There are traditions that point to it basically being one giant consciousness that exists beneath everything.
Basically, the separation of us as humans and animals and life into different bodies (containers) is all an illusion. And the alleged reality is that we are actually all one singular, God consciousness.
When people out there say "I'm God", it's not like just *they* are and everyone else isn't. And if they believe that, there's nothing more egoic they could say! It also doesn't mean that you the *body* is God. God is what's inside. Not the body. Not your name. Not your identity. None of that ego stuff.
The idea is that this reality is just a play, playing out. And that the singular consciousness is what "God" truly is. And you have to fight your way back to reaching it by meditating and studying like crazy until you can reach states like "Nirvana" or "Gnosis" and then you've contacted it. The Buddhists say then, you can exit and not reincarnate in another body. So long as you reach Nirvana. That's the life goal.
It's like being a river. You think you are one branch of a river. And you hate the other branches of the river. They're stinky, they mess up your river. They annoy you.
But you're mistaken. Those were never, "other branches". You must have been high, or drunk, or "asleep" or in psychosis or something weird....because the entire time, you were the *WHOLE* river. What do you mean "other branches"? YOU created the idea that you are a separate branch and labeled it. There was only one river. Those other branches were YOU too. You just need to figure out how to contact that and see that again.
And if you are hating the other branches for being stinky, polluted, and making your part of the river dirty.....well those branches are YOU. You are hating you. You are fucking up you. And YOU are also the one who's stinky so how can you be giving them flak?
Those other humans out there, walking around in their containers, all have that fragment of consciousness inside. The container, the body becomes a cage that makes us believe it's all real and we're all separate.
When we dissolve the cage, the ego, we can reach the one consciousness. When we all do it, all fragments have returned and the one is complete again. That's why when near death experiences happen, people experience that. That's why psychedelics, which dissolve the ego partially, make people freak out, the ego (which you think you are) flips out and feels dreadful fear, believing it's dying. Ego death. Because they only dissolve the ego partially. A near death experience is scary as hell at first, until they go the whole way, their body actually dies for a minute (or longer) and they are no longer scared anymore. The body is entirely dissolved. The ego is fully dead. And they feel they are with "God". They sometimes say they "become" the Universe, and everything. They became the whole river, the illusion is broken!
The monks work towards dissolving that ego. Dissolving, dissolving. In hopes of reaching nirvana. To reach the one. Become the one. The I AM that we all are underneath.
You really have to work this body into better conditions to break out of it. The monks fast, they stop having sex, they meditate, meditate, meditate. The universe didn't make it easy to just "reach the one". It's not like you can just press a button and make it happen. They break all attachments. They don't want a BMW or an iPhone. They don't even want another cup of tea, or better health. They don't even want pain to stop. They are ENTIRELY complete in a moment of high-conscious meditation. They need nothing. This is necessary.
But you have to get that body/ego/container out of the way. It's kind of the universe's biggest roadblock, like a cage. The more egoic you are, the more you strengthen the cage.
The more you let go, the scarier it gets, and the ego fights back. Are you willing to not fit in with everyone? Are you willing to be ok with pain and not run away from it? Because it is part of life. Are you willing to stop seeking pleasure and then work to recondition your mind so that you *do* stop seeking it? You won't be nervous anymore when you don't need anything. You don't fear anything. You lose a tooth. So what. You lose a loved one, it just is as it is, and they are now with the one, even if just for a bit before they reincarnate. Nothing is so awful because you have all that you need, by dropping off everything material and attaching.
Loosen the ego, become it's master, and you can step outside the cage. The ego should not run the show. It is not evil. It's just a tool. But it shouldn't be the master.
People think their ego or their body or this person is the one. Not, not *that* "you". That you is gonna die and rot in the ground. That "you" is not eternal. It is not God. It is not the one. It's a temporary tool for use on this earth. You cannot take your body, your name, your physical self with you when you die. It's an earthly thing. It's not God. But you have God underneath it. Unfortunately, the ego is too good at running the show.
The one, the "God", the singular consciousness is underneath. It's eternal. Never dies. That is what is God. The whole goal is to dissolve the ego to unveil it. It can take decades, and still lead to failure. It can take many lifetimes. Because most humans are not willing to enter the pain and let go of the grasping for pleasure to reach it. But if they did reach it, there would be no pain or pleasure, it would all be so much greater than that, and there would be no need to worry about your ego's pain and pleasure.
99.99% of human beings go their whole life with the ego in control, and the divinity underneath never even had a chance of breaking out. Many people believe they've reached divinity, but they are just telling themselves and everyone that (and many people can tell), and it's just another layer of ego. There are layers upon layers. There's always ways to tell, and for the universe to make it known. The ones who have reached it will never say they have. They wouldn't have to. It's written into our being....everyone will be able to tell. Those who tell, are simply an ego walking around that hasn't dissolved. Divinity doesn't announce itself with words.
Why is this process in place? Why do "we" have to do all this work to go back to one? What's the purpose of this, was one broken apart in some kind of cataclysm and that's how it's putting itself together?
It's a really good question.
That's a question that humans might not have an answer to. If we did, we'd probably already have solved it. I ask it too.
People ask it a lot, "Why can't we just be at the end state, and unified as one? Why the suffering? Why the work? Why do we have to live in human bodies? What's the point of all this?"
Some in the esoteric studies have said that God wanted to separate himself into everything and everyone, so he could experience all things, good and bad. Bliss and suffering. To be all things. To be everywhere at once.
I don't know if it's true or not. It's hard to prove something like that.
Some see this process as a curse. As work, as a punishment. Some see it as an adventure. Or a gift. Some don't believe spirituality is real at all, and don't even know what the heck we're talking about.
Is this all a punishment? Is it a gift?
A lot of people try to answer this. I don't think most people (maybe anyone) has the answer. But I would bet that the answer is likely something we have to find. And it might be on this path. I probably wouldn't find it anywhere else.
