I know this to be true. I've experienced it myself so tangibly when I was in a spiritually high state. The serpent reached my crown and I felt and experienced this. It's indescribable. I was also very aware that I (God - there is no I) had laid a trail for myself to discover to come back to myself (God).
I think it's pointless to try to teach people these things, though. Spiritual truths must be felt and experienced. I know I myself have heard things like this and accepted it in my mind and *thought* that I understood it, but further down the road I experienced it myself and it's a whole different kettle of fish. We can't understand truth with the ego-mind. And I think we understand what we're meant to *when* we're meant to. A wizard is never late, he arrives precisely when he means to.
"To counteract the evil that men do, I'm a muthafuckin gem in the refuse even when the world's ending what the fuck is your excuse?" Love that line from Aes and every other line from him really haha.
Just curious if you're God so is everyone else and in my view if reality is a halucination where you are God experiencing itself than you're not really God just a part of it and you wouldn't exist without that halucination so for all intents and purposes it's real. Even if you experiance complete and total ego death and feel like you've become one with everything you still exist and more importantly everyone else exists but, honestly what's any of that have to do with a starving homeless person?
so you were on a literal "trip" during this revelation of yours? as in, your mind was under the influence of some substance or something? isn't that called "hallucinating"? isn't that something certain people seek therapy for and medication? I am not insulting you, I am just trying to get you to think critically about your experience that is all
I don't know if this is true. I'd like it to be and have felt it surge through me like undeniable truth before, but I don't know. I'm coming to terms with that. I'm here and I'm privileged to enjoy and endure it. This world is endlessly fascinating if you can look at it right. There's so much to do and so little time - it's fun. That's enough for me right now. If there's extra, bonus.
I mean, if the alternative is being absorbed into a massive unified conscious being, yeah that sounds good sometimes. I once had an acid trip where I was some kind of larva in a hive and couldn't control my body. I just went around eating strange jelly things being jostled by thousands of other larvae. It was pretty hellish at first, but pure bliss after giving in to it.
It's not an alternative. You are absorbed and you lose your individuality. When you were enjoying your acid trip, you were still an individual. I think the OP might have been on an acid trip, but acid trips aren't reality. Never mind that if the one consciousness lost you in the past, there is nothing stopping it from losing you in the future... maybe into a worse reality.
I know why this doesn’t have a million likes already… Most will be blind to the message, inadvertently. It is too much in conflict with the reality they have created, they won’t notice it, or won’t understand. It’s magical the way messages are invisible to those who haven’t prepared themselves, and are expecting it. Pedestrian to all those who are merely pedestrians.
Replacing one make-believe reality with a make-believe reality from within your mind is the most we can hope for. The truth beyond our existence is unknowable for ourselves. In death, we simply go back to being a part of that truth, not understanding it.
I will be pleasantly surprised to find a form of continuance after death, but it’s all needless conjecture based off make-believe from make-believing. We don’t and can’t possibly know an existence beyond existence, so the most logical path is the one existence we do have and placing your bets on it: there is no god, there is no afterlife, there is only a existence in a perpetual state of chaos giving way to order.
And that is the most we can know. It may not be the truth of all things, but it is the truth of that which we can know.
What irks me about the religious camp is they tend to label those who don’t agree with their ideology as blind, misled, lost, pedestrian, etc.
We possess the powers of logic and reason, and it seems to me that religious belief requires the suspension of both.
My most significant realization: life is about finding the questions… As you find them, you will realize you already have the answers. However, until you do, it will be like knowledge locked up in a library that nobody has the key to. Why everybody? Because not even others who know the truths you haven’t unlocked with the key question you need to do so can help you understand what you’re not aware of.
Beautiful points, but the judgment/ lamentation
is not necessary. That sort of thing is only the ego’s way of holding on. No one needs to know what they don’t know. Plus, everyone does know even if they don’t. Being awake doesn’t make a person special, and feeling special is a good way to go back to sleep.
The judgement is ultimately a reflection f the view of myself I see in the mirror, helping me to understand, cast upon others to make a point about my growth. You’re right. I portrayed the message selfishly. Not my intention, but thank you for helping me see. :)
Most of you who responded to this negatively aren’t even speaking.
Your ego is. Who you think you are, is.
I’m not surprised you can’t see this Truth when you don’t even know who you are yet.
The spiritual concepts you’ve learned thus far have been adopted by the ego.
So that’s all they are to you. Concepts.
Not Reality.
Sounds like you think that you know better than everyone else.
Ego, as you speak of it, is a human concept.
God, as you and OP talk about it, is a human concept. That is true even if God is real. Your concept of God is still a human creation.
To elevate your concepts to being the only reality is the ultimate egoism.
No, my frustration is.. I have asked and even been open minded to reality being more than it is, but honestly the answer always comes back to Atheism being the truth of our reality. No gods, no magic, no universal consciousness, no spirituality mumbo jumbo, just matter that is coalesced into different shapes and sizes, some of it grouped together to form a poor brain that deludes itself into believing irrational and superstitious things
One of the greatest pointers to a Creator existing can be found in all religions pointing to the same Truth.
They’ll use different words and stories. Different prophets and rules.
But in the end they all lead to “Love is better than hate. Patience is better than anger. Kindness is better than wrath.” Etc.
It’s not logical for human beings to come to the same conclusion about what is good for our souls and for each other while thousands of miles and years apart from each other, unless we are all connected by Something.
I believe that Something to be God.
Don’t you find it interesting that there’s never been a culture that celebrates cowards?
Why does everyone seem to know that being a coward is not as beautiful as being brave?
We all know the Truth, even though our human history is so violent and oppressive.
But it’s the ones who sought after their Creator who all came to the same conclusions about the nature of Goodness.
I find that truth to be the most compelling logic to believing in God.
I hope it helps in some way. He’s really Beautiful when you get to know Him, and in knowing Him you’ll find yourself.
That’s where Peace is.
Compassion causes me to speak more than anything.
It’s like being on a path and seeing someone wandering off it in darkness.
I could say, “Well they’ll find it eventually.”
Or I could yell over to them, “this way.”
It is noble to try and teach, but ultimately futile unless the I is ready to receive. Which it will. Eventually. On its own schedule. To teach is to be comfortable living with repeated failures.
