Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing > anyone read it?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Royce_aus

Clean and simple,
So then the exit from this predicament is to experience the unexplainable, I think you've probably heard the term 'I just wanted to see for myself'
I'm going to give that a trial and see what life brings me next.

I agree, no way to do it but by your own looking into it.

Pointers are like leading a horse to water - but you can't make it drink.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle

It's completely madness, isn't it? All of these different philosophies colliding instead of collaborating. Just let them be. Time will pass, and we will come closer to understanding our true nature.

sounds passive - to be passive there has to be a self doing some resisting.

philosophies? I though they were talking about awakening. Of which it seems there is one big common deal - "you do not exist".

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Megan

Yes, I have a strong feeling that that is true. In Hinduism, I believe there is a teaching that spiritual aspirants are to be discouraged from becoming addicted, as it were, to special powers, as this is a distraction from the path of spiritual development. It is sort of an adolescent phase of development, you might say, not an end in itself.



Yes, I would agree with that wholeheartedly.

I think reality is emergent, and when we are playing a game, we are distracted/disconnected from the totality of emergent reality.

Interesting thread; I haven't read any of the material yet, but interesting ideas to me. Thanks.

Intention-Manifestation is kind of like the American Dream on Speed. I'm thinking the American Dream needs some lucid interventions ASAP.

IM might be a way that the illusionary self is able to tune into what the next experience is. It's not a will power or a deciding it will be this way - but an allowing and letting the unfolding occur without getting in the way. A let go, let God type of thing. Or, if the self does all that IM/LOA work it's just part of the experience unfolding, with some delusion that there's a self entity deciding and exerting will power over reality. When it might just be a noticing.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by ModernDayGuru

Think for yourself and figure out what’s true. That’s it. Ask yourself what’s true until you know.

yeah.

can't believe I was replying to such an old thread. even a banned member in this thread.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by ModernDayGuru

I like your Zen quote. In order to experience "no self" . . . it helps to quiet the mind through meditation.

perhaps quieting mind does something, but I wonder if that is just another experience. on the level putting my shoes on and taking out the garbage.

The no self is found in direct experience. In seeing exactly what is happening.

If I were to try to imagine I am not alive - that would be "no self".
But there is no way to go there with the "I".
The "I" can not imagine not being there, where I am not alive/no self. lol.

[ModernDayGuru]

Originally Posted by Megan

Yes, I experience that when I'm around my family and around people from my former religion.

Social drag is a very good way of putting it, because it feels like they drag me back to who I use to be, if I'm not careful.

I think of it as a meditation, and a way for me to burn off/transmute the vestiges of my former self that linger. For me, it's been a long process, because I'm just starting to get what the process actually is, and I've been bumbling around for years.

Basically, I think it wouldn't bother me at all if I had processed all my stuff. To the extent that it bothers me, that is an indication that I have deadwood that needs to burn off/transmute. It's never the other person, or the situation IOW.

I think I could comfortably be anywhere and with anyone if all my stuff was processed.

And I think that my soul brings up precisely the situations I need to be in to point out what is still needing to be processed, so there is no use resisting what comes up. I do resist, but I'm beginning to know better.

That was a great answer . . . You are very much in touch with yourself . . . do you feel are are getting close to experiencing enlightenment?

[ModernDayGuru]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

perhaps quieting mind does something, but I wonder if that is just another experience. on the level putting my shoes on and taking out the garbage.

The no self is found in direct experience. In seeing exactly what is happening.

If I were to try to imagine I am not alive - that would be "no self".
But there is no way to go there with the "I".
The "I" can not imagine not being there, where I am not alive/no self. lol.

what you say is true and there in lies the challenge. That is the difference between enlightenment and not . . . if it was truely easy then everyone would experience it . . . it is so easy yet so difficult depending on ALL the person's ego stuff. Eliminate the ego stuff one by one and a person will be on the path to enlightenment.

[theuprising]

Originally Posted by David Hausladen

I'm still in the middle of reading The Power of Now and I haven't read Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, so please tell me if I put my foot in my mouth here.

If you know something is a game and you don't get so involved in it that you forget that fact, then you are practicing detachment from it. Being detached, you are likely to play the game far more skillfully, easily, and fearlessly than someone who is so engrossed in it that they forget it's a game.

I see using the Law of Attraction while practicing detachment as like playing a game skillfully even though you know it's a game--you want to win, but winning isn't everything, because it's the experience of playing that's most important.

This, I think one of the biggest mistaken ideologies out there is that enlightenment is likened to stop playing the game and likened to death almost. Which couldn't be further from the truth, its simply seeing things for what they are, but still playing since that's the point of creation.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by theuprising

This, I think one of the biggest mistaken ideologies out there is that enlightenment is likened to stop playing the game and likened to death almost. Which couldn't be further from the truth, its simply seeing things for what they are, but still playing since that's the point of creation.

actually any conception of what enlightenment is probably is a mistake

I have no idea if there would be still playing the game. Well maybe I do after all. If we say there's no self in enlightenment, then there would not be a self that plays the game. But see, now I've gone and done it - made a conception of what IT would be.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by ModernDayGuru

what you say is true and there in lies the challenge. That is the difference between enlightenment and not . . . if it was truely easy then everyone would experience it . . . it is so easy yet so difficult depending on ALL the person's ego stuff. Eliminate the ego stuff one by one and a person will be on the path to enlightenment.

do you know of this Buddha quote: There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

To which happiness could mean enlightenment. As I'm not sure there's a path that makes sure enlightenment shows up.

Mostly all doing is a form of ego too. Even the ego dropping what it thinks it self to be, is done by the self.

[ModernDayGuru]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

do you know of this Buddha quote: There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

To which happiness could mean enlightenment. As I'm not sure there's a path that makes sure enlightenment shows up.

Mostly all doing is a form of ego too. Even the ego dropping what it thinks it self to be, is done by the self.

Everyone is on the path towards what we call enlightenment whether we realize it or not. Everyone will find it in their own way . . . however I do believe there is an underlying process. What you say about dropping the ego is so true. What is left is "your self" but the key is truely discovering that "your self" is present within you and it is part of all of creation. You can put whatever "man made" labels you want to describe all of this but one must experience this on their own. It helps sometimes to have guidance but it must still come from within you.