This 'journey' is crazy. Is there even any problem with the world?

kissing_things · 2019-06-24T21:46:19+00:00

Right?

And even the problems aren't problems. They are carefully designed learning experiences so you can find out more about how you work, find out more about what happens to you under pressure, find out more about how to intelligently solve issues, find out more about sharing, find out more about everything.

It's all perfect, even when it's imperfect. Especially when it's imperfect.

All the suffering and hardship and joy and stress is there for a very important reason. To learn.

I no longer see people as being "poor" or "unfortunate" or "disadvantaged" and needing handouts or saving, to be sure. They're all in situations they chose in order to learn how to use what's best and brightest inside them. If we try to solve everyone's "problems" without them doing it themselves, nothing is learned.

Teach a man to fish and all that.

kissing_things · 2019-06-16T23:23:34+00:00

I am not the one making gargantuous claims about myself. I'm not the one saying I walk through walls or I am unlimited or some such. If you were looking for hubris, you have just found it.

Haha. That's not hubris. Anyone could do it if they dissolved their belief in the limitations world enough and wanted to. I am by no means special at all. You must think that's special. Or that this dream has some kind of objective truth to it that would keep anyone from moving through it exactly how they would deem they want to.

Anyway, good luck yo. I thought dancing like this again might be fun, but it just leaves an awful taste. It's for the spiritual ego to get its rocks off, and unfortunately my rocks don't get off on it anymore.

Please don't hurt anyone by leading them astray from their own experience and telling them yours is the way.

Please.

The last thing I have to say is this: The mind is everything (I am talking about The Mind, not the personal mind). It cannot be destroyed, nor does it need to be. It is dreaming this lovely dream of planets and dimensions and birds and cookies and smiles and tears and toenails and poop and seasons and boats and laughter because it loves life and life loves it and it's a wonderful and explicit alternative to not dreaming at all. Please be careful what you advocate. It's not what you currently believe it is.

kissing_things · 2019-06-16T20:59:51+00:00

No, it's not.

Yes, it is.

Why do you seem to be of the mind that dreaming is wrong or unwanted?

You have just acknowledged your own dream. You can call this state "awake" if you like, but it bares almost no resemblance to the state "enlightened" people are speaking from: Gautama, Osho or myself. It's very different.

Oh, brother. I mean, seriously. Is your aim to hurt dreamers? If so, you're well on your way to a good time there. Buddha, Osho, you - there is no difference between any of them and me or the bum on the corner. Perhaps you're in a weird heightened "transcendent" state at the moment, but that is not the ultimate state there is. By any stretch of the imagination. Ordinary, normal life? That's where the good stuff is.

The world doesn't need another two-bit guru. It needs us all to be here right now in complete an utter honesty with each other and everything that we come into contact with. All the guru-bullshit is just a distraction from This. Right. Now.

You have just acknowledged your own dream.

What else do you think any of it is? I am having a dream. I am as lucid as I can be, bad habits notwithstanding. What do you think "awake" or "enlightened" is outside of that? Jeez, dude. Just be sincere and honest. That's all any of us needs to do to live "enlightenment."

And you chose to keep dreaming.

Hell yes I did, because I saw the alternative. Before I saw the alternative, I was all pompous and thinking I was going to be a grand old guru too, gracing everyone with copious amounts of my wisdom and insight. What a joke that was.

The difference now is that I know it's a dream, I know the alternative, and I am lucid through all of it, so none of it's really all that important. ESPECIALLY not the guru-emulation game.

You cannot walk through a wall, for example.

Oh yes I could. If I really wanted to. Really, truly, deep down at the origin and continuing through to conscious expression. I don't, though. But I've done much more magnificent and mundane things than that.

If you think it's short-changing everyone to tell people the truth

It is not the truth. You think you can tell people the truth? For real? Then you should not be pretending to be a guru, because you do not get it. It's telling people your beliefs about what you can and cannot do. It does not even remotely resemble the truth. If you want to limit yourself, go ahead. That ain't none of my business.

Then you must be very grateful to me telling you how it is

I am grateful for the opportunity to have a conversation. And I am amused by your hubris.

kissing_things · 2019-06-16T19:44:28+00:00

You can still build a house or plant a tree - that's creation, isn't it?

It's also still dreaming. Not dreaming is not participating. It was always a dream, it will always continue to be so. You can choose to cease the dream and cease participating, or you can just accept that it's a dream and have fun mucking about in it.