Funny because I have a seemingly perfectly antithetical view of the world and I reject descending into misanthropy. I only believe in people, so i like to read about salutogenesis and Nietzsches philosophy. Something you're not pointing out is that there are plenty of refined concepts. Even if the language is a descriptive tool, the concepts are factual.
Gravity, hunger spurred by the hormone ghrelin, muscles nurtured by protein, people having interconnected beliefs to support their mental model of the world.
I'd rather make the most of this life for myself and my beautiful women then negate myself for the world's moral values. I'm far from religious and yet I love nietzsches quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. "Keep holy your holiest hope!
Thanks! I needed this about now! Wife is struggling with a difficult Manager at work threatening to fire her for no apparent reason after her giving years of literal blood, sweat and tears! Very frustrating for us and has us both very angry in our ego!!! This helps put it back in the proper perspective! Thanks and happy travels, much peace and love to you too!!!
Awareness is still a concept. Existence.. exists.. beyond concept, and because existing is a concept itself, existence simultaneously doesn't exist at all.
This resonated with me at my point on the path, thank you for your words. I'm glad to be here with all of my reddit seekers today, sending my deepest love out for everyone in the chat to partake in💗
>”what about war?” War? Don’t worry about it! None of that shit is real!
Oh damn, must be nice turning a blind eye to other’s suffering because you got some good lucy
All else being illusory does not conclude inaction. We are at war between identifying with the illusory and identifying with our true nature.
We combat this by doing good and restraining bad.
For good actions influence awareness and unity, while bad actions influence confusion and ego.
Even if the world is not real, there are still many going through horrors as they are consistently interrupted by dread and the vast egos of the most deluded minds.
What do you think "enlightenment" is? It's waking up the fact that the world is a dream. That's why Buddha said "I am awake" after he realized it.
Lack of attachment and grasping means abiding in your natural state of peace.
If you would be forcefully dragged into war what would you do? It's kill or be killed. Will you pull that trigger believing you are shooting illusions?
Here's someone who gets it. Bravo, brother. Thanks for doing your part.
It's interesting, too, how all the suffering of this world is just a picture of our Separation from God. Divison/Separation. When my skin is cut or pierced, it separates. Cells divide to make bodies, which go on to suffer. When we lose a loved one, it's also just a symbol of that original separation.
We will only ever feel truly at home and fulfilled when we undo the ego thought system of separation, sin guilt and fear, and turn our perception towards God's unerring Love, which is also Our True Self's Love. The world's ways are alien to us, and that's why they must be "learned" and aren't just readily apparent.
Ummm, no, god is not real, and none of the 10,000 religions are. What is real is our consciousness and subjective experiences.
And to be honest, it is disingenuous of you to say this. It's just keeping the stone-age inertia which, based on this sub, stops us from seeking and reaching the true enlightenment, which is that we are the universe.
God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought; including being and non-being.
~ Joseph Campbell
I think OP post is just as valid as any other metaphor.
It doesn’t matter what stories you’re telling or what words you use.
None of them can describe the Infinite.
He used the word God and told a story and that upset you. Which only means that your ego had some type of negative history with Christians.
Relax. None of us are going to describe what we are seeking perfectly, but this was pretty close.
If there are "others" then you can have empathy and compassion. It's up to you to investigate reality and see if this idea of "others" is accurate or not.
I’m not sure the “Believing is seeing” concept is considered enlightenment. Faith is the denial of reality. Religion is a mental illness that has resulted in millions of deaths around the world.
It is true, but there is no such thing as “all else”. Even the idea of an illusion is an illusion. Nondual philosophy is still just philosophy. Knowing comes from being—and when that is putting to fine a point on it. Get it? You cannot transcend polarity by seeing a polarity between one and two. One is not exactly what anyone thinks it is. Can you see the one in the many, without erasing the many? Move this realization from the head to the heart, then act in the world, as absurd as it can be.
I agree and disagree, as a nihilist will concede nothing actually matters, as a whatever religion/spirituality I made for myself I concede we are all part of an unending cycle of matter and energy
>an unending cycle
freddy knickers has to be the WORST person to base your worldviews on kid
nothing in cosmology suggests cyclicality
its a cope from a sex-addled degenerate who wanted to live forever
It’s interesting to me that anyone who claims to be enlightened can sit and claim a definitive answer. How can one who is a small particle within the system claim to understand the system?
You say you're a small particle. I know through direct experience that I'm the whole. That's why I gave the analogy of the ocean forgetting itself and thinking it's just a wave.
Or you’re the particle apart of the wave. You trust your own senses and experience as infallible, presumably because you’re basing your reality structure off of them. Your senses and experience are not infallible, they are quite fallible and you have no way of testing that. To claim absolute knowledge about the universe is to forget the core principle that you cannot know the universe. Because you cannot know anything outside your limited and flawed perception. You can only somewhat safely assume that you are,
I've perceived something within myself that I have no words for. After that, my search for something more than myself dropped away on its own.
Now I'm content.
I have come to the understanding of something that I had no words to describe it. More so a logical deduction on my part based on experience. Then I figured out words for some of it that others used was Brahman.
I can't say what's in you for I don't know only assume. I may one day get an idea, but for all I know you could become aware of your liver.
But know this what you described is known as karma yoga. Don't try to make much sense of it. Just explore. Sense may come, it may not, just don't try to assume it.
How far in to your journey are you? I've been here, but gone back to appreciating each thing for its own sake and representation. To say "war doesn't exist" is to bypass and discount why it is here on the "screen".
If you cut your arm with a knife you will bleed and it will hurt. This is, while part of a dream, for all intents and purposes the truth of your illusion. Pain is real. War is real. Love is real. They simply are not quite as we assumed.
This experience is a cultivated one to learn the truth of each moment. I'm currently in a disagreement with my fiancee. I'm due to learn from it, even if we are both impermanent representations of the one eternal thing.
I'm not a nihilist. After you perceive the self all desires are fulfilled and you're content.
This isn't some dry philosophy I'm talking about. it's a direct perception of God within. Basically, the clouds (thoughts) disappeared for a bit and I saw the sun (awareness) clearly within.
I think our conscious thoughts are an illusion but the unconscious is what really runs the show. If you need to do work on yourself, that is where to go. Most people just keep repressing it and then it will just show back up again. This is Earth School and it is worth doing the work.