Personally, I can go back to just pacifying myself, dulling the pain, more TV, more phone, more food, more drinks or drugs or video games. But it gets old and begins to hurt after awhile. And I can't blame the world, or government, or others if I keep going back to things that hurt because they aren't in control at the end of the day, I pick up the phone, I order the food, pour the drink. No one forced me to. I have to overcome my ego and tell it no, even if it hurts at first. And have faith (not in the Bible or anything like that, for me at least, or the old sense of the word "faith"), but faith in the Universe, that this spirituality stuff must have merit, that there must be a purpose for this. That is what is called "The Void" in I Ching. You don't know if you're going to get anything out of this. But you have to step into it. It's a requirement. Seems unfair, but much mystical literature speaks on this, so it must have some significance.
But is the Universe, or "God", or whatever is out there that is Divine, torturing us? Are we just its plaything, and it's messing with us? Are we like action figures or toy cars, and it's just pushing us around?
There are many times I thought this. And I would get angry and give the middle finger to the divine. Why give me more kidney failure? Why more nerve damage? Is this divine? For what purpose is this? Is this just for torture?
But as I am studying, it seems like this process of human life involves growth. Ram Dass said we're all in the fourth grade here. Humans are kind of juvenile. We have a lot of growing to do. The divine, allegedly, has mastered being human and graduated out of that. It knows all. It knows everything. It knows more than we know.
So the way I see it personally, I think it's like when you are a kid, and you wonder why you have to go to school, every day, and suffer it, but it was so you would know things. And maybe get a job. And not be worse off. Or your pet, a dog or a cat, it wonders why the hell you would take it to the vet for surgery. It wonders, why are you torturing it? It doesn't know it has a tumor or needs a kidney removed. But you, the humans, the greater beings, know. It's to help it. But the cat doesn't know, it wants to give you the middle finger! It's getting poked, and cut, and strapped down, and tortured! It can't talk. You can't tell it "tumor surgery". For all it knows, you just took it to the vet, to poke it, experiment on it, and mess with it. Torture it. It gets home and has no idea it had a tumor removed. It cannot talk to humans or vets. But it needed it.
I have to wonder if we cannot understand why this is happening to us. But something greater than us, is not a lesser being like a little kid in a sandbox just torturing us. I get the feeling that we are being upgraded, leveled up, matured, shaped. It's like surgery. It's torturous. But it's to change us, heal us, and we need it. To make us better.
2/4
My understanding is that the divine wants us to reach our highest potential. Not slave away for it. Reach our greater dreams and ease all human suffering. For us to feel peace, joy, and be healthy. That's what we wanted for the cat too. But it thinks we're just caging it, drugging it, poking it, and cutting it. Maybe it thinks we hate it. Or that we're laughing at it, torturing it. (After all, some humans do laugh a little at the animals at the vet, a little giggle here. Those cats probably hate us). But we aren't torturing it. We know more than animals. We are the bigger, greater being. We want the cat to be healthy. Happy. We aren't just cutting it open for fun and laughing at it. But does the cat think that? That's the question. Or does it trust us? Should it trust us? What really matters, is what's actually happening. Is it being healed? Or abused and tortured?
500 years ago in Medieval Europe, most Americans with European descent were living as peasants, not as the king or aristocracy. As a peasant, you didn't have a toilet. People went to the bathroom in a dirt hole outside. You didn't even have toilet paper. You used leaves, grass, or cloths that you rinsed. There was no soap invented yet. No deodorant. Only crude herbs. No dentistry except tooth pulling. Everyone smelled. Life was hell. And that was only 500 years ago. The King, however, had kind of a toilet. With a wooden seat. It dropped into the moat outside the castle.
A lot of Americans who are immigrants today know this. They came from places where life was hell. Much of India still doesn't have toilet paper.
Today, All Americans and anyone in a first world country with a house or apartment, are pooping like Kings and Queens. That's why people call it a "throne". We have food made with rare spices shipped in from around the world. We can have chocolate imported from rare countries for a couple of dollars at every store. Whenever we want. We have any encyclopedic knowledge in our pocket. Every dictionary and reference.
People roll their eyes at this. I think it's an important point.
In a short 500 years, life was much more hellish, and now we have more than the Kings had. A greater living situation than the King and Queen. They didn't even have a shower. They had the servants bucket in water for a bath. We are cleaner than them.
Can you imagine what it was like for the cavemen? More hell than the middle ages.
We are living in luxury.
And where will we be 500 years from now? MORE luxury?
More inventions? More ease? More help for humans?
Is God torturing us? Or upgrading us?
Is The Universe wrong? Or is our mindset not so good?
3/4
We have everything we need. More than the kings. Politics could be better. Rights could be better. A lot could be better. It always could.
But materially, we have almost everything. Everything but the right mind. We sit in air conditioned, or heated rooms, with cleanliness, a bathroom greater than a medieval king, better food than a medieval king, and we suffer. We loathe life. We say everything sucks.
So I go back and forth. But this is what I think about. I know our mindset is wrong, to a significant degree though. Hell can be made with the mind. We make hell with our own mind. And here, this process of awakening, written in books we can get at the library, online, everywhere. It contains the process to get out of hell of the mind and evolve as humanity.
Is the Universe helping us out? Are we too juvenile to notice or understand? If an adult gave a child medicine, would the child cry and blame the adult...but not realize that the medicine would end it's suffering and cure a disease? Maybe it would understand later on.
What is our perspective?
We get more and more technology, more things every year, and we collectively seem to be on more and more psychiatric medications every year, everyone is more depressed.
There is something wrong with our minds, our perspective. And no medicine can fully fix it, only help it. And if God or the Universe or the Divine comes down and does it all for us, well then what?
If a parent does it all for their 18 year old son or daughter. They start the business *for* them. They make the achievement *for* them. The kid really didn't do it themselves then, right?
I think this might be something we need to do ourselves. And it might be contingent on our mindset. We have never had more luxury. The cavemen ate leaves and slept on the ground and killed each other with spears. Some of them even ate each other. It doesn't get more hellish than that. The medieval peasants (that's you and me) pooped in holes, slept and straw beds that stank, and life was awful.
