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CosmicJoke
happy mutant


Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: Enlightenment is said to entail the dissolution of self-consciousness. To me, this does not mean the dissolution of self itself. There is considerable ambiguity here. To say that the self doesn't exist at all, objectively, is a very popular thought. I'm not so sure this isn't a confusion. If one attains to the loftiest spiritual heights, and feels that their self has disappeared, well, who is there watching, and feeling?
If you've ever taken LSD and practiced being still in mind and body, you might have experienced a stripping away of your identity, and all of your psychological defense mechanisms that make up your point of view - there's a sense of witnessing it all that from outside yourself, realizing that none of it is who you really are. What's left? Just witnessing, it might be described as "clear light", but this is not the goal of life to experience moment by moment, you can't live in such a state. The rebirth is returning to normal, conscious mentation, but you feel extremely cathartic - it's a huge sense of relief to get a break from all your beliefs that have isolated you from your softer, sensitive, compassionate, inquisitive, raunchy, hilarious, earthy qualities of being... So that may help you make lifestyle changes so that you're no longer caught up in such egoic games that are isolating you from everything that's actually meaningful to you, that's just not how you want to spend your life anymore. Your values have changed.
-------------------- Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good. If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence. I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant


Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: I thought of another way to phrase my question. Can we exist as pure consciousness and still retain some part of our individuality? Or is our individuality, beyond a certain point and objectively, only an illusion? And if it is only an illusion, who or what is actually there that enables us to remember we had the experience?
I guess I'm thinking of "self" as, in the most general terms, any unit of reflective consciousness -- an entity. Perhaps there is a higher self which is underpinned by "soul," but then that would imply some type of fixed identity, which has been said to be illusory.
This is confusing.
No, not the peak states of consciousness, we can't trip balls our whole lives.. But the peaks can teach you something, that you can calm down and look more deeply, see behind your identity that's so caught in the story line, the drama of your life. Imagine looking back your life, at all the people who hurt you, all the things you've done that you regret and are ashamed of, like a time lapse photography, and just be fascinated by it, appreciate it... no longer "identify" with the negative emotions... think of yourself and all those others no differently than trees growing. That's witnessing your life, from a higher vantage point than your ego. It's not pure consciousness, it's not buying into egoic games that isolate you from emotional wellbeing -it's a different vantage point, and one with a little more wisdom and empathy.
-------------------- Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good. If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence. I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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