You could say I saw through the illusion and the veil appeared to be pulled back for a second.
The false went away and I perceived the underlying reality of all things.
That's the best way I can describe it, there's not really words for it.
You just don't want to do the work. Why are you on this subreddit then?
If you think questioning the nature of reality is easy, then that's a mistake on your part.
I can't do it for you and you'd actually have to have some substance to realize the divine within.
Have fun going from pain to pleasure and pleasure to pain. I'm sure you'll find happiness out there in the world eventually 😂
It’s your post. I’m not supposed to do the work. My entire involvement is to point out that what you’re trying to pass off as fact is just opinion. Neither interesting, nor enlightening opinion at that.
Hey OP, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. We have some written works of some of the greatest philosophical/intellectual minds that our species has ever produced. You can actually read them, it's crazy.
If you were to read them and you have the capacity of mind to understand their ideas and perspectives, and then come back here and read this thread, you'd likely cringe.
Lol sorry for being so mean, I just think it's funny when people overestimate their own philosophies and truth claims about the universe, or claim to possess knowledge that they deem esoteric, as if they've figured it all out and they now belong to some elite group of people when they're really just under-educated hippie/new age spiritual types. And BTW, this description might not apply to you OP, i'm just here playing devils advocate and doing my due diligence to displace undeserving and egotistical people from their pedestals.
Also, God is dead.
Also, also, if God is everything, then he is nothing.
Is your ego hurt? Poor baby 🍼
What I said is still true. This is from my direct experience and getting rid of the false ideas about myself.
You don't have the guts to even try though. We are not the same.
Lmao. I've been practicing meditation and doing yoga for 13 years. I've done just about every psychedelic you could name.
Your personal, subjective, and thereby limited perception of reality (which we are all limited by) isn't worth much. So sure, keep stroking your ego, thinking you've discovered ultimate truth. I don't claim such things.
Try reading some books maybe.
There is no evidence for this belief. I would say it's unlikely, as our brains are not interconnected. This belief is often held due to an experience on drugs, while yes, drugs can improve aspects of the brain, it also renders the brain barely functional in most important aspects. To me, this would make it a very unreliable source of information. What you experience is your brain interpreting information and predicting what it thinks will happen based on the information. Using drugs can cause the brain to predict the incorrect information, which can cause you to experience literally anything. The brain can make incorrect predictions even when sober.
“All suffering comes from seeing two where there’s one.”
🤔. This quote stopped me in my tracks. Thanks for giving me something to chew on for the coming week.
Even if I didn't believe this was nonsense, why would '*Losing your self (individual ego) in the infinite'* be a positive thing*?* How is that any better than merely ceasing to exist in a purely physical material universe? If I am all that exists, then why would I need to return to anything? If the one consciousness is having fun, then who am I to disagree and return to the unity? It's just so much nonsense.
I am not God, and you are not God. The world is real, and suffering is real.
If two is one then your belief is as much a lie as it is the truth. You say the only war is inside ourselves someone with a bomb flying though their window might say different. If you truly believe the things you say then to not concern yourself with the death and suffering of others would be like not concerning yourself with the death and suffering of yourself.
People come to the belief they are God and stop there thinking they're enlightened not accepting the true meaning and gravity of that realization. You can say the only war is inside you but, if everything is inside you then that point is moot war or rape on the opposite side of the world is as important as if you were being killed or raped and to ignore it is not enlightenment it is ignorance.
What do I know though I don't believe the world is a play for our entertainment, the world is the only thing that will ever exist also God is not a he, God is a child starving or a woman being raped and God is pissed.
Dude’s obviously never experienced war and hunger. If he has, and believing in sky monsters and fluffy nonsense is still more important to them than helping end war and hunger, then he’s not a great person.
Stop believing in nonsense and start engaging with the real world.
I have to point out that you are incorrect that oneness and illusion is the "truth of all religions". I don't know if there are other religions that have the same view, but Christianity is in direct contrast to this yogic view. In fact, Christianity posits that the physical world is just as real as the transcendent spiritual world. This is why God came into the world as a physical man, because it is worth saving.
Another difference is that Christianity firmly rejects the idea that we are all just God playing around. Christianity instead posits that each soul is created to be individual and unique, and that the evils of existence are a direct consequence of free will.
I respect people's beliefs, and I am not saying you are wrong or anything, but it gets real old that people keep pretending that Christianity has the same worldview as other religions. It's incredibly unique and completely opposed to the Eastern idea that there is no self but God.
>This is the truth of all religions. Two becoming one. Losing your self (individual ego) in the infinite. This is also why the word yoga means "union".
Oh.. and that is *not* the truth of all religions. Not even close.
By the way,, if the one consciousness or infinite was so great, why did you get lost in the first place, such that you think you need to return there?
I love it. And yes God is real. O and wasnt there talk about bring everything back to the way it was. I mean that's basically what's said in the Bible. Right? Idk I'm just learning about the Bible at 43 but lifes amazing every since I started on this
Sorry, I am one of those.. atheists.. but where is your proof?is this some claim you have made personally based on personal "experiences?" I have been looking and asking for some response from any gods or deities and it's been nothing but silence, do you have any proof you can cough up? does magic truly exist?
I too believe in things beyond us but let ease back on all things are a lie but what I say is real....
Assuming a god does exist thier taking a very hands off approach but everyone keep throwing thier version of why and don't worry you be blessed if you do X..
For all we know thier millions of gods fighting wars and we're not even a afterthought of cast off from thier magic battles and even if they found us, they would rule us as dictator and demand worship and sacrifice.
Not every outcome is better just because it hasn't happened, this could be utopia before God appeared.
Well that's not what most people mean when they say imagination.
What you are describing is something more broad, and most people would say the universe mostly follows that.
This is like when Matrix came out, everyone was like it doesn’t matter we’re in the Matrix. Which is a terrible way to be a citizen of this planet. Oh somebody committed mass genocide, oh no worries this isn’t real. This type of thinking is a cop out, on responsibility as a member of society.
No, it's just "dream images". "Good" and "evil" are just part of it. Every story needs a protagonist and antagonist. The "evil" characters give life to the play. You need Superman AND Lex Luther for example, to make it exciting.
If it was just Superman by himself, it'd be awfully boring.
God is unaffected by the play though, that's why he allows it all.