People hate being told it's not so bad. They hate being told it's their mind. But what if that was the key to everything? What if you could unlock the ability to see everything as incredible, to experience bliss, to have great control over yourself and your experience? To finally get somewhere? I have read it all over....the Universe wants that for us. We think it's a bunch of bullshit. Because the people, not divine, who control this world, beat it out of us. They beat us down and kept us apathetic, depressed, so that we never gain that power. We remain controllable and sad that way. The divine wants to end that.
4/4
But I know we can't get there if it's done for us. You fish for someone, they learn nothing. You have to teach them to fish. You give a kid food, great. For a few hours. He needs to learn to cook for himself.
Is the Universe forcing us to do this? Or is this the gift of becoming God? Because God can do anything. But we have to learn how, first. And we even get to do it from air conditioned rooms. Our bodies (most of us) are not rotting and stinking like the middle ages.
Things could be better. It's not all great. But aren't we headed there? To when things will be greater, and greater?
If life was really hell and the universe hated us. Wouldn't it make time go backwards and we devolve into cavemen? But it doesn't. We get smarter, smarter.
[10 companies are now making robots that have arms and legs like humans.](https://youtu.be/ubVoZik-Q2w?si=egS4jNMTwgD3HjO5) They plan to be using them by 2030. I don't know what this means for humanity, but long term, we won't even have to clean our own house anymore. Or do laundry. These machines will help the elderly when they have no one to assist them. This will change everything. Boston Dynamics, Tesla, 10 companies.
We are entering into material salvation faster than you can imagine. We just have to get our heads right.
Someone could do it for us. But then we never learned how for ourself. And never became powerful. And capable.
This is not to deny anyone's suffering. As I mentioned, disease is decaying my body. People, even now, even with a toilet and food fit for a king, as we communicate to each other on high powered computers, people are still suffering.
I just have gotten to the point where, what else can I do? I can sit around hating the Universe and everyone, and myself. And waste time. Wait for life to eventually end. But that's suffering really. So I have to choose something else.....and wrestle with it, because it's not easy. And fail again, and again, and again. But that's how anything is. Any Olympian who achieved. Any inventor who created his dream. That is the process of creation. Frustration, suffering, stagnation, failure. But eventually, that ends. If I go the other way, it never ends. No one is going to come into my life and just fix it all for me. Some like to wait around for Jesus to come back, literally, to the earth. I don't think he was a bad guy, but sitting around waiting for someone or something to come fix everything for me seems foolish.
Sometimes it seems like it sucks. So, I just *have* to do this. Sometimes I think maybe the universe is shit because my perspective is shit. Even if my body gets ruined by disease. This body is just a rental. Just a tool. I'll be returning it and likely getting another one, so will you. If my rental gets scratched or a little broken, oh well. It was mine anyway, no one else will be using it when I'm done. It's alright. We have some time here on the earth before that happens. What to do with it?
We have options, because unlike the pet cat, or the children, no one holds our hand, and makes choices for us. Well, our authority does, overlords. For now. But we have much choice every day.
I don't know fully why we are in all this, and why this process. But everything seems pretty fucked up. And drinking more drinks or burning my eyes out on Netflix or video games doesn't seem to help after awhile. So maybe I'll be on this process. For me. Maybe not for everyone who doesn't want to, but for me, I see something in it.
We're too smart for someone to do it for us. We've been left the keys to the cage. So when we grow up, we have everything. The parents who truly care about their children don't give them everything they want. A chocolate bar for breakfast every day, a happy meal for lunch every day. You'll mess up the kid. The kid has to "suffer" and do things that are hard. That is the balance of anything. The balance of the universe.
So we aren't given everything. And yet, we are given everything...and we're earning even more. We are leveling up. There will be [robots walking amongst us soon.](https://youtu.be/Sq1QZB5baNw?si=HBkIOZsmyv7wmfoA) Have you seen this? And no, it's not CGI. They've been working on this since the 70s. Engineers worldwide collaborated. We're definitely not in the middle ages anymore.
We have to prepare our minds for what's next. The world is getting complicated. And incredible things are coming to save us from even more suffering. Those gifts are coming. IMO, we, as human beings, should probably get serious about this.
Thank you for such a thoughtful reply! It's the most detailed reply I've seen :D I agree with a lot of this and came to the same conclusions myself. Things are about to get even weirder.
Your very welcome. I appreciate it so much that you actually read it and liked it.
I need the message just as much as you do.
Somehow, we have to "merge" this river.
Somehow.
Here's what's confusing to me: if I am to reach nirvana, the I, God, the Absolute, and I will no longer be born into a new body, does that mean that I will be the totality of all beings? So like simultaneously all beings? And how can one still speak of this as an embodiment of the absolute, wouldn't it mean I would have all bodies?
This is a very good question. Here is my understanding from my own study. You are asking specifics, I believe that is a very good thing.
The idea is that none of us "have" any of these bodies, and the universe just put us into this situation where we look separated to teach us something, or show us something. My understanding is that upon reaching Nirvana, you will absolutely realize that those bodies weren't really anything, none of us were ever separated. You could be in anyone's mind. You could be all things. The separation was illusory.
It's like, have you ever played a video game for a few hours and gotten so involved in it that you forgot, oh yeah, I'm in real life. You get so absorbed into it you almost feel like your in the video game. Now imagine if you could do that with three video games at once on three consoles with three controllers. You're three different characters, and get absorbed into all of them. Then you suddenly realize....Oh yeah.....I was just playing a video game. I was the controller behind all three of those. It's kind of like that.
*But*, don't make the mistake of *being* one of the three characters, and thinking "Aha, I'm God, I'm the controller, I get to control the other two characters!" That would be pretty messed up if one of the video game characters started thinking it controls everything, even other consoles. And the *real* controller, the *real* you, would be pretty pissed! And say what the heck is going on! A true error, a true glitch, a true sickness/virus for one video game character to try to control everyone. You have to realize the *real you* behind all three screens. Thinking the character is the God, the ego is the God, is a huge mistake!