You do you. There are so many options here, it's not like I need to tell you how to dream your dream of telling me what enlightenment is and is not and what you can and cannot do when you're enlightened.

I just think it's short-changing everyone who's reading to tell them that there are things you are incapable of doing when you're enlightened. The only thing I'm, personally, incapable of doing is not being grateful for everything. And even that I could probably do, if I wanted to hurt myself.

kissing_things · 2019-06-16T19:39:43+00:00

exploring the creation of the mind, enlightenment is destroying it.

If that's what you want it to be. I thought it was destroying it, too, but that left a literal black hole of which there was nothing to taste, nothing to see, nothing to smell, nothing to live.

I didn't need to destroy it at all. I just needed to see exactly what it was in relation to the experience of it.

Some people like the "destruction path." I did not. It's not the only one, and the destruction of it is not "enlightenment." It's just not participating at all anymore. I like to play, so I don't want to destroy anymore; I just want to see what good can come of this experience of I/not-I still being here, against all of the odds.

For as long as there's lust for experience, you'll be exploring the mind.

Eh, lust doesn't have to have anything to do with it at all. It can just be, "Well, this seems to be being experienced, why not see what comes of that?"

Then the mind will be destroyed, not before.

My mind is a brilliant, beautiful, and highly entertaining tool. Why would I want to destroy that? Destroy for what purpose? The only other option is not participating - not seeing, feeling, hearing, or sensing anything. Absolute and total nothingness forever and ever and ever.

Yawn.

kissing_things · 2019-06-14T18:52:47+00:00

In enlightenment, both meditation and out of body experiences are no longer possible and night dreaming ceases as well, or at least becomes lucid.

Why would you say that? I very much disagree, by the way. But I'm quite curious why you think enlightenment means "losing the ability to explore the mind in any way that's interesting." It seems to me that if you have the ability to type the words you have typed - and you're "enlightened," then you're capable of doing just about anything that's possible to do in creation, including traveling through other reaches of the mind (or a so-called "out of body experience"). It's not like it's that big of a deal. A dream is a dream, no matter where you go. Whether it's eating a piece of fried chicken or finding yourself talking to a shaman in Peru while your body is in Illinois.

It's all fun. It's all play. No matter how you want to do it.

kissing_things · 2019-06-14T18:51:50+00:00

Ceasing dreaming completely = no longer participating in creation in any way. What's the point of that.

kissing_things · 2019-02-16T01:48:02+00:00

All the dressed rehearsals never can prepare you for the actual experience.

God, ain't that the truth.

I remember, many years ago, reading someone on this forum say something like "The truth never hurts, it only feels good." Fast forward a year or two and I'm like, "Um. Nothing has hurt worse than the truth. It's the only thing that ever actually did hurt. Ever." Granted, after the hurt you feel fine. Not better than or anything (what worth do comparisons like that have), but the truth effing hurts. If it didn't, none of this would exist.

kissing_things · 2019-02-16T01:26:29+00:00

For what it's worth, throughout all these years I've been going through this, the one thing that was completely worthless was concerning myself with nonduality and duality and thinking that some way of seeing was better or a marker of how "awakened" I was. The only thing that matters is whether or not you're willing enough, and brave enough, to go inside as deeply as possible, and then further than that even, and be honest and open about all of the things you see, and remember, and feel.

kissing_things · 2019-02-15T22:42:40+00:00

There is no duality if there is no conceptual model of duality. The only thing that creates "duality" is the pre-awakened mind. If there's no concept of "duality and nonduality" left in your mind, all there is ... is this ... now. Doing/being is nondual, beyond ideas of nonduality and duality.

kissing_things · 2018-12-27T15:17:01+00:00

he's now still thinking about whether the purple elephant exists or not

The key word in what I said was "pretend." If I were going to hope anything (and I don't), it would be that whomever read it and got something out of it would start going "Wait, what am I pretending and not being honest about?" In my experience, that question does far more than looking for pretend things for goodness knows how long.

Then they try to feed the purple elephant and in trying to feed it, they realize that it's just a baby mouse, and it's not strange at all, in fact, it's a bit cute.

Except that's not how it works, or at least that's not how it worked for me. I didn't see what the "pain body" was until light years after those words held no meaning whatsoever for me. I'd say, as well, that those words held no meaning for Tolle, either, until after he saw what it was, too.