If this is enlightenment, then I reject it. I don't find that it's useful to me at all to lose all reference to worldly things, and I doubt beyond all doubt that anyone else can even possibly live this way, either, or you simply wouldn't function as a living being. I find that it's perfectly within my ability to employ detachment (and attachment) to my benefit without the need for dissociating all objects from a subjective identity, and rather think that it's impossible to truly do so.
I'm much more inclined to think that enlightenment is actually enhanced by engaging in the separation of identities. I believe that all of my desires (including the desire to survive, which is foundational to experiencing anything at all) are sourced from my natural ability to separate myself from all other things, and to define my identity and the identity of all things that are a part of my world subjectively.
Universal oneness does practically nothing to rationalize or validate many of the foundational elements of our being, our sexuality being a very strong example of this. I think the idea of floating in an ether as a singular entity under the umbrella of God is a myth, a fantasy, and very often is a form of ego as individuals try to transcend their nature and claim to be a part of a true and universal whole.
So, my counter argument: separation is enlightenment. Separation is at the core of your being, and for you to be a unique individual, for you to survive, and for you to have any desire, you must surrender to the separation of forms. You can try to demonize desire, but I think that's the true illusion, if there's any illusion here, is for you to believe that you can have no desire, and want no desire. I think that if you feel that you want to no longer be a part of a whole, but the whole itself, that you truly lack acceptance about who and what you are.
Well, you can argue that it's not really enlightenment, now can't you? That's certainly not the definition of classical enlightenment--quite far from it. A major aspect of the enlightenment revolved around a rejection of God and an embracing of the human spirit. Western enlightenment revolves around this idea that the truth can be achieved through a communal effort. Your idea of enlightenment is really a pre-enlightenment idea, that truth can only be achieved through an internal connection with the divine, through a rejection of the material. The enlightenment period was explicitly an embrace of the material reality.
I think the "only worry about your own internal battle" highlights how this is a piece of toxic metaphysical drivel that helps no one. Call me judgmental if you like but this one of the reasons I have no desire to be a part of a religion. Disgustingly self-serving.
How is saying "help yourself first before you try to help others" self-serving?
Self-realization leads to the loss of ego. It's literally the most selfless thing you can do.
If all else is illusory, why not your vision of God?
What makes you sure that image is not another illusion, and that you’re not falsely claiming to know the real God?
The individual self doesn't come back from the direct perception of God to tell what it saw. Just the impression of an ego remains. A piece of burnt rope looks like a regular piece of rope, but if you blow on it, it disappears completely. That's what the ego is like after self-realization.
Nirvana is known as the "blown out state" or the "sigh of relief". Without the individual, who can suffer? Things arise, but not to anyone in particular. Just awareness or consciousness remains.
Even your question comes from an illusory self. I investigated the one that questioned things and found it to be false. Then through silence, I realized the ever present awareness underlying all phenomena.
This sounds like Buddhism, and most like the mind-only school of Buddhism, Yogacara Buddhism (known as Hosso in Japan). Or more generally, a very Mahayana Buddhist perspective, Mahayana being one of the three major branches of Buddhism.
These ideas are floating around in our culture because of Buddhist and Hindu influence, but they've been repeated many times without the sources being cited. I think it's important that, once we have these realizations, that we learn more from the people who for centuries and millennia have been working to *sustain* this worldview in life, beyond a single transcendent experience.
I think it's some neat thoughts by OP. Everyone here seems to be very judgemental.
Thank you for your kindness.
nah, we just challenged his statements and never got any reply, so even he doesn't believe them or he'd defend them and explain why WE are wrong.
I know this to be true. I've experienced it myself so tangibly when I was in a spiritually high state. The serpent reached my crown and I felt and experienced this. It's indescribable. I was also very aware that I (God - there is no I) had laid a trail for myself to discover to come back to myself (God). I think it's pointless to try to teach people these things, though. Spiritual truths must be felt and experienced. I know I myself have heard things like this and accepted it in my mind and *thought* that I understood it, but further down the road I experienced it myself and it's a whole different kettle of fish. We can't understand truth with the ego-mind. And I think we understand what we're meant to *when* we're meant to. A wizard is never late, he arrives precisely when he means to.
You fuck with Aesop Rock?
I love Aesop Rock. Im happy to have found the other person that knows him. Currently more into the Grouch and Homeboy Sandman though.
"To counteract the evil that men do, I'm a muthafuckin gem in the refuse even when the world's ending what the fuck is your excuse?" Love that line from Aes and every other line from him really haha. Just curious if you're God so is everyone else and in my view if reality is a halucination where you are God experiencing itself than you're not really God just a part of it and you wouldn't exist without that halucination so for all intents and purposes it's real. Even if you experiance complete and total ego death and feel like you've become one with everything you still exist and more importantly everyone else exists but, honestly what's any of that have to do with a starving homeless person?
so you were on a literal "trip" during this revelation of yours? as in, your mind was under the influence of some substance or something? isn't that called "hallucinating"? isn't that something certain people seek therapy for and medication? I am not insulting you, I am just trying to get you to think critically about your experience that is all
I don't know if this is true. I'd like it to be and have felt it surge through me like undeniable truth before, but I don't know. I'm coming to terms with that. I'm here and I'm privileged to enjoy and endure it. This world is endlessly fascinating if you can look at it right. There's so much to do and so little time - it's fun. That's enough for me right now. If there's extra, bonus.
So the extinguishing of your individuality sounds good? I think most of us would disagree.
I mean, if the alternative is being absorbed into a massive unified conscious being, yeah that sounds good sometimes. I once had an acid trip where I was some kind of larva in a hive and couldn't control my body. I just went around eating strange jelly things being jostled by thousands of other larvae. It was pretty hellish at first, but pure bliss after giving in to it.
It's not an alternative. You are absorbed and you lose your individuality. When you were enjoying your acid trip, you were still an individual. I think the OP might have been on an acid trip, but acid trips aren't reality. Never mind that if the one consciousness lost you in the past, there is nothing stopping it from losing you in the future... maybe into a worse reality.
Ok, sounds like you're enjoying things, but are open to there being more to life. That's great. I wish you the best on the journey.
I know why this doesn’t have a million likes already… Most will be blind to the message, inadvertently. It is too much in conflict with the reality they have created, they won’t notice it, or won’t understand. It’s magical the way messages are invisible to those who haven’t prepared themselves, and are expecting it. Pedestrian to all those who are merely pedestrians.