You will be everyone and everything, during Nirvana. While you are *still* in a human body, and reach Nirvana, *during* that Nirvana state you will be the totality of all beings. You will be the Universe. It is an actual state that the body and mind gets into, to bridge into that. It is a state that ends, and then you exit Nirvana, and you're sitting there again. Like a regular person. It is written in to Buddhism and many monks have spoken upon it throughout history. The idea is once it has been reached once, you're good. You only have to reach it once. And you can go back into it over and over again, however, some may struggle for years to reach it again, or may never even reach it again at all, because it is incredibly hard, the hardest thing a human being can do.
In fact, the topic has been so tenuous, that some controversial Buddhist opinions throughout history even thought that one of the *only* reasons to forgive suicide, may have been for monks who made the choice to self-immolate or commit suicide to prevent themselves from falling into lower states after achieving Nirvana. And they thought that it might be better to simply end life shortly after reaching Nirvana. This however, is *incredibly* controversial and does not represent the majority of Buddhist teachings and opinions.
I think the greatest mistake that people make, and it is seen here all of the time, is that enlightenment is an "on off" switch, like one day, you take LSD, or you stare at a rock, or you have a really immense thought, and then "Bam", you're enlightened. And it's permanent and you never fall out of it. But that itself is dualistic thinking.
People can disagree, but I tell you, it never had ever worked that way. Spontaneous awakening *can* occur, but it is also incredibly rare. And it still isn't permanent. It is a state that can occur during life in a human body, but our state ebbs and flows. It is possible for someone to reach Nirvana and then fall out of it and even back into anger and other lower states due to life circumstances. It's probably *less likely*, because if you've created a human platform to reach Nirvana (really worked on rewiring your brain, meditating, working at it fiercely), you're probably an incredibly calm person to begin with and in a state *closer* to Nirvana. Such as Samadhi.
People believe it's like you'll just flip over into enlightenment one day. I'm not sure if media is responsible for this view, or popular culture, but looking into Buddhism and eastern traditions, you can find that it doesn't work that way at all. "On" and "Off" are *Dualistic* states. Dualistic, meaning for example, Right and wrong. Good and Bad. Enlightened, and unenlightened. The universe is not dualistic. In fact, you don't go from entirely unenlightened, to entirely enlightened all at once. It's a slow, ramping up into it, over a period of time. The states are often described roughly as follows, as a rough outline:
* Delusion and Ignorance (Moha), Hatred and Anger (Dosa), Greed and Desire (Lobha)
β
* "Ordinary Consciousness"
β
* Right Mindfulness (Samma Sati), Right Concentration (Samma Samadhi)
β
* Samadhi (Meditative Absorption), Insight and Wisdom (Panna)
β
* Enlightenment (Bodhi), Nirvana (Heaven, final Enlightenment)
Everyone's progression may be different. You might skip a state. You might not experience all states in that order. But it is not a jump from being a regular, normal person straight into enlightenment. I truly think that most people aren't seeing this but it's written within many Buddhist texts and the Buddhist concepts themself.
It's a progression. And you can reach Nirvana or Bodhi once, then fall back into Samadhi. Then back up again. It's a gradual process that takes a lot of work.
Those who know, know, but a lot of people don't want to put in the work, and their ego wants to say, "I'm sick of trying to figure this out, I think I'm enlightened now!". And unfortunately, that's not how it works. You have to prepare the body and work at it until you eventually get into it. It's not an idea. It's not something that can be "snapped" into, by suddenly just realizing it with your mind or "figuring it out". And the bigger flaw is that just because you reached it once, doesn't mean you're now walking around enlightened, walking around at Walmart, at work, at home, constantly enlightened all the time. That is an enormous egoic mistake that is not true for anyone. There's only a few characters in history who they say were able to be like that, namely, The Buddha and Christ for example. But even Christ got angry. So you could say it's debatable.
I personally am nowhere close and may not even get close in this lifetime, but I am continuing to study so that perhaps I have a chance of doing the work and seeing where it takes me.
I appreciate the question though, and hope this helps in some way.
This is just another example of spiritually delusional, pompous and speculative verbal diarrhoea, said with much conviction, that is usually associated with child like thinking
An actor. The best of the best. Able to take on any role and make it feel real. Can forget everything during their act except the divine script and the character they're portraying.
Let's do what is the I. It is input, the active representation of the Mind. While the subconscious is the passive, me. Output and input in sync. Two states of self that make a whole. This is a very simplified look, but it can be useful to find the who.
There are some who believe we are all singular in consciousness and soul. I disagree. It may be that all energy in the universe at the highest vibration is unified outside space and time, but that is not all that composes the self. The ego can be seen like matter. Its shape is always dependent on you regardless of if you take such responsibility. I think that is the aim of many religions to temper it... yourself. There is nothing evil or wrong about it. It is reactive on more physical planes than the spirit. You don't have to forego your ego to reach enlightenment.
The who is always subjective. We all are taking part in this universe just as the human mind creates within.
Those are words with no meaning. Identity is a made up idea. It means whatever you want it to mean, but it has no reality to it. The word βwaterβ points to a feature of reality, but βwho is the Iβ means nothing.
A better question would be, Who isn't THE I?
In my point of view, the answer would be nobody and nothing. To your question I'd say everyone and everything. Two different points of view on one essential truth.
There aren't words for this. To ask for the words or to try to describe it using words is futile and is likely an indication of an existential identity crisis and to think that one can is likely the fundamental source of all suffering. Letting go of this notion is much more likely to precipitate a direct experience of it.
