Enlightenment is so simple we all refuse every waking second to accept it.

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

But we are ALL a "oneness" (except twins, triplets, etc). Nobody is mentally or psychically connected to other people.
Also, as someone with BPD, I can tell you felling emptiness is HELL.

Why can people who use psychedelics never see that what they see/experience while under the influence of said psychedelics is because they cause both psychosis and alter the way your brain chemistry works?

 

[Foreigner]

I know this is delving more into normative ethics now- how should one live if reality is indeed an illusion, but that is congruent with life and living? More so looking at you @Foreigner

There's no "should", to be honest. Just because it's a dream, doesn't mean it's not real. When you dream while asleep, it seems so real, no matter how preposterous. It seems so natural until you wake up. Well, the waking world isn't that much different. We go through periods of compliance and then lucidity with the dream, but whether you're compliant or lucid, the dream is seemingly real. When people hear the word illusion, they think of a reflection in a pond or a mirage in the distance. This illusion has substance... you can feel pain and pleasure in it. In this dream, people can die.

Someone who is awake to this... from the outside, they look no different compared to someone who is still asleep to it. The only difference I can discern is that the "asleep" person thinks they're doing it, while the "awake" person knows that nobody is doing it. In other words, in this dream, you're a you, but you're not the one doing it.

How does this help you?

Rather than dictating the content of what you do or don't do with your life, it allows you to let go of all attachment to what is happening, even if you simultaneously get attached to things. You see who the real doer is, and it's nobody. That doesn't mean you, <insert name>, isn't important. It doesn't mean you should negate your precious human level experience. It just means you can revel in the True Nature (see below) while knowing that God is running the show.

Further to this - and I'm going to use arbitrary words here because semantics can never possibly convey this - there is a real core reality driving this. Let's call it True Nature. Some may call it God, or Divinity, or Brahman, or whatever. Everything in this dream is arising and dissolving from True Nature, including your own appearance. The reason why it helps one to know this, is that when you really see the origin, which is not separate from you, you experience immediate bliss, a feeling of home, a feeling of everything you could ever possibly need. Everything is instantly ok. You realize that the dream can never offer you this: sex, drugs, career, relationships, travel, etc. It doesn't mean you stop doing those things per se, it just means you know that anything temporary satisfaction they give you is really just True Nature revealing itself to you through misattribution.

I'm sorry for so much wordiness, I'm just trying to be as accurate as possible. What I really want to say is, knowing this gets you NOTHING. There is no reward. It's just the truth. You're in total free fall with billions of other living beings, but there is no bottom to land on. There's nothing to attach to. Nothing needs to happen. You can do or be whatever this dream character of "you" wants to be and it's all gravy. You're totally free.

 

[Gormur]

I think I agree with the idea that a newborn is enlightened but tends to get away from enlightenment as they age and experience the world. This is obviously different from what you guys are talking about although I guess recapturing one's innocence and experiencing nothingness could be possible. At least I'm optimistic

I've experienced nothingness, both drug-induced and sober during meditation

 

[Foreigner]

Hmmm no. For infants, consciousness is merged with experience, but it's a pre-egoic state. Awakening is post-egoic. Infants lack the faculties for realization, it's why they suffer.

 

[Sirena Oscura]

Mmmm thank you @Foreigner. I think the metaphor of a dream works for me. A dream is like an illusion. Reality is an illusion. One could simply go along with it while experiencing it at a distance (not quite dissociating) and perhaps experience a type of satisfaction from that. I’m yet to think of an argument why not to go along with the dream...

Your analogy of God makes sense to me, it does. I will just never believe in such a thing. Nature, certainly. I’m a woman of science above most things. Mother Earth as a diety? I might be open to. But to be it’s more like just a giant organism.

I’ve always *wanted* to believe in a type of God. But deep down... I just don’t feel there is. Just chaos. Just Gaia. Just quantum physics. I may be able to feel a connection to it? I don’t yet though. I’ve always felt... like an outsider looking in. So by all means convince me of this God like entity I wouldn’t be against changing my views.

