What are the most important traps of awakening?

[VeganAwake]

1 hour ago, Michael Jackson said:

Yes, exactly. This is something that many people realize, even without psychedelics. But in comparison to the absolute that realization is minor. It's like the first step of a 100m run. It is something, but far away from completing the entire run.

What's not being understood is when it's clearly recognized the self is an illusion, all that's left is the absolute or Infinity.

The first step of the apparent 100m run becomes the last step simultaneously.

❤ 

 

[SriSriJustinBieber]

9 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

Well if it was clearly recognized the self is an illusion who would be left to continue seeking?

Who would be left feeling like there's still something that needs to be found?

❤ 

It may appear that way, however this will create non-acknowledged suffering because nothingness is not truly nothingness but simply a subtler body than the mental/emotional body and that subtle body is still and spacious and detached enough to make you believe you have arrived. The unacknowledged suffering is ultimately your salvation because it hopefully triggers back the suppressed seeking at some point.

The seeking energy is your ticket to the absolute, it is more valuable than any realization or understanding, it is basically your lifeline. It does not fundamentally come from a self or body, but rather it is god endlessly begging and encouraging you to come back home. To realize you are not a cluster of thoughts/sensations is great and beautiful and expansive, but it doesn't mean you can silence god's whispers.

Common! There must be more magical stuff to life than boring compensatory negations like no mind, no self, nothingness, etc. You know it in your heart bro!

[VeganAwake]

24 minutes ago, SriSriJustinBieber said:

Common! There must be more magical stuff to life than boring compensatory negations like no mind, no self, nothingness, etc. You know it in your heart bro!

BTW my wife loves Justin Bieber!

Yeah it's an explosion of light, color and sound....completely radical and off-the-chart in every possible way. Definitely not boring...it's every emotion rather!

Just saying the seeking energy is often a symptom of believing that something is missing or incomplete..... and how could something be missing in that which is everything.

The apparent problem is the seeker attempts to find a particular something within everything.... and there's just nothing particular to find because there's already nothing missing.

When the desperate seeker is recognized to be completely unreal, there is just BOOM everything.

❤ 

 

 

 

[Osaid]

Intellectualization, mental masturbation, unearned wisdom. Solipsism is a big one, which relates to the previous aforementioned traps.

[Seraphim]

11 hours ago, CaptainBobbyOlsen said:

@Seraphim Yep, i can easily see the statements being a trap themselves haha

Tell me exactly what changed in your psyche when the i-thought no longer arose. What were your thinking-processes before and after?

Here is a great article about thinking: https://medium.com/@jayseb11/3-types-of-thinking-one-of-which-the-monkey-mind-is-the-root-of-all-suffering-2f0138ffe99a

I don't have the "incessant thinking" type (mindless chatter) that the article brings up. I also don't have narrative thoughts or an inner monologue, like "I'm gonna do this. He said that." etc. But more importantly, I don't have the feeling of having a mind, with mind I mean the sense of a frame in which the thoughts arise, and in which I exist and make choices, instead of the mind I guess you could say that there is just consciousness/awareness. No-mind leads to some great changes in my psyche and how I feel in my daily life, the best thing is an unconditional-acceptance-energy/feeling (love) that I can sense in my physical body and in my emotions/psyche.

Spiritual transmissions and contemplation are great tools to get rid of the I-thought for good.

 

 

[CaptainBobbyOlsen]

@Seraphim Cool article

You say there is no narrative and incessent thinking going on now, but did you have that before “no-mind”? And was there an immediate change or grandual change when the i-thought was abandoned? 

[CaptainBobbyOlsen]

@Michael Jackson But can you see through those illusions you alluded to right now, without any psychedelic influences? 

[CaptainBobbyOlsen]

@VeganAwake You make it sound like there is absolutely no illusions/traps hindering your perception of reality right now. Is that true? And if you believe that to be true would you then say that there existed some illusions/traps in your direct experience 1 year ago, 2 years ago or 5 years ago, that you are no longer fooled by?