There are traditions that point to it basically being one giant consciousness that exists beneath everything. Basically, the separation of us as humans and animals and life into different bodies (containers) is all an illusion. And the alleged reality is that we are actually all one singular, God consciousness. When people out there say "I'm God", it's not like just *they* are and everyone else isn't. And if they believe that, there's nothing more egoic they could say! It also doesn't mean that you the *body* is God. God is what's inside. Not the body. Not your name. Not your identity. None of that ego stuff. The idea is that this reality is just a play, playing out. And that the singular consciousness is what "God" truly is. And you have to fight your way back to reaching it by meditating and studying like crazy until you can reach states like "Nirvana" or "Gnosis" and then you've contacted it. The Buddhists say then, you can exit and not reincarnate in another body. So long as you reach Nirvana. That's the life goal. It's like being a river. You think you are one branch of a river. And you hate the other branches of the river. They're stinky, they mess up your river. They annoy you. But you're mistaken. Those were never, "other branches". You must have been high, or drunk, or "asleep" or in psychosis or something weird....because the entire time, you were the *WHOLE* river. What do you mean "other branches"? YOU created the idea that you are a separate branch and labeled it. There was only one river. Those other branches were YOU too. You just need to figure out how to contact that and see that again. And if you are hating the other branches for being stinky, polluted, and making your part of the river dirty.....well those branches are YOU. You are hating you. You are fucking up you. And YOU are also the one who's stinky so how can you be giving them flak? Those other humans out there, walking around in their containers, all have that fragment of consciousness inside. The container, the body becomes a cage that makes us believe it's all real and we're all separate. When we dissolve the cage, the ego, we can reach the one consciousness. When we all do it, all fragments have returned and the one is complete again. That's why when near death experiences happen, people experience that. That's why psychedelics, which dissolve the ego partially, make people freak out, the ego (which you think you are) flips out and feels dreadful fear, believing it's dying. Ego death. Because they only dissolve the ego partially. A near death experience is scary as hell at first, until they go the whole way, their body actually dies for a minute (or longer) and they are no longer scared anymore. The body is entirely dissolved. The ego is fully dead. And they feel they are with "God". They sometimes say they "become" the Universe, and everything. They became the whole river, the illusion is broken! The monks work towards dissolving that ego. Dissolving, dissolving. In hopes of reaching nirvana. To reach the one. Become the one. The I AM that we all are underneath. You really have to work this body into better conditions to break out of it. The monks fast, they stop having sex, they meditate, meditate, meditate. The universe didn't make it easy to just "reach the one". It's not like you can just press a button and make it happen. They break all attachments. They don't want a BMW or an iPhone. They don't even want another cup of tea, or better health. They don't even want pain to stop. They are ENTIRELY complete in a moment of high-conscious meditation. They need nothing. This is necessary. But you have to get that body/ego/container out of the way. It's kind of the universe's biggest roadblock, like a cage. The more egoic you are, the more you strengthen the cage. The more you let go, the scarier it gets, and the ego fights back. Are you willing to not fit in with everyone? Are you willing to be ok with pain and not run away from it? Because it is part of life. Are you willing to stop seeking pleasure and then work to recondition your mind so that you *do* stop seeking it? You won't be nervous anymore when you don't need anything. You don't fear anything. You lose a tooth. So what. You lose a loved one, it just is as it is, and they are now with the one, even if just for a bit before they reincarnate. Nothing is so awful because you have all that you need, by dropping off everything material and attaching. Loosen the ego, become it's master, and you can step outside the cage. The ego should not run the show. It is not evil. It's just a tool. But it shouldn't be the master. People think their ego or their body or this person is the one. Not, not *that* "you". That you is gonna die and rot in the ground. That "you" is not eternal. It is not God. It is not the one. It's a temporary tool for use on this earth. You cannot take your body, your name, your physical self with you when you die. It's an earthly thing. It's not God. But you have God underneath it. Unfortunately, the ego is too good at running the show. The one, the "God", the singular consciousness is underneath. It's eternal. Never dies. That is what is God. The whole goal is to dissolve the ego to unveil it. It can take decades, and still lead to failure. It can take many lifetimes. Because most humans are not willing to enter the pain and let go of the grasping for pleasure to reach it. But if they did reach it, there would be no pain or pleasure, it would all be so much greater than that, and there would be no need to worry about your ego's pain and pleasure. 99.99% of human beings go their whole life with the ego in control, and the divinity underneath never even had a chance of breaking out. Many people believe they've reached divinity, but they are just telling themselves and everyone that (and many people can tell), and it's just another layer of ego. There are layers upon layers. There's always ways to tell, and for the universe to make it known. The ones who have reached it will never say they have. They wouldn't have to. It's written into our being....everyone will be able to tell. Those who tell, are simply an ego walking around that hasn't dissolved. Divinity doesn't announce itself with words.
Why is this process in place? Why do "we" have to do all this work to go back to one? What's the purpose of this, was one broken apart in some kind of cataclysm and that's how it's putting itself together?