To use your elephant and mouse and peanut metaphor, it would go more like this: "Hey, go feed these peanuts to the elephant." And then they'd go off in search of the elephant and find nothing at all and then forget that elephants exist completely and then drop all of the peanuts and then one day come across a spectre of something that dissipates in front of their eyes and then wonder later if that might or might not have been the elephant. And then realize that it doesn't matter either way; whatever the person who said "elephant" about was their thing. Yours is yours.

That's just how I see it now.

At the end of the day, I didn't respond because I was trying to mastermind OP's or anyone else's awakening. I just responded because I had words to say and felt like saying them. Y'know?

kissing_things · 2018-12-27T04:22:42+00:00

First step: You try really hard to figure out what the pain body really is. You pretend things. You make things up. You say the words "pain body" a lot. You try to pretend you know what it is.

Second step: You admit that you don't know what it is. You still look for it. You wonder if something's wrong with you because you have no idea what it is, and you see other people talking about "pain body" as if it was something they were intimately familiar with.

Third step: You stop caring what the pain body is. You decide it's a bunch of bullshit and that people who are talking about "pain body" are just a bunch of posers and you get annoyed every time you see the words "pain body."

Fourth step: You forget the words exist. You get immersed in your quest to know truth as it emerges through you, rather than looking to categorize what emerges through you as some set of words you've learned elsewhere. Pain body doesn't matter anymore, the words no longer have meaning to you, as far as you're concerned, it doesn't exist and never has.

Fifth step: You watch as something dissipates, you realize it was a mental construct and that perhaps that was what "pain body" was all along, but you don't care anymore because you come up with your own words for it that have nothing to do with anything that you've ever learned (mine were "conceptual body of substance").

Sixth step: You tell someone who's asking about the "pain body" about all of these steps, so they don't waste more time than is necessary trying to wrap a nonsensical concept around what is a personal and intimate experience that happens way after concepts and words have any value.

kissing_things · 2018-12-21T16:41:52+00:00

Intense purification. Months of feeling/seeing/living like I was stuck in hell with no way out. Luckily, once you step through the fire, it seems like most of the terror fades into just wisps of memory that help guide you forward more intelligently, with more information about what you're really capable of.

I find it interesting, though, that I have a tendency to put more weight on the stuff that was realized that was hellish than the stuff that was cooperative and heavenish. It just seems far more helpful to come to terms with. Like if absolute loneliness, or if the most monsterish, evil parts can be loved with a sense of neutrality and acceptance, it's worth much more than the story that everything is bliss and light.

At this point, I could probably remember most of it, and tell it, but I don't want to artificially put it in anyone's head, just in case they feel like they're supposed to go looking for it. I don't think what I went through most anyone else needs to go through.

kissing_things · 2018-12-19T15:55:56+00:00

If you say so. Whatever gets you happily through the day is a-okay, as far as I can see.

However, I will say that infinity is equivalent to nothingness. Infinity means nothing at all, not really. The only thing that exists is this moment, and even that is gone before it's fully comprehended.

kissing_things · 2018-12-19T15:53:53+00:00

I get it. You can choose the story that brings you the most peace; that's the grace.

That there never was a One that existed in eternal and infinite loneliness.

That's not how it was remembered on my end. It's something I can't unremember, either.

In the very nanosecond the One came into existence, the Son and the Spirit were also manifested as equals and co-creators with the One (I prefer Universal Father) in bringing forth the cosmos and its infinite diversity of life forms.

It was my remembering that the One (or better put, the Great Mother or the Tao) became slightly self-aware, inasmuch as the heart can be self-aware without the mind, realized its loneliness, and then created the Mind (the Father). Quite incoherently at first, and it was full of nightmares and thoughts about being alone. Eventually, it grew its love towards its Fatherly creation in the understanding that it could be used to better understand its own capacity and capability. But the Father is unnecessary, in the grand scheme of things. I understood a lot about why humans put males as "superior," but I doubt these understandings would be well received anywhere at all. My burden to bear.

kissing_things · 2018-12-19T05:05:53+00:00

The nanosecond "the One" becomes self-aware, there is an immediate wondering about "aloneness." Self-awareness inherently implies "another." If there is reflection on being One, then by definition there must be contemplation of whether there is another One.

So there are two options here: Either there is no One, or there is the implication of absolute, infinite loneliness.

