The importance of Suffering

[Yimpa]

Just now, Inliytened1 said:

I don't want to turn this into a solipsism thread, but it is as fundamental as suffering, so we have to acknowledge it.   

Reminds me of the paradox regarding suicide. For example, in my religious upbringing we were taught that suicide is sinful, so we never discussed about it openly. But from a mental health perspective, it is healthy to discuss suicide instead of avoiding it. 

So yeah, you don’t understand suffering by avoiding suffering.

[Breakingthewall]

36 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

So if suffering isn't the only answer, whats the secret ingredients?  

Ask to Ramana maharshi. Awakening is an evolutionary process and the engine of evolution is suffering. Without suffering and war there would be no complex life, so yes, suffering is the crucible where evolution is forged, and it seems that enlightenment is one of the branches to which human evolution leads.

the collective mind creates this and many other things, but suffering does not lead to enlightenment, it only pushes evolution in that direction in some cases. To reach the true emptiness of the psyche, the individual must have stopped suffering a long time ago. I do not suffer much and I am not enlightened, before I suffered a lot mentally and I was zero awake, but that led me to look for a way to stop suffering and after trying several possibilities I oriented myself towards breaking the psyche since I saw clearly that suffering was always going with it.  I managed to lighten it by 80%, enough to lead a pleasant life as long as I don't go blind, sick or some shit like that, which is always a possibility.

Now the drive does not come from suffering, but from perceiving the immensity, and therefore wanting to delve deeper into it.

Edited February 29 by Breakingthewall

[Inliytened1]

6 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

Reminds me of the paradox regarding suicide. For example, in my religious upbringing we were taught that suicide is sinful, so we never discussed about it openly. But from a mental health perspective, it is healthy to discuss suicide instead of avoiding it. 

So yeah, you don’t understand suffering by avoiding suffering.

yeah, you face that bad boy head on.  But it's more profound than even that.  Look at what @Someone here said about Tolle - he couldn't continue to live with himself.  That is suffering.  He was there, he just didn't harm the body.  And that's what gets you to enlightenment.  It's just because enlightenment is death - God is death.  I would never say harm the body because  you can die without doing that, and i was no different than Tolle.  In fact my enlightnement is about the same as his.

Edited February 29 by Inliytened1

[Yimpa]

3 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Now the drive does not come from suffering, but from perceiving the immensity, and therefore wanting to delve deeper into it.

The irony is that the immensity you refer to can be sourced from what we overlook as ordinary.

[Inliytened1]

18 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Ask to Ramana maharshi. Awakening is an evolutionary process and the engine of evolution is suffering. Without suffering and war there would be no complex life, so yes, suffering is the crucible where evolution is forged, and it seems that enlightenment is one of the branches to which human evolution leads.

the collective mind creates this and many other things, but suffering does not lead to enlightenment, it only pushes evolution in that direction in some cases. To reach the true emptiness of the psyche, the individual must have stopped suffering a long time ago. I

You are kind of contradicting yourself here.  First you say it is the crucbile, but then you say it does not lead to enlightenment.   Well, if it pushes you in that direction I would say that means it leads to enlightnement.  i think what you are saying is that not everyone who suffers will awaken.  I would concur with that - but now I bring you back to solipsism.  If only suffering can wake you up, and its just you, then there you have it.  

I'm telling you man, i had a massive awakening as God tonight.  What I am telling you is the real deal.  There is no other.  There is only You.  You can say, well, if that was the case, why even bother trying to convince me of it - but i do have a ready answer for that.  It's because you are me!

 

Edited February 29 by Inliytened1

[James123]

1 hour ago, Inliytened1 said:

It truly is.  It is so remarkable.  I know we have our struggles in everyday life.  I certainly have them.  But God realization just sets you completely free.  And you don't have to kill the physical body to do it, that's whats so beautiful about it.

Definitely. Moreover, love stays as always. Whatever happens in the daily life, love and being nothing just stays. Therefore, appreciation of every happening is inevitable. That's make everything as one.