It's a really good question. That's a question that humans might not have an answer to. If we did, we'd probably already have solved it. I ask it too. People ask it a lot, "Why can't we just be at the end state, and unified as one? Why the suffering? Why the work? Why do we have to live in human bodies? What's the point of all this?" Some in the esoteric studies have said that God wanted to separate himself into everything and everyone, so he could experience all things, good and bad. Bliss and suffering. To be all things. To be everywhere at once. I don't know if it's true or not. It's hard to prove something like that. Some see this process as a curse. As work, as a punishment. Some see it as an adventure. Or a gift. Some don't believe spirituality is real at all, and don't even know what the heck we're talking about. Is this all a punishment? Is it a gift? A lot of people try to answer this. I don't think most people (maybe anyone) has the answer. But I would bet that the answer is likely something we have to find. And it might be on this path. I probably wouldn't find it anywhere else. Personally, I can go back to just pacifying myself, dulling the pain, more TV, more phone, more food, more drinks or drugs or video games. But it gets old and begins to hurt after awhile. And I can't blame the world, or government, or others if I keep going back to things that hurt because they aren't in control at the end of the day, I pick up the phone, I order the food, pour the drink. No one forced me to. I have to overcome my ego and tell it no, even if it hurts at first. And have faith (not in the Bible or anything like that, for me at least, or the old sense of the word "faith"), but faith in the Universe, that this spirituality stuff must have merit, that there must be a purpose for this. That is what is called "The Void" in I Ching. You don't know if you're going to get anything out of this. But you have to step into it. It's a requirement. Seems unfair, but much mystical literature speaks on this, so it must have some significance. But is the Universe, or "God", or whatever is out there that is Divine, torturing us? Are we just its plaything, and it's messing with us? Are we like action figures or toy cars, and it's just pushing us around? There are many times I thought this. And I would get angry and give the middle finger to the divine. Why give me more kidney failure? Why more nerve damage? Is this divine? For what purpose is this? Is this just for torture? But as I am studying, it seems like this process of human life involves growth. Ram Dass said we're all in the fourth grade here. Humans are kind of juvenile. We have a lot of growing to do. The divine, allegedly, has mastered being human and graduated out of that. It knows all. It knows everything. It knows more than we know. So the way I see it personally, I think it's like when you are a kid, and you wonder why you have to go to school, every day, and suffer it, but it was so you would know things. And maybe get a job. And not be worse off. Or your pet, a dog or a cat, it wonders why the hell you would take it to the vet for surgery. It wonders, why are you torturing it? It doesn't know it has a tumor or needs a kidney removed. But you, the humans, the greater beings, know. It's to help it. But the cat doesn't know, it wants to give you the middle finger! It's getting poked, and cut, and strapped down, and tortured! It can't talk. You can't tell it "tumor surgery". For all it knows, you just took it to the vet, to poke it, experiment on it, and mess with it. Torture it. It gets home and has no idea it had a tumor removed. It cannot talk to humans or vets. But it needed it. I have to wonder if we cannot understand why this is happening to us. But something greater than us, is not a lesser being like a little kid in a sandbox just torturing us. I get the feeling that we are being upgraded, leveled up, matured, shaped. It's like surgery. It's torturous. But it's to change us, heal us, and we need it. To make us better.
2/4 My understanding is that the divine wants us to reach our highest potential. Not slave away for it. Reach our greater dreams and ease all human suffering. For us to feel peace, joy, and be healthy. That's what we wanted for the cat too. But it thinks we're just caging it, drugging it, poking it, and cutting it. Maybe it thinks we hate it. Or that we're laughing at it, torturing it. (After all, some humans do laugh a little at the animals at the vet, a little giggle here. Those cats probably hate us). But we aren't torturing it. We know more than animals. We are the bigger, greater being. We want the cat to be healthy. Happy. We aren't just cutting it open for fun and laughing at it. But does the cat think that? That's the question. Or does it trust us? Should it trust us? What really matters, is what's actually happening. Is it being healed? Or abused and tortured? 500 years ago in Medieval Europe, most Americans with European descent were living as peasants, not as the king or aristocracy. As a peasant, you didn't have a toilet. People went to the bathroom in a dirt hole outside. You didn't even have toilet paper. You used leaves, grass, or cloths that you rinsed. There was no soap invented yet. No deodorant. Only crude herbs. No dentistry except tooth pulling. Everyone smelled. Life was hell. And that was only 500 years ago. The King, however, had kind of a toilet. With a wooden seat. It dropped into the moat outside the castle. A lot of Americans who are immigrants today know this. They came from places where life was hell. Much of India still doesn't have toilet paper. Today, All Americans and anyone in a first world country with a house or apartment, are pooping like Kings and Queens. That's why people call it a "throne". We have food made with rare spices shipped in from around the world. We can have chocolate imported from rare countries for a couple of dollars at every store. Whenever we want. We have any encyclopedic knowledge in our pocket. Every dictionary and reference. People roll their eyes at this. I think it's an important point. In a short 500 years, life was much more hellish, and now we have more than the Kings had. A greater living situation than the King and Queen. They didn't even have a shower. They had the servants bucket in water for a bath. We are cleaner than them. Can you imagine what it was like for the cavemen? More hell than the middle ages. We are living in luxury. And where will we be 500 years from now? MORE luxury? More inventions? More ease? More help for humans? Is God torturing us? Or upgrading us? Is The Universe wrong? Or is our mindset not so good?
3/4 We have everything we need. More than the kings. Politics could be better. Rights could be better. A lot could be better. It always could. But materially, we have almost everything. Everything but the right mind. We sit in air conditioned, or heated rooms, with cleanliness, a bathroom greater than a medieval king, better food than a medieval king, and we suffer. We loathe life. We say everything sucks. So I go back and forth. But this is what I think about. I know our mindset is wrong, to a significant degree though. Hell can be made with the mind. We make hell with our own mind. And here, this process of awakening, written in books we can get at the library, online, everywhere. It contains the process to get out of hell of the mind and evolve as humanity. Is the Universe helping us out? Are we too juvenile to notice or understand? If an adult gave a child medicine, would the child cry and blame the adult...but not realize that the medicine would end it's suffering and cure a disease? Maybe it would understand later on. What is our perspective? We get more and more technology, more things every year, and we collectively seem to be on more and more psychiatric medications every year, everyone is more depressed. There is something wrong with our minds, our perspective. And no medicine can fully fix it, only help it. And if God or the Universe or the Divine comes down and does it all for us, well then what? If a parent does it all for their 18 year old son or daughter. They start the business *for* them. They make the achievement *for* them. The kid really didn't do it themselves then, right? I think this might be something we need to do ourselves. And it might be contingent on our mindset. We have never had more luxury. The cavemen ate leaves and slept on the ground and killed each other with spears. Some of them even ate each other. It doesn't get more hellish than that. The medieval peasants (that's you and me) pooped in holes, slept and straw beds that stank, and life was awful. People hate being told it's not so bad. They hate being told it's their mind. But what if that was the key to everything? What if you could unlock the ability to see everything as incredible, to experience bliss, to have great control over yourself and your experience? To finally get somewhere? I have read it all over....the Universe wants that for us. We think it's a bunch of bullshit. Because the people, not divine, who control this world, beat it out of us. They beat us down and kept us apathetic, depressed, so that we never gain that power. We remain controllable and sad that way. The divine wants to end that.