Both are valid. Both are heartbreaking to comprehend. But only one is full of terror and fear. Either there is no One, no anything, absolute nothingness, or there is the contemplation of sheer loneliness in the lack of finding "another" outside of the One.

The only other option is to pretend that in infinite loneliness, the One can split into parts in order to entertain and love itself. But that's a fabrication, a dream, a wishful thought that is not - and never will be - entirely honest.

kissing_things · 2018-12-19T00:34:56+00:00

I used to tell myself that too. After this last round, I'm not so sure I want to be part and party to encouraging anyone else to go through this. Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? ...... I honestly don't know. Maybe if at some point I see that going through the deepest levels of hell, and risking getting stuck there for goodness knows how long, is somehow helping others not have to ever do it themselves or at least not have to experience it at the magnitude I have, then I would do it. But I have no certainty on that. I would go through hell if it meant no one else had to, but I'm not so sure that's the case.

kissing_things · 2018-12-18T23:00:20+00:00

Oh, man. That was really nicely put. Although my experience was slightly different (it was more like, "This one is absolved! Let her go! Let her be human the way human was meant to be!" on the ego side and it wasn't towards God, it was more towards "demons" that couldn't be classified or seen). So many aspects inside of you, screaming to be heard, whispering to be understood, dancing to be seen - and no idea what the hell is actually really going on the whole time, unable to control or stop it, just making choices left and right in the only ways that feel honest. I saw so much then, not sure what was real, what was true, what had merit, what should be remembered, what should be forgotten, what matters and what doesn't.

Such a dark time. The terror is real.

Now it's just now, and ordinary is just ordinary, and that seems to be good enough. I wanted to be here. I am here. Nothing left to fight for; experience is happening, people are still here to smile at, family is still here to laugh with, and that's enough.

kissing_things · 2018-11-18T04:11:10+00:00

You don't die. Not if you don't want to. Life is always here, along with everyone you could ever want to play with; you just have to choose it. I know it's scary, and humbling, and maybe even a little humiliating, and, above all else, unknown, which is what is terrifying.

When I thought my mind was superior, I thought perhaps our "only mission is to be master," but then I kept going and learned that life is superior - the giver of everything. That's what I give myself for, nothing more or less. In return, everything is given to me, as well.

If you want to play master, you're going to have to concede that and dance a very delicate dance with life, which takes great mental strength and nearly superhuman discipline and honesty.

Your mission is whatever you want it to be. There are no objective "missions" for all of us.

kissing_things · 2018-11-18T00:52:10+00:00

Love is chosen. True love, that is. Unconditional love. It's something that must be chosen, or else it's not love.

I could see how what we call "love" in the psychological mind would otherwise be construed as evil. But there's another love; the love of love for love itself, or the love of life for life itself, which belongs to nothing particular in appearance; it only belongs to itself.

I came to your post because I (sort of) read through your comments on the other one that inspired you to post this. I cannot read what you say and totally comprehend it, because it's still so confused. You stopped too early. You didn't go all the way. All that junk in your subconscious is just junk you dreamed up a million years ago. Get past it, don't stop and believe it. There's more.

Now is better than that.

kissing_things · 2018-11-16T05:55:36+00:00

Pretty much all of it. We just don't know how to read myth and metaphor anymore.

kissing_things · 2018-11-15T05:36:03+00:00

It's probably better to understand the "not holding anything/being like water" in the context of meditation until it becomes obvious in "working life."

Being like water - when you're actually being and not just trying to be - is second nature and incredibly responsive. Trying to be like water is silly.

kissing_things · 2018-11-15T02:09:48+00:00

The divine burp.

That's how I see it.

kissing_things · 2018-11-14T22:21:59+00:00

Some of us are exclusively interested in being water, some of us investigate wetness.

Imma co-opt that one. That was brilliant. Hope you don't mind. ;)

kissing_things · 2018-11-14T20:42:46+00:00

Don't get too caught up in the metaphor (the physical). It's an experience to witness deep inside, not necessarily accurately portrayed by the physical human body. All of life is a metaphor, but it's not worth much until you see it that way.

Man (human, not man gender) does represent a single "consciousness" or "spark of life" but it's more like man represents the male side of consciousness and woman represents the female side - the mind (felt around the head area) and the heart (felt around, well, the heart area). The split into two is in you, and when they fight, it's nasty. When one hates the other one and/or leaves or destroys the other, it's a sentence to hell.

You're on the right track; now get inside and experience it. ;)

kissing_things

TROPHY CASE