 

[Sirena Oscura]

Okay has anyone experienced this... I meditated for about two hours one time (long story), and at the end... when I opened my eyes I felt at complete peace and everything around me looked new. I had no words in my head, no incessant monologue. I just observed all around me in wander and amazement. It lasted a couple of hours until I had to go home and do actual work haha.

I experienced that one other time when I was much younger quite by accident.... I’ve always had a need to be perfect and I wanted to be a good goal shooter so I’d practice at after school care. One day I stood and shot hoops from the same distance, the same way, over and over again for hours. By the time I finished I had the same experience as above. Except that’s when I first remember having *thoughts* about *myself*, my existence, awareness, not philosophically but as a sensation and everything appeared new to me.

Anyone had that experience?

 

[Foreigner]

Mmmm thank you @Foreigner. I think the metaphor of a dream works for me. A dream is like an illusion. Reality is an illusion. One could simply go along with it while experiencing it at a distance (not quite dissociating) and perhaps experience a type of satisfaction from that. I’m yet to think of an argument why not to go along with the dream...

Actually, the effect of realization is profound embodiment and presence. You become 1000x more grounded and content, even if shit is hitting the fan. It doesn't mean that you never experience "negative" emotions or hardships... you just know that there's a part of you that's not "you" but is God which will never be touched by any of it, good or bad.

Your analogy of God makes sense to me, it does. I will just never believe in such a thing. Nature, certainly. I’m a woman of science above most things. Mother Earth as a diety? I might be open to. But to be it’s more like just a giant organism.

Well, the word God is triggering. I'm not necessarily referring to a deity, just the substrate that this dream is projected from, that illuminates all of its characters with separate appearances and souls.

I’ve always *wanted* to believe in a type of God. But deep down... I just don’t feel there is. Just chaos. Just Gaia. Just quantum physics. I may be able to feel a connection to it? I don’t yet though. I’ve always felt... like an outsider looking in. So by all means convince me of this God like entity I wouldn’t be against changing my views.

Well, if everything in the universe is connected on a quantum level, that sounds pretty Divine to me. God can't be a separate entity because nothing is separate. It's all complex interconnectedness and each thing is totally empty of individual substance.

 

[Sirena Oscura]

This really raises too many inane and arcane question about what is God etc. I have no interest in what cannot be defined or experienced coherently. Vague notions do nothing for me. I can’t hold onto that, so to speak.

For the record I’m keeping my mind open to all meanings of “God” etc. Not any one name or thing. So don’t think I’m just passing it off as judeochristian nonsense.

 

[TripSitterNZ]

god is pure infinite awareness

 

[Sirena Oscura]

You know what I think humanity is? A parasite on Mother Nature. If life was not just random chaos, and there was a divine power behind it... I’d spit on it. Maybe that’s why I’m not enlightened? I’m sorry but sure there’s some subjectively good things in the world but there’s also some wickedly awful and disgusting things. Children born with cancer. Poverty. Famine. Disease. Death. Suffering. All of it. Even “the good” is a type of suffering. Why would I welcome this? If I was a divine power I wouldn’t even invent the concept of suffering. I cannot abide another that would.

.... change my mind

 

[TripSitterNZ]

self loathing does not mean what you say is the truth. God is absolute and reality is infinite. No one loses this game of life at the end.

 

[Foreigner]

This really raises too many inane and arcane question about what is God etc. I have no interest in what cannot be defined or experienced coherently. Vague notions do nothing for me. I can’t hold onto that, so to speak.

For the record I’m keeping my mind open to all meanings of “God” etc. Not any one name or thing. So don’t think I’m just passing it off as judeochristian nonsense.

The things I mention, they can be directly observed, witnessed, and experienced. No drugs necessary. There are practices that can show you, that are not delusion driven. They simply show you what you are, and then by extension of that you can witness what everything else is. You can take all your skeptical faculties with you. You don't have to give anything up that you don't want to and nobody is asking you to swallow anything whole.

This is basically the answer to "Who am I" at the most fundamental, core level of reality. No other claim is being made.

 

[Gormur]

Hmmm no. For infants, consciousness is merged with experience, but it's a pre-egoic state. Awakening is post-egoic. Infants lack the faculties for realization, it's why they suffer.

Hm so you don't think newborns remember their source but get away from it as they grow up?