[Michael Jackson]

4 hours ago, CaptainBobbyOlsen said:

@Michael Jackson But can you see through those illusions you alluded to right now, without any psychedelic influences? 

@CaptainBobbyOlsen it is possible, but rare. Most people need decades of meditation to do that. With psychedelics, everyone can do it. Its simply a magic pill. You take it, and reality melts.

[Seraphim]

15 hours ago, CaptainBobbyOlsen said:

@Seraphim Cool article

You say there is no narrative and incessent thinking going on now, but did you have that before “no-mind”? And was there an immediate change or grandual change when the i-thought was abandoned? 

Yea I had some of those types of thoughts before, and before starting the spiritual path I had a lot of that. There was an immediate change when the I-thought disappeared, because when it is gone, reality feels perfect, and it feels like there are no problems. The mind puts labels on things and we believe in them, so when the I-thought is gone, in some ways it becomes impossible to trick us, we see that the truth is beyond the mind.

[VeganAwake]

16 hours ago, CaptainBobbyOlsen said:

@VeganAwake You make it sound like there is absolutely no illusions/traps hindering your perception of reality right now. Is that true? And if you believe that to be true would you then say that there existed some illusions/traps in your direct experience 1 year ago, 2 years ago or 5 years ago, that you are no longer fooled by?

There are apparent traps within the illusion of being a separate individual attempting to find the correct spiritual path or enlightenment or whatever.

(Mainly that enlightenment is a something that an individual can become or attain)

But if it's clearly recognized that this individual jumping through spiritual hoops isn't even real, then the whole concept of there being right or wrong paths & traps becomes completely non-applicable.

❤ 

[CaptainBobbyOlsen]

@VeganAwake Yes, 

On 27.3.2022 at 5:07 AM, VeganAwake said:

But if it's clearly recognized that this individual jumping through spiritual hoops isn't even real, then the whole concept of there being right or wrong paths & traps becomes completely non-applicable.

❤ 

Yes of course when you recognize that there is no such thing as an individual, then the concept of traps/illusions etc are non-appplicable. But wouldnt you say that before such a radical recognition has taken place, that there appears to be traps that apparently hinders this recognion of taking place? And in that case wouldnt it be of benefit for the apparent person to know clearly what the possible traps look like before encountering them in order to better and faster realize the “non-applicableness”  of the ideas of traps/illusions afterwards?

 

[CaptainBobbyOlsen]

Here is a little list of traps/illusions to be aware of 

Disclaimers:

- The list is a work in progress so feel free to criticise/add/subtract 

- At the end of the journey one may/will probably realize that no such thing as a trap exist… How could it? 

- Different traps can contradict each other, but thats the nature the game i guess

- Each trap has many nuances and can present itself in different ways  

- Some of the traps are very similar but a sleight difference can mean a lot  

- To some degree all traps has potential to also be a catalyst for a “possitive” outcome, but generally i would say that it will be most benefitial to be able to recognize when a trap is at work

 

The list:

- The trap of thinking you have reached the end before having reached the end

- The trap of thinking that any insight/realisation/etc can constitude an actual “end”

- The trap of thinking there is an entity who will become enlightened and cooler than everyone else

- The trap of thinking/conceptualizing about that which cant be thought of/conceptualized 

- The trap of not actually practicing spirituality, but only consumimg spirituallity

- The trap of chasing spiritual experiences

- The trap of comparing yourself with the life of saints and sages

- The trap of thinking you are more advanced than you really are/wanting to appear more advanced than “others”

- The trap of confusing intellectual understanding for actual understanding

- The trap of thinking that you can cheat reality/take a short-cut to understand reality

- The trap of thinking that understanding of reality takes dacades and is basically impossible 

- The trap of thinking that understanding of reality is not possible in this very second, but only in an imagined future

- The trap of thinking that reality is human-centered

- The trap of believing your world-view to be the truth and trying to fit reality into your current world-view

- The trap of making your “maps” too complicated/too simpel

- The trap of following one tradition blindly

- The trap of following many traditions half-heartedly

- The trap of blaming incompetence/lack of insight on genetics/karma/etc

- The trap of not compensating correctly for incompetence/lack of insight based on genetics/karma/etc

