Hannah Morris3 said:But is that actually experiencing it—or just observing?
Both. But let me ask you... what does "observation" even mean to you? Maybe we aren't on the same page, or maybe we just define "observation" differently!
Observation isn't some separate thing from Living. It’s the only way life truly happens. There are two distinct functions an observer can perform...
Attention—that's the Self directing itself toward an object. But I don't mean concentration. Awareness—that's being directed at both the subject and the object simultaneously. Awareness is a flow. And then there's a third: Mindfulness. In the beginning, awareness feels like hard work. But once it becomes spontaneous, once it's just part of your daily rhythm, it evolves into Mindfulness. A relaxed kind of awareness...
And why on earth would they bother reproducing??? 🙂 I'm joking, obviously.
I count myself lucky because I spent years living alongside a certain Master, before I finally realized—through my own skin and bone—some of the very things I used to say. And the things I couldn't grasp? I saw them reflected in him. He rejected nothing. To everything, he gave a massive YES. 🙂
Trying to define what a Master actually is, or what Awakening or enlightenment means... it’s all just mental gymnastics. Thought is never true, nor will it ever be. It’s nothing more than a thin veil, a cheap imitation of Reality that can never truly explain any of this.
Just picture a man who says a resounding YES to Life. He accepts everything without rejecting a single thing, yet he isn't bound by any of it. Instead, he simply lives, joyfully embracing everything both in front of him and deep within himself.
Facing your own shadow isn't some casual walk in the park. It demands an immense amount of time... and even more courage. Still, I actually like this definition. 🙂
There’s this common misconception that an Awakened person feels absolutely nothing, as if they’ve been magically liberated from all typical human struggles. 🙂 The truth is, they still feel pain, and yeah, sometimes they suffer. They experience those so-called "negative" emotions just like anyone else; whether they choose to act on them or suppress them is entirely up to their own discretion. If they decide a situation calls for an emotional response, they'll show it. If not, they won't.
They still have desires, they still receive congratulations, and they still offer greetings, but they aren't tethered to any of it. Expressing these things doesn't make them any happier or more miserable than if they kept them inside. Beyond themselves, there is no sense of traditional morality. But don't mistake that for being lawless—this kind of morality exists outside the standard social conditioning or the rigid moral frameworks most people live by. In practice, though, they usually respect those societal norms and don't feel the need to go around trying to fix everyone else's rules.
A whole person is someone who has fully embraced every part of themselves—that's why we call them "whole." They tend to be much more sensitive than your average person, which means what they experience hits much harder and more intensely than it does for others. They aren't at war with themselves anymore. There's nothing left to fight because they've transcended every internal conflict through total acceptance. And when I say "transcended," I don't mean it in the way people usually think... it just means those conflicts no longer touch them. They no longer identify with the struggle. They exist in the moment. They don't feel like they're at odds with their surroundings or the universe; instead, they see everything as an expression of their own Will. ...etc. Do I really need to bother explaining what a "normal" person is? 🙂
Until you bring consciousness into every single corner of your Being, you can't truly be enlightened. People are under the delusion that once someone reaches a state of Unity or Self-Realization, they'll suddenly stop experiencing reality altogether. No. As long as a person is still tied to this plane in any capacity, they experience everything just like the rest of us... just with a massive difference in intensity. The rest of us cling to what is inside and outside of us, but He doesn't cling. He exists in the state of The Observer.
When most people talk about prayer, they usually just mean begging the heavens for some kind of favor or service. You might actually be onto something there. 🙂
I don't know... I don't pray to my own ego. That's why I was asking what prayer even means to you personally.
Hell isn't about losing your ego... it's about what happens when you try to find your balance afterward. Right now, this process of letting the ego die is basically just an "alignment" with reality, and honestly, it feels a lot like euphoria. But once that emotion finally drains away, your consciousness gets flooded by all those suppressed contents... things people often mistake for hallucinations. You’re suddenly forced to face everything you thought you were, and everything the world around you holds. The issue isn't actually you—it's just that the Samskaras, those unconscious patterns, start igniting rapidly. The real problem is that you're still tethered to the collective "reservoir" of the unconscious surrounding you. That whole mess starts catching fire, and it won't stop until you've dealt with it head-on.
A person still uses their mind, but they aren't shackled by mental logic or the mind itself anymore. As long as you're living in this reality, you have a mind. Whether you like it or not, it's there. Now, they say there are extreme cases—people like certain famous Masters—who have managed to exist in Nirvikalpo samadhi while still functioning and living right here in this reality...
In this life, you have to play both sides. You need to weave through things like a snake moving through the brush. The goal is to use them, not to be used by them. And honestly, that’s exactly what everyone is looking for when they go searching for "training"...
At its core, the ego isn't the issue—it's the identification with it. When we talk about the "death of the ego," what we really mean is disidentification. It’s the process of draining the energy used to maintain that mental image of yourself. The ego is just a constructed self-image... basically, a loss of identity. The mind begins to unravel, but in doing so, it falls under the control of the consciousness that was sitting quietly in the background all along.