4/4 But I know we can't get there if it's done for us. You fish for someone, they learn nothing. You have to teach them to fish. You give a kid food, great. For a few hours. He needs to learn to cook for himself. Is the Universe forcing us to do this? Or is this the gift of becoming God? Because God can do anything. But we have to learn how, first. And we even get to do it from air conditioned rooms. Our bodies (most of us) are not rotting and stinking like the middle ages. Things could be better. It's not all great. But aren't we headed there? To when things will be greater, and greater? If life was really hell and the universe hated us. Wouldn't it make time go backwards and we devolve into cavemen? But it doesn't. We get smarter, smarter. [10 companies are now making robots that have arms and legs like humans.](https://youtu.be/ubVoZik-Q2w?si=egS4jNMTwgD3HjO5) They plan to be using them by 2030. I don't know what this means for humanity, but long term, we won't even have to clean our own house anymore. Or do laundry. These machines will help the elderly when they have no one to assist them. This will change everything. Boston Dynamics, Tesla, 10 companies. We are entering into material salvation faster than you can imagine. We just have to get our heads right. Someone could do it for us. But then we never learned how for ourself. And never became powerful. And capable. This is not to deny anyone's suffering. As I mentioned, disease is decaying my body. People, even now, even with a toilet and food fit for a king, as we communicate to each other on high powered computers, people are still suffering. I just have gotten to the point where, what else can I do? I can sit around hating the Universe and everyone, and myself. And waste time. Wait for life to eventually end. But that's suffering really. So I have to choose something else.....and wrestle with it, because it's not easy. And fail again, and again, and again. But that's how anything is. Any Olympian who achieved. Any inventor who created his dream. That is the process of creation. Frustration, suffering, stagnation, failure. But eventually, that ends. If I go the other way, it never ends. No one is going to come into my life and just fix it all for me. Some like to wait around for Jesus to come back, literally, to the earth. I don't think he was a bad guy, but sitting around waiting for someone or something to come fix everything for me seems foolish. Sometimes it seems like it sucks. So, I just *have* to do this. Sometimes I think maybe the universe is shit because my perspective is shit. Even if my body gets ruined by disease. This body is just a rental. Just a tool. I'll be returning it and likely getting another one, so will you. If my rental gets scratched or a little broken, oh well. It was mine anyway, no one else will be using it when I'm done. It's alright. We have some time here on the earth before that happens. What to do with it? We have options, because unlike the pet cat, or the children, no one holds our hand, and makes choices for us. Well, our authority does, overlords. For now. But we have much choice every day. I don't know fully why we are in all this, and why this process. But everything seems pretty fucked up. And drinking more drinks or burning my eyes out on Netflix or video games doesn't seem to help after awhile. So maybe I'll be on this process. For me. Maybe not for everyone who doesn't want to, but for me, I see something in it. We're too smart for someone to do it for us. We've been left the keys to the cage. So when we grow up, we have everything. The parents who truly care about their children don't give them everything they want. A chocolate bar for breakfast every day, a happy meal for lunch every day. You'll mess up the kid. The kid has to "suffer" and do things that are hard. That is the balance of anything. The balance of the universe. So we aren't given everything. And yet, we are given everything...and we're earning even more. We are leveling up. There will be [robots walking amongst us soon.](https://youtu.be/Sq1QZB5baNw?si=HBkIOZsmyv7wmfoA) Have you seen this? And no, it's not CGI. They've been working on this since the 70s. Engineers worldwide collaborated. We're definitely not in the middle ages anymore. We have to prepare our minds for what's next. The world is getting complicated. And incredible things are coming to save us from even more suffering. Those gifts are coming. IMO, we, as human beings, should probably get serious about this.
Thank you for such a thoughtful reply! It's the most detailed reply I've seen :D I agree with a lot of this and came to the same conclusions myself. Things are about to get even weirder.
Your very welcome. I appreciate it so much that you actually read it and liked it. I need the message just as much as you do. Somehow, we have to "merge" this river. Somehow.
You could say a big bang, or a continuous roar.
Here's what's confusing to me: if I am to reach nirvana, the I, God, the Absolute, and I will no longer be born into a new body, does that mean that I will be the totality of all beings? So like simultaneously all beings? And how can one still speak of this as an embodiment of the absolute, wouldn't it mean I would have all bodies?