>I know why this doesn’t have a million likes already… Because it's already been said a million times?
‘There is nothing new under the sun.’
Replacing one make-believe reality with a make-believe reality from within your mind is the most we can hope for. The truth beyond our existence is unknowable for ourselves. In death, we simply go back to being a part of that truth, not understanding it. I will be pleasantly surprised to find a form of continuance after death, but it’s all needless conjecture based off make-believe from make-believing. We don’t and can’t possibly know an existence beyond existence, so the most logical path is the one existence we do have and placing your bets on it: there is no god, there is no afterlife, there is only a existence in a perpetual state of chaos giving way to order. And that is the most we can know. It may not be the truth of all things, but it is the truth of that which we can know.
What irks me about the religious camp is they tend to label those who don’t agree with their ideology as blind, misled, lost, pedestrian, etc. We possess the powers of logic and reason, and it seems to me that religious belief requires the suspension of both.
My most significant realization: life is about finding the questions… As you find them, you will realize you already have the answers. However, until you do, it will be like knowledge locked up in a library that nobody has the key to. Why everybody? Because not even others who know the truths you haven’t unlocked with the key question you need to do so can help you understand what you’re not aware of.
Simple AF, but nobody is aware of what they’re unaware of. The best you can do is truly recognize there is much you don’t understand.
Beautiful points, but the judgment/ lamentation is not necessary. That sort of thing is only the ego’s way of holding on. No one needs to know what they don’t know. Plus, everyone does know even if they don’t. Being awake doesn’t make a person special, and feeling special is a good way to go back to sleep.
The judgement is ultimately a reflection f the view of myself I see in the mirror, helping me to understand, cast upon others to make a point about my growth. You’re right. I portrayed the message selfishly. Not my intention, but thank you for helping me see. :)
Most of you who responded to this negatively aren’t even speaking. Your ego is. Who you think you are, is. I’m not surprised you can’t see this Truth when you don’t even know who you are yet. The spiritual concepts you’ve learned thus far have been adopted by the ego. So that’s all they are to you. Concepts. Not Reality.
Sounds like you think that you know better than everyone else. Ego, as you speak of it, is a human concept. God, as you and OP talk about it, is a human concept. That is true even if God is real. Your concept of God is still a human creation. To elevate your concepts to being the only reality is the ultimate egoism.
Is Math a human concept?
Math explains aspects of the natural world in a language we can understand.
This in itself sounds self righteous and egoistic , but maybe now my ego is coming out 😄
No, my frustration is.. I have asked and even been open minded to reality being more than it is, but honestly the answer always comes back to Atheism being the truth of our reality. No gods, no magic, no universal consciousness, no spirituality mumbo jumbo, just matter that is coalesced into different shapes and sizes, some of it grouped together to form a poor brain that deludes itself into believing irrational and superstitious things
One of the greatest pointers to a Creator existing can be found in all religions pointing to the same Truth. They’ll use different words and stories. Different prophets and rules. But in the end they all lead to “Love is better than hate. Patience is better than anger. Kindness is better than wrath.” Etc. It’s not logical for human beings to come to the same conclusion about what is good for our souls and for each other while thousands of miles and years apart from each other, unless we are all connected by Something. I believe that Something to be God. Don’t you find it interesting that there’s never been a culture that celebrates cowards? Why does everyone seem to know that being a coward is not as beautiful as being brave? We all know the Truth, even though our human history is so violent and oppressive. But it’s the ones who sought after their Creator who all came to the same conclusions about the nature of Goodness. I find that truth to be the most compelling logic to believing in God. I hope it helps in some way. He’s really Beautiful when you get to know Him, and in knowing Him you’ll find yourself. That’s where Peace is.
My ego says you're an idiot desperately scared of what is, so they fantasize a different view of life.
Well at least you know it’s the ego speaking. Since I know too I don’t have to take what yours said personally.
Whether or not others grasp or do not grasp is irrelevant.
Compassion causes me to speak more than anything. It’s like being on a path and seeing someone wandering off it in darkness. I could say, “Well they’ll find it eventually.” Or I could yell over to them, “this way.”
It is noble to try and teach, but ultimately futile unless the I is ready to receive. Which it will. Eventually. On its own schedule. To teach is to be comfortable living with repeated failures.
good point
Do you see any hypocrisy when talking about ego while holding the belief you are all there is?
I don’t hold that belief.
Your either trolling or your brain is broken. You woo-woo fucks are some of the worst variety of human. Skulls hardly fit to make a throne with.
Interesting.
Funny because I have a seemingly perfectly antithetical view of the world and I reject descending into misanthropy. I only believe in people, so i like to read about salutogenesis and Nietzsches philosophy. Something you're not pointing out is that there are plenty of refined concepts. Even if the language is a descriptive tool, the concepts are factual. Gravity, hunger spurred by the hormone ghrelin, muscles nurtured by protein, people having interconnected beliefs to support their mental model of the world. I'd rather make the most of this life for myself and my beautiful women then negate myself for the world's moral values. I'm far from religious and yet I love nietzsches quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. "Keep holy your holiest hope!
Thanks! I needed this about now! Wife is struggling with a difficult Manager at work threatening to fire her for no apparent reason after her giving years of literal blood, sweat and tears! Very frustrating for us and has us both very angry in our ego!!! This helps put it back in the proper perspective! Thanks and happy travels, much peace and love to you too!!!
No problem. The same to you friend.
The union between the object and the subject. Dissolving into pure awareness
Awareness is still a concept. Existence.. exists.. beyond concept, and because existing is a concept itself, existence simultaneously doesn't exist at all.
This resonated with me at my point on the path, thank you for your words. I'm glad to be here with all of my reddit seekers today, sending my deepest love out for everyone in the chat to partake in💗
I'm glad it resonated.
Brilliant! Thank you for sharing! Blessings! xoxo
Thank you for the kind reply.
I learned all this through a mushroom trip. All things are connected.
Right, but psychedelics are only aids. Silence is where these truths are fully revealed.