[Breakingthewall]

4 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

I'm telling you man, i had a massive awakening as God tonight.  What I am telling you is the real deal.  There is no other.  There is only You.  You can say, well, if that was the case, why even bother trying to convince me of it - but i do have a ready answer for that.  It's because you are me!

The unlimited is not alone, it is impossible, it is another dimension, if you perceive that you are alone, it means that the psyche is still alive.

[Water by the River]

1 hour ago, puporing said:

And I also knew that was the main reason I was ahead of you guys even tho you don't yet believe me. 

Awakenings can have such a deep and self-verifying impact (and is self-validating, because... aspects of True Being starting to show up) that "one can stare the devil in the eye and not blink", as some Zen people have written. One starts speaking from the authority of ones own Awakenings. The question is: What is left of "one speaking".

Yet, everytime yours truly had the thought arising that he is ahead of anyone, there was a new me separate-self-cluster floating around in my Infinite True Being, pretty much destroying the awakened nondual state of just One Infinite Being/Infinite Consciousness with re-establishing duality, separate-self and "other".

Later, admittedly after quite some years , I learned that self-importance and feeling of being "ahead" of any arising in my True Being of any kind is one of the end-game-bosses, because it creates (separate) self and others. And it can be very very subtle...

Nowadays I tend to smile on any tendencies like that are arising in me, understanding that Maya just looked at "me" and gave me her most beautiful and seductive smile. Because "who" could "I" be ahead of? Ahead of Myself? And all you can do if Maya smiles at you is smile back....

Please don't understand as criticism, just as a description of my experience with that topic.

In Absolute Truth, there is no "one" ahead of "anyone". On a relative/manifestation level, there are just some "mindstreams" that have more clouds blocking True Beings, and some have less. All have the same essence and Being.

I personally have a hard time staying in Awakened Nondual Awareness and seriously believing that "I" am ahead of anyone, because then "I" get served "I" (separate self) and "anyone" (other), normally causing an end of nondual Awakening, and the corresponding suffering/resistance to what is, which is just another word for suffering. And I tend to no longer hit myself on my own knee with a hammer if I can avoid it, even if Maya gives me her most seductive smile.

Namaste 

Water by the River

[Inliytened1]

3 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

The unlimited is not alone, it is impossible, it is another dimension, if you perceive that you are alone, it means that the psyche is still alive.

Let's examine this a bit deeper.  If its another dimension than I cannot see or touch, then it is no different than being singular.

That is what the Infinity of Gods video by Leo stated.  It does not contradict solipsism.

[Breakingthewall]

13 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

You are kind of contradicting yourself here.  First you say it is the crucbile, but then you say it does not lead to enlightenment.   

Exactly, suffering can move you in the direction of the spiritual awakening, but you have to be almost empty of suffering before to move to real opening. It there is still suffering means that you psyche is still too dense, more work is needed. When you are almost empty of suffering, the bubble that limits you is still there, but you can start the serious work, the real opening  

1 minute ago, Inliytened1 said:

Let's examine this a bit deeper.  If its another dimension than I cannot see or touch,

It's another dimension where it's not you. It's unlimited existence, impersonal. the self cannot imagine it precisely because it is the self. It is the opening of the limits. I would forget things like knowing that you are God, that you are imagining this, etc., and I would focus on letting go of the self. without center, that's the key

[Inliytened1]

4 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Exactly, suffering can move you in the direction of the spiritual awakening, but you have to be almost empty of suffering before to move to real opening. It there is still suffering means that you psyche is still too dense, more work is needed. When you are almost empty of suffering, the bubble that limits you is still there, but you can start the serious work, the real opening  

 

This is simply not the case.  With all due respect.   The mistake you make here is that the psyche has absolutely nothing to do with God realization or enlightnement ( I am using the words interchangeably here)  The psyche is the ego mind, and it must perish for you to experience yourself as God.  Now once that happens, you can have later awakenings, but that is only because you are already conscious that the self is illusory.  So the ego plays no role in this.  What you are referring to is shadow work, which again, is not a prerequisite of enlightenment.  Enlightenment is about losing the form and merging with the Godhead.  No not merging, becoming.