- The trap of conflating relative/absolute and content/structure

- The trap of thinking there is a “seeker” who is seeking something

- The trap of thinking that “you” can do anything about anything

- The trap of apathy/nihilism/giving up

- The trap of not examining your direct experience deeply and accurately enough 

- The trap of thinking that something is missing and you need to find it

- The trap of map vs territory 

- The trap of underestimating your own self-delusion and self-deception

- The trap of thinking that you cant be wrong

- The trap of believing the mind’s narratives to be other than just empty narratives

- The trap of using the wrong tecniques/using too advanced tecniques that you are not “qualified” to use yet

- The trap of thinking you have transcended the ego/false-self/jiva when you have not

- The trap of seeking happiness and truth “outside” (money, job, social status, relationships etc.)

- The trap of not laying a solid foundation

- The trap of thinking that you want “truth”, but in reality you want something different

- The trap of not investigating your assumptions

- The trap of not being openminded enough

- The trap of suppression 

- The trap of not investigating your limiting beliefs

- The trap of not seeking help from “others”, and thinking you can do it all on your own in your bedroom

- The trap of not realising an important trap  

If any important traps/illusions are missing then please let me know 

Edited April 11, 2022 by CaptainBobbyOlsen

[SOUL]

@CaptainBobbyOlsen  The one that is the constant and persistent 'trap' if we are going to use this word to describe the phenomena of attachment which entraps within the experience of awakening is believing our perception is the 'truth'.

As we are freed from the attachment of self perception so transcend to more unified perception of oneness quite often there is a revelatory experience of 'this is the true' reality. People will call it absolute truth, they will capitalize it as 'Truth' and they will dismiss everything else as false, an illusion and not real in favor of their mystical experience of awakening.

They will shout from the metaphorical rooftops about how they have awakened to the universal truth that applies to everyone, not just their own experience, it's everyone;s truth... it is THE TRUTH! This is a 'trap' as you would call it.

Every new and deeper awakening no matter who the awakener is seems to always be the most truest truth to ever be seen whether it's someone newly on the path or years into it like the venerable host of this forum believes they are seeing the absolute truth and their experience is pure in perception. It's DIRECT EXPERIENCE!  How can it be wrong or an illusion?

So be aware of this 'trap' if this is what we are to call it.

[CaptainBobbyOlsen]

@SOUL Yeah, you can use many words to describe it, and luckily you are free to use the one you like the best

But i like the word “trap”, because it implies something that is not obvious when you are in the “trap” and approaching the “trap”. It is something you need to investigate and prepare for. What if you are in a “trap” right now without knowing?

Its a little like a fantasy story where the characters in order to get the treasure have to go through a big maze. The maze have lots of traps that will deceive them and keep them from progressing towards the treasure. And a few characters might have some fragments of a map of the maze whereby they can see and anticipate the potential traps along the different paths through the maze. When they know a trap is coming then they can plan for it and are more likely to not be trapped by the traps compared to the ones without anticipation of the traps. Maybe one of the traps are made to look like “the final treasure”, and many characters will fall for the “final treasure trap” and believe they have completed the maze. And only a few of the characters have studied the map cloesely enough to know that the “finale treasure trap” is also just a trap and they need to continue.

But what you are saying is completely correct. It is so hard not to fall into the trap/illusion/self-deception/hinderence/etc. when you “litteraly just found the absolute Truth, the one and only Truth”. The trap of believing you reached the end is a big one, and even more so if you use psychedelics compared to traditional tecniques i would say. Even if you believe you have reached an end you are probably better off just enjoying that feeling while expecting it not to be “the end”

[SOUL]

@CaptainBobbyOlsen  Thinking one is has the 'absolute truth' isn't the same as thinking one has reached 'the end'.  Sure, some may think if they have found the 'truth' they are 'done' but the belief about having the 'truth' is a continual 'trap' of the ongoing process of awakening, not the end of it.

[CaptainBobbyOlsen]

@SOUL Yeah i think you are correct. It is a good distinction to make