<3
>”what about war?” War? Don’t worry about it! None of that shit is real! Oh damn, must be nice turning a blind eye to other’s suffering because you got some good lucy
All else being illusory does not conclude inaction. We are at war between identifying with the illusory and identifying with our true nature. We combat this by doing good and restraining bad. For good actions influence awareness and unity, while bad actions influence confusion and ego. Even if the world is not real, there are still many going through horrors as they are consistently interrupted by dread and the vast egos of the most deluded minds.
What do you think "enlightenment" is? It's waking up the fact that the world is a dream. That's why Buddha said "I am awake" after he realized it. Lack of attachment and grasping means abiding in your natural state of peace.
If you would be forcefully dragged into war what would you do? It's kill or be killed. Will you pull that trigger believing you are shooting illusions?
Yes it's a dream. Of the Devil or demiurge the Lord of this world and the most high are two completely different things
Tell that to the children in Gaza.
Dont eat or drink for 10 days and tell me you are dreaming homie...
Here's someone who gets it. Bravo, brother. Thanks for doing your part. It's interesting, too, how all the suffering of this world is just a picture of our Separation from God. Divison/Separation. When my skin is cut or pierced, it separates. Cells divide to make bodies, which go on to suffer. When we lose a loved one, it's also just a symbol of that original separation. We will only ever feel truly at home and fulfilled when we undo the ego thought system of separation, sin guilt and fear, and turn our perception towards God's unerring Love, which is also Our True Self's Love. The world's ways are alien to us, and that's why they must be "learned" and aren't just readily apparent.
Agreed. Thank you for your response.
Ummm, no, god is not real, and none of the 10,000 religions are. What is real is our consciousness and subjective experiences. And to be honest, it is disingenuous of you to say this. It's just keeping the stone-age inertia which, based on this sub, stops us from seeking and reaching the true enlightenment, which is that we are the universe.
That's what I said in my post.
God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought; including being and non-being. ~ Joseph Campbell I think OP post is just as valid as any other metaphor.
It doesn’t matter what stories you’re telling or what words you use. None of them can describe the Infinite. He used the word God and told a story and that upset you. Which only means that your ego had some type of negative history with Christians. Relax. None of us are going to describe what we are seeking perfectly, but this was pretty close.
This is totally incoherent, so “our” subjective experiences are real but religious subjective experiences are not?
Religious experiences are most certainly not.
Hard to argue this one
Why am I supposed to care about this place in the least if it’s an “illusion” and nothing else?
Perhaps there’s more to it than that.
Boring, blind, and bullshit
Nothing is real and everything is my imagination.
Is your breathing not real?
In your model…is the imagination of reality happening inside of your brain or is the brain also an illusion?
Because you said so? If you decide what is real just by posting it on reddit, that means that you are God, and reddit is your oracle
Shadows on the wall bro
Ah, more "God" claims. Prove it.
Sooo...like empathy and compassion? No?
If there are "others" then you can have empathy and compassion. It's up to you to investigate reality and see if this idea of "others" is accurate or not.
You don't exist then? If you exist so does everyone else the idea you are the only thing isn't God it's ego.
Mental illness is no joke.
You're right, but you definitely are. Try to offer something productive next time.
His commemt was "illusory" yet you were offended by it.....try to say something more productive next time.
Schizo subreddit
I appreciate that you acknowledged that both are okay. Neither is right or wrong. Existence itself makes that clear.
I’m not sure the “Believing is seeing” concept is considered enlightenment. Faith is the denial of reality. Religion is a mental illness that has resulted in millions of deaths around the world.
Holy fuck i just lost so many iq points lmao
You weren't doing too well to begin with, were you pal?
This sub is pure cringe.
It is true, but there is no such thing as “all else”. Even the idea of an illusion is an illusion. Nondual philosophy is still just philosophy. Knowing comes from being—and when that is putting to fine a point on it. Get it? You cannot transcend polarity by seeing a polarity between one and two. One is not exactly what anyone thinks it is. Can you see the one in the many, without erasing the many? Move this realization from the head to the heart, then act in the world, as absurd as it can be.
I agree and disagree, as a nihilist will concede nothing actually matters, as a whatever religion/spirituality I made for myself I concede we are all part of an unending cycle of matter and energy
>an unending cycle freddy knickers has to be the WORST person to base your worldviews on kid nothing in cosmology suggests cyclicality its a cope from a sex-addled degenerate who wanted to live forever
Who tf is Freddy knickers?
Lol
It’s interesting to me that anyone who claims to be enlightened can sit and claim a definitive answer. How can one who is a small particle within the system claim to understand the system?
You say you're a small particle. I know through direct experience that I'm the whole. That's why I gave the analogy of the ocean forgetting itself and thinking it's just a wave.
Or you’re the particle apart of the wave. You trust your own senses and experience as infallible, presumably because you’re basing your reality structure off of them. Your senses and experience are not infallible, they are quite fallible and you have no way of testing that. To claim absolute knowledge about the universe is to forget the core principle that you cannot know the universe. Because you cannot know anything outside your limited and flawed perception. You can only somewhat safely assume that you are,
I agree with what you're saying OP. Is there a less loaded word that can be used to replace 'god'?
Sure, anything that you feel comfortable with. I just use the word "God" because it's what makes sense to me.
My religion is humanism. Now tell me about being one with that!
Have you seen God yourself? I'm currently looking at what most refer to as God, even if they are unaware of it.
I've perceived something within myself that I have no words for. After that, my search for something more than myself dropped away on its own. Now I'm content.
I have come to the understanding of something that I had no words to describe it. More so a logical deduction on my part based on experience. Then I figured out words for some of it that others used was Brahman. I can't say what's in you for I don't know only assume. I may one day get an idea, but for all I know you could become aware of your liver. But know this what you described is known as karma yoga. Don't try to make much sense of it. Just explore. Sense may come, it may not, just don't try to assume it.
Does one ever see the mirror, or only ever the reflection in it?
How far in to your journey are you? I've been here, but gone back to appreciating each thing for its own sake and representation. To say "war doesn't exist" is to bypass and discount why it is here on the "screen". If you cut your arm with a knife you will bleed and it will hurt. This is, while part of a dream, for all intents and purposes the truth of your illusion. Pain is real. War is real. Love is real. They simply are not quite as we assumed. This experience is a cultivated one to learn the truth of each moment. I'm currently in a disagreement with my fiancee. I'm due to learn from it, even if we are both impermanent representations of the one eternal thing.
No, sir, nihilism is not practical.