Consciousness is what draws the line between a human being and an animal. Not the ego. Specifically, consciousness.
You know what’s actually interesting here, Arthur Grant4. And who exactly is trying to get rid of the ego anyway? How can you possibly be sure that right now—at this exact stage of your journey, where you've experienced those brief minutes or hours of pure, mindless awareness—that you can actually survive without an ego?
Has it even crossed your mind that as long as you haven't crystallized that true Center of Being within yourself, the ego acts as a necessary ballast... keeping you anchored in what people call a "stable" state? In other words... it's what maintains your equilibrium.
It isn't a misunderstanding; I’d call it an insistence on precision. The ego can manifest spiritually, too. "I am a seeker," "I am a yogi," "I am a tantric practitioner"... when in reality, you are absolutely nothing. That would be the most accurate definition of what you actually are.
Whether someone invents themselves as a spiritual guru or a punk rocker, it doesn't matter. Both are just fabrications.
Kyle Nelson2 said:If I were to translate what you're saying into plain, small-town talk: punks? Please. They're just posers with a slightly different wardrobe...
🙂 Sure, if you want to look at it that way. Whether you're playing the punk, the tantric practitioner, or some wandering yogi... it doesn't matter... it's all the same... 😉
It's incredibly rare to find someone who actually understands that you have to strip away every single layer of useless identity...
Which ego is supposed to tear down the other? Do you honestly believe these spiritual gurus don't carry a self-image around with them? What's even the difference between a "social" self-image and a "spiritual" one?
The point isn't about acquiring some new spiritual identity; it’s about losing both. You could define identity simply as identification. But who exactly is doing the identifying with any specific identity in the first place?
If you truly understood your own fundamental nature—as you claim to—then it would be crystal clear what your ego actually is, and why it exists at all! Do people actually lose their ego just by parroting the need to "lose the ego" like mindless sheep? Or is the ego only lost when someone completely abandons every single form of identity?
And how can anyone even begin to work on this, or even harbor the idea of shedding a social persona to build some vague spiritual one, if they aren't thinking through it using their ego? The ego is an inherent part of consciousness. But it is identified consciousness. Once you de-identify—once you detach from both the social and the spiritual identities—who is left to do the thinking about the ego?
But... It’s really about uncovering. You are merely revealing what you have known all along. You aren't learning anything new, nor are you gaining anything extra. It’s just a process of rediscovery. Your entire purpose is to uncover yourself—to strip away everything that gets in the way of you being *You*. And then, to manifest that in this reality.
Ronald Morris60 said:So, I’ve got this "issue" that basically forced me to start looking into all those spiritual paths and whatnot... I don't know the exact technical term for it, but I just call it "feeling people." It’s like I can pick up on their thoughts—and along with those thoughts comes all their misery and baggage. I know everyone gets a little vibe from others sometimes, but for me, it’s constant... it happens in every single everyday conversation. Sometimes it’s just incredibly frustrating—honestly, it makes me so pissed off when I can feel someone thinking one thing while they’re saying something completely different—that I have to fight just to stay cool. On top of that, people end up "dumping" their suffering onto me... so I just cut the conversation short, sometimes pretty bluntly, and try to dodge anyone who seems like they're having a rough time. I hate doing that because then I feel like a total jerk, but I honestly don't know how else to handle it. A few times now, during a totally normal chat, I’ve actually felt like I’m being "drained"... kind of like someone is sucking the life out of me through a straw (yeah, yeah, stupid metaphor, I know, but that’s the only way to describe it)... and then I just get super twitchy and have to stop myself from physically "defending" myself. I know plenty of people deal with stuff like this—maybe not as intensely as I do, but still—so how do you protect yourself without just walking away? And please, don't give me that "just ignore it" or "mentally distance yourself" crap... I've tried all that, and it works for maybe two seconds before everything goes south again.
It's intuition. I dealt with something very similar. What I learned was to stop fighting it. You have a powerful energy that pierces into their circle, and that’s how you end up absorbing whatever it is they're throwing at you. 🙂 It's simple. Surrender to it. Learn how to actually enjoy it. Sometimes the "overflow" of this power lasts for a month or two, or however long it takes to level out. After that, certain fragments of it remain, but you learn how to master it. How to bend it to your own will.
Someone might have suggested certain exercises to you; you can certainly do them, but focus on awareness. Learn to be mindful and conscious... that is your strongest defense and your ultimate form of control.
For any real transformation to take place, a person first has to face their own reality—they need to grasp exactly where they stand, what they actually are, and who they've become. Only once that realization hits does the genuine hunger for change emerge. And if they want to see things through to the end, they have to walk away from every dogma and every teacher they've ever followed... they have to pivot toward their own intuition and lean into self-trust. To find that life within themselves. That’s when the shifting happens. That’s when they finally realize there isn't actually anything left to change.
That doesn't mean, of course, that someone can't navigate all of this alongside a master...
I've been wondering, Ryan Wilson2, have you ever actually had a mentor or a teacher???
How would you, say, go about picking a master...? What kind of qualities would they absolutely need to possess? And so on... if you even feel like answering....