Edited February 29 by Inliytened1

[Breakingthewall]

3 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

has absolutely nothing to do with God realization or enlightnement

Well, I think that god realization is not enlightenment, god realization is the psyche opening to divinity. Enlightenment is when the psyche withdraws and the limitlessness of existence remains, the emptiness that is everything. It is not perceived as God, God is something, it is limited.

[Inliytened1]

3 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Well, I think that god realization is not enlightenment, god realization is the psyche opening to divinity. Enlightenment is when the psyche withdraws and the limitlessness of existence remains, the emptiness that is everything. It is not perceived as God, God is something, it is limited.

I know what you are saying here.  But its the same thing.  You're just conufsing the concept of God with the actuality of God.  When you become God you are aren't going to post about it, because you are just being God.  So there isn't any words involved.  We're just using the terms here as pointers.

Edited February 29 by Inliytened1

[Javfly33]

12 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Let's examine this a bit deeper.  If its another dimension than I cannot see or touch, then it is no different than being singular.

That is what the Infinity of Gods video by Leo stated.  It does not contradict solipsism.

Was just watching that video yesterday.

If by solipsism we mean infinite boundless Love, yes, Reality is 'solipsistic' 👁️

How see it is: 'Other' 'Gods', are Nothing, they are literally identical to my bubble of consciousness. The dream is co-created, every being is the same as the other being.

Ego is based on differences, so it may ask 'why I created a man and the 'other' God created a woman as an avatar? that is a difference'. 

But no such a thing. Man and woman is the same. Animal and human is the same. Ego is creating the differences.

For the dream to be so beautiful every Nothing took an avatar/being to represent. 

There are not two dreams 💙Only One  💙 

[Inliytened1]

5 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

Was just watching that video yesterday.

If by solipsism we mean infinite boundless Love, yes, Reality is 'solipsistic' 👁️

How see it is: 'Other' 'Gods', are Nothing, they are literally identical to my bubble of consciousness. The dream is co-created, every being is the same as the other being.

Ego is based on differences, so it may ask 'why I created a man and the 'other' God created a woman as an avatar? that is a difference'. 

But no such a thing. Man and woman is the same. Animal and human is the same. Ego is creating the differences.

For the dream to be so beautiful every Nothing took an avatar/being to represent. 

There are not two dreams 💙Only One  💙 

Yup.  Well, I'm going to break it down for you guys.  Really think about the collapse of the self/other duality.

If there isn't a self, then how can there be anything separate or outside of that self?  THere can't.  There can only be, well, BEING.  and that's what we have.  We have Being..

Edited February 29 by Inliytened1

[Breakingthewall]

18 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

I know what you are saying here.  But its the same thing.  You're just conufsing the concept of God with the actuality of God.  When you become God you are aren't going to post about it, because you are just being God.  So there isn't any words involved.  We're just using the terms here as pointers.

According with @Water by the River it's a kind of oneness, I don't know, not for me, for me its just unlimited and impersonal, alive existence. One means center, and it's the opposite of many, unlimited is beyond one and many, it could be both. 

But maybe one day i see it totally different, maybe you too 

Edited February 29 by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

15 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

If there isn't a self, then how can there be anything separate or outside of that self? 

If there isn't self, there is not the idea of oneness or others, you can't say there are no others, just unlimited is. Others are out of the equation, even if they exist or not. Others doesn't matter. Look, the others exist right? You can see them now, you are talking with people, so you could deduct that then infinite splits infinitely, so inside you there is infinite and inside me too, inside and outside are the same, it's infinity, another rules. 

[Javfly33]

41 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Yup.  Well, I'm going to break it down for you guys.  Really think about the collapse of the self/other duality.

