, its not a sign of imperfection.

Well said ? I see you’re using that neither ____ nor ____ quite well ❤️