 

[Foreigner]

Hm so you don't think newborns remember their source but get away from it as they grow up?

No one really "gets away from it", but I know what you mean.

The only difference between a new born and some other stage of life are the increasingly added layers of discursive narrative about personality and self that have nothing to do with the real self.

The catch-22 is that an infant has nothing blocking its clear view, but it doesn't have the capacity to know what is happening. It doesn't have the cognition.

An adult has the capacity to know what is happening, but is usually blocked by many years of self-referential stories about "I". The adult is relating to a false "I" rather than the real self.

However, of the two, the adult has the better chance of realization.

Basically, an infant can't have Samadhi.

 

[Gormur]

Okay thanks, that makes sense to me

 

[Sirena Oscura]

The things I mention, they can be directly observed, witnessed, and experienced. No drugs necessary. There are practices that can show you, that are not delusion driven. They simply show you what you are, and then by extension of that you can witness what everything else is. You can take all your skeptical faculties with you. You don't have to give anything up that you don't want to and nobody is asking you to swallow anything whole.

This is basically the answer to "Who am I" at the most fundamental, core level of reality. No other claim is being made.

It’s not so much my intellect that disagrees with you because in intellect alone I’d have to say I was agnostic not atheist.

I went through the “do I believe in X” (X being God or any sort of divine power) thing. I’ve reflected deeply. I feel nothing.

The world and life is chaos and happenstance. And if it isn’t... I don’t acknowledge or accept it. I am repulsed by it.

There was a time I invested greatly in the Principia of Discordia when I was young. I guess some things don’t change.

 

[Foreigner]

It’s not so much my intellect that disagrees with you because in intellect alone I’d have to say I was agnostic not atheist.

I went through the “do I believe in X” (X being God or any sort of divine power) thing. I’ve reflected deeply. I feel nothing.

The world and life is chaos and happenstance. And if it isn’t... I don’t acknowledge or accept it. I am repulsed by it.

There was a time I invested greatly in the Principia of Discordia when I was young. I guess some things don’t change.

Based on your previous replies, you're fighting against the concept of God as a third party entity (i.e. magical man in the sky). Nobody here is saying that.

 

[Sirena Oscura]

Based on your previous replies, you're fighting against the concept of God as a third party entity (i.e. magical man in the sky). Nobody here is saying that.

That is one aspect of what I’m against. I also left room for whatever alternative you want to call a divine power. What? Not having an ethereal body doesn’t stop me from spitting on the concept of it And it’s just as real because no such concept exists. Unless chaos is the divine power... then I guess I’d have to concede.

 

[Foreigner]

That is one aspect of what I’m against. I also left room for whatever alternative you want to call a divine power. What? Not having an ethereal body doesn’t stop me from spitting on the concept of it And it’s just as real because no such concept exists. Unless chaos is the divine power... then I guess I’d have to concede.

There is a truth that is non-conceptual, but you have to be willing to release concepts to see it.

It actually requires you to do nothing to get it.

Then you see that nobody is trying to strong arm anyone into an idea, it's just basic core reality. We're all tied into it. You don't need a guru or monolithic religious organization to define it for you. There is no middle man. It's instant access and it's all you.

In a word, it's divine, because it has a resonance... it feels like love, coming home, the ultimate ground. It's better than anything the external world could give you, or any concept. It's you, it's me, it's everything in the world of appearances. There is nothing greater than it because it is the interconnection of all things. It is infinite and all encompassing, and you're also it, while still being you.

If that's not divine then I don't know what is.

 

[✿Dai₷y✿]

All i can say is that it seems to be that reading comphresion is severely lacking in the general populace. But fubar you are right enlightment is fucking bullshit haha thats the joke of it all its a illusion in of itself. consciousness is already illumined

Unfortunately, the meaning of enlightenment is lost to me.


I think I have experienced some sort of realisation when I was tripping hard on some DMT and had some other psychedelics in the mix.

It was a peaceful moment, a good break from reality.

Unfortunately it seems it was just the drugs and humans have a nature too prone to being patronising and selfish to live and let live.

The illusion that people experienced in psychedelics and have self proclaimed intelligence also have open mindedness for others is false. Its sad to see, maybe we should have stuck to ecstacy.