If there isn't a self, then how can there be anything separate or outside of that self? 

Yeah the key is the self. 

When being 4 years old, 'Real me' was dead. I was not 'born'. Nothing existed at 4 years old. 

When Real me identified with body (maybe at 5-6 years old?), illusion about being 'someone' specific gets created. Illusion about existing in a certain 'place' and in a certain 'time' gets created.

All illusion gets created when that which does not exist in a concrete or particular way identifies with body. 

From that illusion, the questions of others arise of course. 😆

[Water by the River]

2 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

Let's open it up - 

@Water by the River I would like to hear your thoughts .

I have come to the realization that suffering was the catalyst in my awakenings - the initial one of no self, (this includes the subsequent awakenings that came thereafter) and now, six years later, another awakening.  Again, suffering.  Yes, in the first one, i meditated, but after that they came spontaneously.   So i do beleive suffering was behind it - and the meditation just brought it home.

I didn't realize how important sufffering was in awakening until now.  I knew it was huge, but I didn't think I could ever awaken agani - until i expereinced immense suffering again - similar to what i felt 6 years back when i awoke.

Thoughts guys?

A very good and important topic to contemplate about. I also spent a long time with the topic of what causes actually Awakening, and its relationship to suffering. I tried to include as many past & present cases into my perspective on it as possible.

On suffering in the context of Awakening, Enlightenment, the meditation path and my personal experiences (and my personal pet-theory of it all): -warning, the usual conceptual overkill of yours truly ahead-

The following is my perspective based on what I have seen/read about other cases, and my own experiences.

• Without some form of suffering (or more precicly in Buddhist terma Dukha which means not suffering, but more unsatisfactoryness) nobody would ever start the path to Enlightenment/Awakening/Liberation/True Being, because one would be happy & satisfied doing the myriad of projects to become happy and free of suffering/unsatisfactoriness in our culture/time. Maslows pyramid up and down.
• What is not so well known: Even Maslow put towards the end of his life stage 6 on top of Maslows pyramid of need: (Self-)-Transcendence.

So for the start of the "Enlightenment-project" (which is a contradiction in itself, but that is another story...) one needs either

a) a mainstream-culture that pushes spiritual liberation/Awakening (and for our lifetimes, Maya goes "not today darling" on that topic, or

b) some form of suffering or dukha (unsatisfactoriness) to start the journey.

 

Then during the path to Awakening/Enlightenment/liberation, the old cycles of suffering/unsatisfactoriness don't stop at once. Here is how it developed for me, in a nutshell.

• The nature of the separate-self/ego to cycle between being happy for some time, then suffering/being unsatisfied/resisting what is/unhappy, then start a new project to make it happy, and round it goes.
  • If God would write a manual to make a Samsara/Illusion game with (separate) self and others, it would go something like this: Give them some unsatisfaction and a carrot (expectation of happiness induced by a certain experience in the future), let them chase, then give them temporary happiness(=not resisting what is) and them make 'em suffer again. And given them lots of levels of carrots/games to chase and try out for permanent happiness. That is all that is needed to have a game with separate-self. The chasing goes from Maslows pyramid base stage 1 apparently up to chasing ETs n+1.
• Then, on an efficient path (my case Mahamudra/Dzogchen), the bliss of ones True Being (Awakenings to Nondual Awakened Awarenes) by cutting off the thought/feeling stream of the separate self in real time (also called meditation, if done correctly) starts flowing.
  • At some point of my path (mainly Mahamudra&Dzogchen), I literally could start producing my bliss for example while meditating, walking, in meetings (at least some of them when I just could watch the show ) and so on... That normally starts after some years of meditation (on and off the pillow) when the vast spaciousness of boundless awareness starts showing up and the contractions in the head get literally relaxed.
  • That impressed me pretty much. That bliss didn't hold with "hard" problems/really bad events in the beginning, but it started the become stronger and stronger, inducing more and more awakend nondual states of blissful silence. A positive feedback loop. 
    • More and more facets of True Being started to show up, see my last post on the remnants of separate self that need to be seen through. Creating more and more Awakening and bliss.
•  At some point the shift can happen towards realizing what one really is/True Infinite Being, or Enlightenment. Since that normally implies a gradual transcendence path/process over several years that one has been fed each and any core-separte-self identity/suffering during  the meditation by Maya in the years before, pretty much all of that stuff is transcended. Because Maya will "throw" anything at you that she has to keep the illusion going, and she has a lot.
  • But it can jump to Enlightenment any time (Karma, aka genetics but I prefer Karma, more encompassing), induced by various events, often suffering, before that path/during it/at the end of it. For most it takes the whole path.
  • The more gradual and longer the path, the more stable is the realization later. Yet, once having realized True Being, it is no longer in doubt.