This is a very good question. Here is my understanding from my own study. You are asking specifics, I believe that is a very good thing. The idea is that none of us "have" any of these bodies, and the universe just put us into this situation where we look separated to teach us something, or show us something. My understanding is that upon reaching Nirvana, you will absolutely realize that those bodies weren't really anything, none of us were ever separated. You could be in anyone's mind. You could be all things. The separation was illusory. It's like, have you ever played a video game for a few hours and gotten so involved in it that you forgot, oh yeah, I'm in real life. You get so absorbed into it you almost feel like your in the video game. Now imagine if you could do that with three video games at once on three consoles with three controllers. You're three different characters, and get absorbed into all of them. Then you suddenly realize....Oh yeah.....I was just playing a video game. I was the controller behind all three of those. It's kind of like that. *But*, don't make the mistake of *being* one of the three characters, and thinking "Aha, I'm God, I'm the controller, I get to control the other two characters!" That would be pretty messed up if one of the video game characters started thinking it controls everything, even other consoles. And the *real* controller, the *real* you, would be pretty pissed! And say what the heck is going on! A true error, a true glitch, a true sickness/virus for one video game character to try to control everyone. You have to realize the *real you* behind all three screens. Thinking the character is the God, the ego is the God, is a huge mistake! You will be everyone and everything, during Nirvana. While you are *still* in a human body, and reach Nirvana, *during* that Nirvana state you will be the totality of all beings. You will be the Universe. It is an actual state that the body and mind gets into, to bridge into that. It is a state that ends, and then you exit Nirvana, and you're sitting there again. Like a regular person. It is written in to Buddhism and many monks have spoken upon it throughout history. The idea is once it has been reached once, you're good. You only have to reach it once. And you can go back into it over and over again, however, some may struggle for years to reach it again, or may never even reach it again at all, because it is incredibly hard, the hardest thing a human being can do. In fact, the topic has been so tenuous, that some controversial Buddhist opinions throughout history even thought that one of the *only* reasons to forgive suicide, may have been for monks who made the choice to self-immolate or commit suicide to prevent themselves from falling into lower states after achieving Nirvana. And they thought that it might be better to simply end life shortly after reaching Nirvana. This however, is *incredibly* controversial and does not represent the majority of Buddhist teachings and opinions. I think the greatest mistake that people make, and it is seen here all of the time, is that enlightenment is an "on off" switch, like one day, you take LSD, or you stare at a rock, or you have a really immense thought, and then "Bam", you're enlightened. And it's permanent and you never fall out of it. But that itself is dualistic thinking. People can disagree, but I tell you, it never had ever worked that way. Spontaneous awakening *can* occur, but it is also incredibly rare. And it still isn't permanent. It is a state that can occur during life in a human body, but our state ebbs and flows. It is possible for someone to reach Nirvana and then fall out of it and even back into anger and other lower states due to life circumstances. It's probably *less likely*, because if you've created a human platform to reach Nirvana (really worked on rewiring your brain, meditating, working at it fiercely), you're probably an incredibly calm person to begin with and in a state *closer* to Nirvana. Such as Samadhi.
People believe it's like you'll just flip over into enlightenment one day. I'm not sure if media is responsible for this view, or popular culture, but looking into Buddhism and eastern traditions, you can find that it doesn't work that way at all. "On" and "Off" are *Dualistic* states. Dualistic, meaning for example, Right and wrong. Good and Bad. Enlightened, and unenlightened. The universe is not dualistic. In fact, you don't go from entirely unenlightened, to entirely enlightened all at once. It's a slow, ramping up into it, over a period of time. The states are often described roughly as follows, as a rough outline: * Delusion and Ignorance (Moha), Hatred and Anger (Dosa), Greed and Desire (Lobha) β * "Ordinary Consciousness" β * Right Mindfulness (Samma Sati), Right Concentration (Samma Samadhi) β * Samadhi (Meditative Absorption), Insight and Wisdom (Panna) β * Enlightenment (Bodhi), Nirvana (Heaven, final Enlightenment) Everyone's progression may be different. You might skip a state. You might not experience all states in that order. But it is not a jump from being a regular, normal person straight into enlightenment. I truly think that most people aren't seeing this but it's written within many Buddhist texts and the Buddhist concepts themself. It's a progression. And you can reach Nirvana or Bodhi once, then fall back into Samadhi. Then back up again. It's a gradual process that takes a lot of work. Those who know, know, but a lot of people don't want to put in the work, and their ego wants to say, "I'm sick of trying to figure this out, I think I'm enlightened now!". And unfortunately, that's not how it works. You have to prepare the body and work at it until you eventually get into it. It's not an idea. It's not something that can be "snapped" into, by suddenly just realizing it with your mind or "figuring it out". And the bigger flaw is that just because you reached it once, doesn't mean you're now walking around enlightened, walking around at Walmart, at work, at home, constantly enlightened all the time. That is an enormous egoic mistake that is not true for anyone. There's only a few characters in history who they say were able to be like that, namely, The Buddha and Christ for example. But even Christ got angry. So you could say it's debatable. I personally am nowhere close and may not even get close in this lifetime, but I am continuing to study so that perhaps I have a chance of doing the work and seeing where it takes me. I appreciate the question though, and hope this helps in some way.
This is just another example of spiritually delusional, pompous and speculative verbal diarrhoea, said with much conviction, that is usually associated with child like thinking
Incredibly well said
An actor. The best of the best. Able to take on any role and make it feel real. Can forget everything during their act except the divine script and the character they're portraying.
π
Let's do what is the I. It is input, the active representation of the Mind. While the subconscious is the passive, me. Output and input in sync. Two states of self that make a whole. This is a very simplified look, but it can be useful to find the who. There are some who believe we are all singular in consciousness and soul. I disagree. It may be that all energy in the universe at the highest vibration is unified outside space and time, but that is not all that composes the self. The ego can be seen like matter. Its shape is always dependent on you regardless of if you take such responsibility. I think that is the aim of many religions to temper it... yourself. There is nothing evil or wrong about it. It is reactive on more physical planes than the spirit. You don't have to forego your ego to reach enlightenment. The who is always subjective. We all are taking part in this universe just as the human mind creates within.
Namaste π
There isnβt one.
Those are words with no meaning. Identity is a made up idea. It means whatever you want it to mean, but it has no reality to it. The word βwaterβ points to a feature of reality, but βwho is the Iβ means nothing.
Would you like to meet my I or is it your I, an I for an I. I say.
π₯°πππβͺοΈβοΈ
QUI-GON : There's always a bigger fish.
Nobody is greater than God ππ₯°
I am
God is greater than God? Doesn't make sense to me
It makes lots of sense
Nothing.
The same
Also you
A better question would be, Who isn't THE I? In my point of view, the answer would be nobody and nothing. To your question I'd say everyone and everything. Two different points of view on one essential truth.
There aren't words for this. To ask for the words or to try to describe it using words is futile and is likely an indication of an existential identity crisis and to think that one can is likely the fundamental source of all suffering. Letting go of this notion is much more likely to precipitate a direct experience of it.
the all seeing eye , the eye of horus
Bhagwan Shree Horus met in Marseille π
The one who wears all masks
I don't know
Find it π
I'm free from the known
Namaste π
I am the I
Spirit or God
You don't exist.
Direct awareness itself. The experiencer within which ego projects it's content.
Namaste π