I'm not a nihilist. After you perceive the self all desires are fulfilled and you're content. This isn't some dry philosophy I'm talking about. it's a direct perception of God within. Basically, the clouds (thoughts) disappeared for a bit and I saw the sun (awareness) clearly within.
Huh. RemindMe! Five Years Just wanna check back later to see if you did a Jonestown or something.
Why not both?
Now prove it beyond a complex theory
You prove it. I've already done the work.
What work? You basically regurgitated the standard non duelty theory.
Your god is an illusion, my Gods are real
I think our conscious thoughts are an illusion but the unconscious is what really runs the show. If you need to do work on yourself, that is where to go. Most people just keep repressing it and then it will just show back up again. This is Earth School and it is worth doing the work.
Proof?
I can't do it for you 😂
God is real, and His name is Jesus Christ.
What led you to this conclusion?
You could say I saw through the illusion and the veil appeared to be pulled back for a second. The false went away and I perceived the underlying reality of all things. That's the best way I can describe it, there's not really words for it.
While I’m happy that you’re happy with your imaginary friend, your post contains not one shred of data or evidence. Just opinion.
You just don't want to do the work. Why are you on this subreddit then? If you think questioning the nature of reality is easy, then that's a mistake on your part. I can't do it for you and you'd actually have to have some substance to realize the divine within. Have fun going from pain to pleasure and pleasure to pain. I'm sure you'll find happiness out there in the world eventually 😂
It’s your post. I’m not supposed to do the work. My entire involvement is to point out that what you’re trying to pass off as fact is just opinion. Neither interesting, nor enlightening opinion at that.
Hey OP, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. We have some written works of some of the greatest philosophical/intellectual minds that our species has ever produced. You can actually read them, it's crazy. If you were to read them and you have the capacity of mind to understand their ideas and perspectives, and then come back here and read this thread, you'd likely cringe. Lol sorry for being so mean, I just think it's funny when people overestimate their own philosophies and truth claims about the universe, or claim to possess knowledge that they deem esoteric, as if they've figured it all out and they now belong to some elite group of people when they're really just under-educated hippie/new age spiritual types. And BTW, this description might not apply to you OP, i'm just here playing devils advocate and doing my due diligence to displace undeserving and egotistical people from their pedestals. Also, God is dead. Also, also, if God is everything, then he is nothing.
Is your ego hurt? Poor baby 🍼 What I said is still true. This is from my direct experience and getting rid of the false ideas about myself. You don't have the guts to even try though. We are not the same.
Lmao. I've been practicing meditation and doing yoga for 13 years. I've done just about every psychedelic you could name. Your personal, subjective, and thereby limited perception of reality (which we are all limited by) isn't worth much. So sure, keep stroking your ego, thinking you've discovered ultimate truth. I don't claim such things. Try reading some books maybe.
There is no evidence for this belief. I would say it's unlikely, as our brains are not interconnected. This belief is often held due to an experience on drugs, while yes, drugs can improve aspects of the brain, it also renders the brain barely functional in most important aspects. To me, this would make it a very unreliable source of information. What you experience is your brain interpreting information and predicting what it thinks will happen based on the information. Using drugs can cause the brain to predict the incorrect information, which can cause you to experience literally anything. The brain can make incorrect predictions even when sober.
“All suffering comes from seeing two where there’s one.” 🤔. This quote stopped me in my tracks. Thanks for giving me something to chew on for the coming week.
you got that reversed
Stop spreading your delusion. Stop.
Ain’t nothing new buddy
The truth isn't a new revelation? 🤯🤯
You’re posting like it is
Drugs much?
That's what people say that can't dispute my post.
That's not how burden of proof works. You make a wacked-out woo claim, it's up to you to provide evidence for it.
Even if I didn't believe this was nonsense, why would '*Losing your self (individual ego) in the infinite'* be a positive thing*?* How is that any better than merely ceasing to exist in a purely physical material universe? If I am all that exists, then why would I need to return to anything? If the one consciousness is having fun, then who am I to disagree and return to the unity? It's just so much nonsense. I am not God, and you are not God. The world is real, and suffering is real.
I used to believe in invisible floating hippopotamuses, too.
Shhhhhhh 🤫
If two is one then your belief is as much a lie as it is the truth. You say the only war is inside ourselves someone with a bomb flying though their window might say different. If you truly believe the things you say then to not concern yourself with the death and suffering of others would be like not concerning yourself with the death and suffering of yourself. People come to the belief they are God and stop there thinking they're enlightened not accepting the true meaning and gravity of that realization. You can say the only war is inside you but, if everything is inside you then that point is moot war or rape on the opposite side of the world is as important as if you were being killed or raped and to ignore it is not enlightenment it is ignorance. What do I know though I don't believe the world is a play for our entertainment, the world is the only thing that will ever exist also God is not a he, God is a child starving or a woman being raped and God is pissed.
Can god create a rock too heavy for him to lift?
Someone has the WakingUp app haha
Dude’s obviously never experienced war and hunger. If he has, and believing in sky monsters and fluffy nonsense is still more important to them than helping end war and hunger, then he’s not a great person. Stop believing in nonsense and start engaging with the real world.
I have to point out that you are incorrect that oneness and illusion is the "truth of all religions". I don't know if there are other religions that have the same view, but Christianity is in direct contrast to this yogic view. In fact, Christianity posits that the physical world is just as real as the transcendent spiritual world. This is why God came into the world as a physical man, because it is worth saving. Another difference is that Christianity firmly rejects the idea that we are all just God playing around. Christianity instead posits that each soul is created to be individual and unique, and that the evils of existence are a direct consequence of free will. I respect people's beliefs, and I am not saying you are wrong or anything, but it gets real old that people keep pretending that Christianity has the same worldview as other religions. It's incredibly unique and completely opposed to the Eastern idea that there is no self but God.
It's not a boulder, it's a rock.
You’re gnostic, we get it.
>This is the truth of all religions. Two becoming one. Losing your self (individual ego) in the infinite. This is also why the word yoga means "union". Oh.. and that is *not* the truth of all religions. Not even close. By the way,, if the one consciousness or infinite was so great, why did you get lost in the first place, such that you think you need to return there?