So, that was my experience, now comes my theory:

1. Beings are karmically wired more or less fortunately/differently. Some wake up because
   1. their visual field conforms for some reasons (base state, Kundalini-Awakening, whatever) very well to the True Nature of things (mere appearance and not solid objects out there, Infinite field of awareness, boundless, timeless, always here, basically my last long post about a mindstream conforming to the enlightened mindstream. Or at least they have the potential for that shift to happen quickly.
   2. and their core-separate-self-identity-arisings are for some reason (Karma,...) easily seen through when contemplating&self-inquiring.
   3. For these beings (1) and (2) in place, some trigger can cause Enlightenment. Suffering-example: Tolle. Kundalini/Energetic: Ramana. Anamanda Ma, countless examples in history. Branch of that is shaktipat hitting a "fertile field".
2. Then there are the normies, like yours truly, who need an either need
   1. a) an efficient practice (like Mahamudra/Dzogchen) first to induce awakened states, then get rid of all illusion/separate-self remnants, and then some good pointing out instruction of the real state of things (the properties of True Infinite Being, basically my last long post).
      1. quite some time/years needed to start inducing awakened awareness/mere nondual appearance of the visual field via meditation/trekchö/cutting off each and any thought-arising in more and more highspeed by looking into its (empty/consciousness) nature out of which thoughts/feelings are made.
         1. Until then of course also suffering in cycles. But getting "over the hump" towards bliss-inducing state happens here in the fastest and most efficient manner, as least in the opinion of yours truly.
         2. The beginning steps of that path are also concentration meditation, like in b) below. But quite refined ones, and not for too long before one shifts practice.
      2. Learning to produce ones own bliss with being in these awakened states. This way, gradually getting rid of large parts of suffering by slowly transcending the "sufferer", and replacing misery of the separate-self with the bliss of awakened states.
      3. and then, towards the end of the road (or if one is gifted/fortunate/lucky also in the middle of the path) the shift to realizing True Being and its immortality (or infinite-always here nature), and with that removing the final fear of "death" or disappearance.
   2.  b) a practice that is less detailed and focuses more on brute-force willpower/push-through concentration meditation: Jhana, Zen, "sit and die before the wall" approaches that need to push with willpower through lots and lots of suffering.
      1. Here, we are again at lots and lots of suffering (at least at the beginning stages, but also all along the path from what I have seen), because Maya will throw everything she has at you to get you off the pillow/meditation, not that one wakes up and leaves the game prematurely...

 

And now the second part of the post, why are the paths with less/minimized suffering not practiced more widely?

As

@Arthogaan

has noticed correctly in the post below, and I had the exact same thoughts many times...

Short answer to the question above:

• they are more complex and need more maintenance/coaching/understanding. So they are more difficult to teach & multiply & roll out, and normally need personal coaching.
• they have mostly been kept secret until recently because of the various dangers, like for example ego-inflation, nihilistic misuse-potential, or just plain and simple misunderstanding potential of complex practices, which leads to stagnation in the practice.

Why do we have mainly enlightened ones who got lucky/were lucky with karma/genetics (see above), or  from the paths 2b) Concentration meditation/Theravada/Zen?

Because until recently the highly(!) sophisticated methods of Tibetan Buddhism like Mahamudra/Dzogchen/... (who have developed much more and way more sophisticated than for example Zen/Theravada which are very similiar to what was done in India 1000 to 2000 years ago (although I love these traditions very much) were not accessible at all.

The Tibetans "concentrated" more on spirituality as a society, 1000 years of R&D of enlightened lineages and sometimes a large part of the adult population in the monastaries (~15%+). Head of state = Dalai Lama for a long time. Basically, main focus of that culture&society including government was Enlightenment. Of course there was also a lot of stupid things going on, like war between monasteries. But the overall development of buddhist meditation in that setting was unparalleled. Compared to that (sorry) Theravada and Zen sometimes feels a bit like "living fossils" (said in a joking way), although I like them very much and they do work quite robustly and produce fully enlightened ones.

The Tibetan Teachings are very sophisticated and either need lots of focus on them (like reading the books of Brown 10-20 times and experimenting a lot),  or a good and enlightened teacher explaining them and checking for understanding (which pretty much didn't exist until recently, all secret teachings are out, see books of Daniel Brown. "best of" collection of Menri Trizin, selected by Menri Trizin (probably those with which he achieved his own realization) to be translated by Brown).

Another problem is they got a deeply cultural "lingo" and quite some hyperbole (the Tantric teachings of generation/completition stages and especially the lower Tantras). Quite hard to approach.

So the only thing not published by Brown of these systems are some of the secret pointing out instructions for Enlightenment, although quite some are published, for example his Akrid book (Pith Instructions for A Khrid rDzogs Chen. Yet, reading that in parallel to Pointing out the Great Way is probably better than starting with that book alone).

That system plus a bit Jac O'Keffee, Roger Thisdell, Massaro, Wolinsky for the final steps towards Realization (I wrote quite a lot about these), and some psychedelics for state-peak-previews... These elements I assume will be found in the Global Dharma of the future.

Then some more aspects:

• Concentration Meditation Systems like Zen or Jhana/Theravada are quite robust:
  • Don't need so much teaching/feedback during the process, are more brute-force and less complex. More robust, less efficient (in the meaning that one needs to push through suffering with meditation, and that they can be slower/less pleasant, and many meditators end in the many cul-de-sacs of the path where one can just stagnate if certain nuances are not understood. But done long &hard enough they work. Metaphor: The axe to cut down a tree. Doesnt need fuel & maintenance & sophisticated handling like a forst harvester.... which brings us to:
• The Forsest harvester to cut down the forst of Illusion: Mahamudra&Dzogchen&other Tibetan Buddhism techniques, see for example Daniel Browns books & videos:
  • can work if done correctly/understood correctly/coached correctly in 
    • the fastest way possible by swiftly creating Awakened Nondual States
    • most pleasant way possible (minimum amount of pushing through suffering on/off meditation pillow, taking the meditation off the pillow into daily life at the earliest possible point.
    • avoiding pretty much all cul-de-sacs of the path where meditation practice can stagnate/level out if something is not done correctly, which means and end to the growth of Awakened Nondual States. Mostly they don't even appear then in first place, and one remains in the mericless claws of the separate-self-contraction/suffering.
  • but are way more complex than the standard concentration meditation practice like Zen/Jhana. Pointing out the Great Way, Brown has hundreds of pages of descriptions of the various stages/steps and how the path develops through them. So  many many things to potentially do wrong if something is understood incorrectly. Zen-Koan-meditation would just push through these errors if done long enough, but an incorrectly done Nonmeditation (done too early) or One Taste meditation goes nowhere and stagnates...

 

Selling Water by the River

[Bazooka Jesus]

3 hours ago, Inliytened1 said:

But why does God want to realize himself in only some forms?

Ever heard of Yin & Yang?

There can be no "awakened people" without "not awakened people".

Reality 101.