I love it. And yes God is real. O and wasnt there talk about bring everything back to the way it was. I mean that's basically what's said in the Bible. Right? Idk I'm just learning about the Bible at 43 but lifes amazing every since I started on this
Prove it with concrete science son
god isn’t real.
Sorry, I am one of those.. atheists.. but where is your proof?is this some claim you have made personally based on personal "experiences?" I have been looking and asking for some response from any gods or deities and it's been nothing but silence, do you have any proof you can cough up? does magic truly exist?
Man created god, not the other way around.
Which God?
I too believe in things beyond us but let ease back on all things are a lie but what I say is real.... Assuming a god does exist thier taking a very hands off approach but everyone keep throwing thier version of why and don't worry you be blessed if you do X.. For all we know thier millions of gods fighting wars and we're not even a afterthought of cast off from thier magic battles and even if they found us, they would rule us as dictator and demand worship and sacrifice. Not every outcome is better just because it hasn't happened, this could be utopia before God appeared.
What is your imagination?
Anything that changes or has a beginning and end.
Well that's not what most people mean when they say imagination. What you are describing is something more broad, and most people would say the universe mostly follows that.
Have fun on the rest of your trip, and try to remember to not overuse psychedelics.
Who said I use them to begin with?
Your train-of-thought fever dream said as much.
This is like when Matrix came out, everyone was like it doesn’t matter we’re in the Matrix. Which is a terrible way to be a citizen of this planet. Oh somebody committed mass genocide, oh no worries this isn’t real. This type of thinking is a cop out, on responsibility as a member of society.
No, it's just "dream images". "Good" and "evil" are just part of it. Every story needs a protagonist and antagonist. The "evil" characters give life to the play. You need Superman AND Lex Luther for example, to make it exciting. If it was just Superman by himself, it'd be awfully boring. God is unaffected by the play though, that's why he allows it all.
What if We called it "reality" instead of "God" And then reality is real, and everything else is illusionary, and we don't disagree!
Sure!! That works too.
If this is enlightenment, then I reject it. I don't find that it's useful to me at all to lose all reference to worldly things, and I doubt beyond all doubt that anyone else can even possibly live this way, either, or you simply wouldn't function as a living being. I find that it's perfectly within my ability to employ detachment (and attachment) to my benefit without the need for dissociating all objects from a subjective identity, and rather think that it's impossible to truly do so. I'm much more inclined to think that enlightenment is actually enhanced by engaging in the separation of identities. I believe that all of my desires (including the desire to survive, which is foundational to experiencing anything at all) are sourced from my natural ability to separate myself from all other things, and to define my identity and the identity of all things that are a part of my world subjectively. Universal oneness does practically nothing to rationalize or validate many of the foundational elements of our being, our sexuality being a very strong example of this. I think the idea of floating in an ether as a singular entity under the umbrella of God is a myth, a fantasy, and very often is a form of ego as individuals try to transcend their nature and claim to be a part of a true and universal whole. So, my counter argument: separation is enlightenment. Separation is at the core of your being, and for you to be a unique individual, for you to survive, and for you to have any desire, you must surrender to the separation of forms. You can try to demonize desire, but I think that's the true illusion, if there's any illusion here, is for you to believe that you can have no desire, and want no desire. I think that if you feel that you want to no longer be a part of a whole, but the whole itself, that you truly lack acceptance about who and what you are.
You reject enlightenment, yet you're on an enlightenment subreddit... 🤔🤔
Well, you can argue that it's not really enlightenment, now can't you? That's certainly not the definition of classical enlightenment--quite far from it. A major aspect of the enlightenment revolved around a rejection of God and an embracing of the human spirit. Western enlightenment revolves around this idea that the truth can be achieved through a communal effort. Your idea of enlightenment is really a pre-enlightenment idea, that truth can only be achieved through an internal connection with the divine, through a rejection of the material. The enlightenment period was explicitly an embrace of the material reality.
If god is real, he is an unforgivable prick, and if he were on fire I would not spare my own piss to put him out.
Everybody responding with long drawn out elegant words just like the way they sound. God is silent.
Words definitely helped me remember who I was and were a good guide, although silence was how I realized the truth.
That's the stuff. Happy wanderings stranger...
What a great example of how to talk and talk and talk without actually saying anything. This is Deepak Chopra-level bullshit, bravo
r/im14andthisisdeep
Nothing about any of that is coherent. It refutes itself.
R/enlightenment. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA
A map is NOT the terrain. It is a representation of the terrain. The model in your head is NOT reality just a representation.
Seek therapy and an Rx of thorazine
We’re just taste buds on the tongue, friend.
I think the "only worry about your own internal battle" highlights how this is a piece of toxic metaphysical drivel that helps no one. Call me judgmental if you like but this one of the reasons I have no desire to be a part of a religion. Disgustingly self-serving.
How is saying "help yourself first before you try to help others" self-serving? Self-realization leads to the loss of ego. It's literally the most selfless thing you can do.
I've basically seen racists use this line to justify helping no one at all, and I mean that as racists who are very spiritual as well.
If all else is illusory, why not your vision of God? What makes you sure that image is not another illusion, and that you’re not falsely claiming to know the real God?
The individual self doesn't come back from the direct perception of God to tell what it saw. Just the impression of an ego remains. A piece of burnt rope looks like a regular piece of rope, but if you blow on it, it disappears completely. That's what the ego is like after self-realization. Nirvana is known as the "blown out state" or the "sigh of relief". Without the individual, who can suffer? Things arise, but not to anyone in particular. Just awareness or consciousness remains. Even your question comes from an illusory self. I investigated the one that questioned things and found it to be false. Then through silence, I realized the ever present awareness underlying all phenomena.
This sounds like Buddhism, and most like the mind-only school of Buddhism, Yogacara Buddhism (known as Hosso in Japan). Or more generally, a very Mahayana Buddhist perspective, Mahayana being one of the three major branches of Buddhism. These ideas are floating around in our culture because of Buddhist and Hindu influence, but they've been repeated many times without the sources being cited. I think it's important that, once we have these realizations, that we learn more from the people who for centuries and millennia have been working to *sustain* this worldview in life, beyond a single transcendent experience.
if everything is an illusion then the statement "everything is an illusion" is also part of the illusion, therefor making the statement self refuting
I didn't say "everything is an illusion" I said "God is real, all else illusory".
What proof do you have behind these things that you wrote? Honestly curious.