Is there anyone else here who claims to have reached it other than me? I'm open to any and all questions <3

elaborate por favor?

On Christmas morning, 2014 I realized the true nature of reality and the true nature of being. I know what the ego is and what the Buddha is. The Teacher teaches with no help from the body/personality.

In one fel swoop you got it all? Thats amazing. Perhaps you could educate us a bit.
What did you do to "get it"?


What is -

• true nature of reality?
• the true nature of being?
• the ego is ?
• what the Buddha is?

Thanks,
~D

What did I do to get it?

The first thing I did was admit that I couldn't figure anything out on my own and asked Whoever to reveal it to me.
I was trained for formal ordination in the Theravadan school but never followed through to becoming a full fledged monk because I was
unsure that was what I wanted for the rest of my life. I read a lot of sutras and practiced Vipisanna off-and-on for 17 years. Three authors
that had the greatest impact were Hermann Hesse, Chogyam Trungpa and Alan Watts. I spent over a decade on usenet with zennies
which helped me maneuver my egoic blind spots. What was most helpful was contemplation on all of reality's phenomena and to
discover that if you start at a perceptually independent pov rather than from a relative reference frame, you could logically deduce the rest
of the way reality is put together. It all culminated for me on Christmas morning, 2014.

What is the true nature of reality?

It's in two states:

The Infinite state which is the Absolute State is the Uncaused Creator Mind Being Energy Undefined Unlimited Always Now Always Here at
constant c and is perceptually independent reality.

The finite state which is the conditioned state is the caused creation, thought, non-being, mass, defined, limited in linear time with perceived
 distance between locations and is a perceptually dependent reality.

What is the true nature of Being?

Being is Nothing, Uncaused because there is nothing there to cause, is the Divine (non-mundane), is Will and is the dwelling of potentiality
(all values of all properties and every combination between zero and infinity (all values are finite). Being is timeless, spaceless, velocity-less
 and massless and, therefore, can't experience anything that requires linear time, finite distance, finite velocity and mass and so with
Infinite Intelligence was able to know how to order information via Divine Thought in such a way as to come up with a system that allowed
to perceive a non-absolute reality that has linear time, finite distances, finite velocities and mass. This is done with the brain-nervous-
system-senses system that takes non-spacial, atemporal information and converts it into a three dimensional expression.

What is the ego?

The ego is developed when Being identifies with the body it's in. The ego is the body/personality of a specific point of awareness of Being.
When Being identifies with sensory experience such as sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch inside the body container it becomes
convinced that it is what 'other' says it is, and what it perceives of the physicality of its container (body) and the environment the
 container finds itself in.

What is the Buddha?

The Buddha is the Teacher of the true nature of reality and the true nature of Being by Infinite Being, Itself. It teaches through egos
but the teaching isn't sourced from any of the ego's learning in space-time reality. The Teaching comes from the Knowing nature of
Being Itself.

Hi Stephane

Welcome to the forum. I found your answers intriguing.

Since you are open to questions, I have a few.

- How would you describe your day to day experience now compared to a few years earlier?
- How are your relationships with others now? Do these people see a change in you?
- How would you describe your work and daily activities.

Thanks for your question. I'm just going out for lunch and will answer you when I get back.

How would I compare my life now that I'm enlightened than before my enlightenment?

Before enlightenment, I thought I was my ego (body/personalitly) and thought the past preceeds the present and future in a linear fashion. I thought that perceived distances between objects were absolute and not perceptually-dependent so I lived as if I was an ego absolutely and perceived others as having souls that were differentiated from my own.

Now I know that I am the Mind and none of the content in mind and that the only thing that exists is Always Now Always Here no matter that my senses-nervous-system-brain are telling me differently. I know that when I see other egos that they are my egos and that it's my awareness when I'm in those particular reference frames. I now only have one motivation when I get up in the morning. Allow the Teacher to teach through me. I take care of the needs of the body and allow the Infinite One to use me to communicate the true nature of reality to others and to correct errors.

How are my relationships with others and how do they see me now?

My familial relationships and romantic relationships and other long-term friendships have all but disappeared. I'm not given feedback from any of them about why they've become silent. My guess is that they don't know how to process the change. It doesn't coincide with the paradigm or view they have so they have to physically shut it out to stop from having to deal with it. On the other hand, strangers are very easy to interact with. I feel immediate friendships with anyone that responds during social contact. Others will walk by me and give me no hint that they recognize my physical presence.

How would I describe my work and daily activities?

I am homeless and receive no income from any source. I eat and sleep at shelters and spend all my time teaching online at libraries. That's my life! When the library is closed, I'll find a place where I can read a book which inspires me to teach on certain topics. The book I'm reading now is writings of Manly P. Hall and the one before that was the writings of Rumi.

Thanks for the replies.

So, what is your feeling tone in your day to day life.  Do you feel at peace, do you sometimes feel anxiety/fear?

No, I don't feel any negative mental states such as depression, anxiety, envy, jealousy, grief, anger, bitterness, addiction, etc.. There are times when I will
experience briefly these states but I'll experience them only as an Experiencer of the states and not as an owner of the states, so I don't suffer the way
someone trapped in their ego (believing they are owners of those states) would.

So I would like to know if there are any other individuals that have claimed they've reached the other shore and are in no more need of their respective rafts?

Thanks for sharing! Yes, that's what reaching the other shore is. Realizing that you've been there the whole time. You are, indeed, the Ocean, and when I speak to you, I'm speaking to Myself in another reference frame.

I definitely feel normal and notice the self as just sensations, but to me complete freedom must include the ability to achieve goals with very little pain. This is where people divide on the subject. Some want to go weaken their fight or flight response down forever and others want to go into powers/visualization practices etc. It's a personal choice.

To me that goal is achieved when I can just develop skills (including communication skills) and not feel like I need to "escape", or turn to avoidance of some kind or another. Just normal rest is sufficient.  

The meditation skills I also think are something good for managing pain and ultimately a form of palliative care at the end (if death happens to be slow).

An arahant has made an end to all "I, me, mine"-making.

Semantics.

I don't think so, Noah. What Stephane talks about sounds mind-bogglingly cool, but it also doesn't sound like what the Buddha called the other shore.

Dhp 178:

"but to me complete freedom must include the ability to achieve goals with very little pain."

There's only one in the body that plans for the future and that is the conceptual self or ego. The Buddha always speaks out of the Always Now.

"To me that goal is achieved when I can just develop skills.."

The Buddha is Perfect and has no room left for development. You can't make a Buddha out of the ego.

"An arahant has made an end to all "I, me, mine"-making."

There are two "I"-s. There is the Unmade I which transcends linear time, "Before Abraham was, I am." and there is the conceptual "I" that identifies with the form born from a womb.

"...but it also doesn't sound like what the Buddha called the other shore."

Would you mind sharing your thoughts in this regard? Thank you.

Pawel: You can check out the suttas. Or not. For all I know, you might not be interested in Buddhist liberation.

Stephane: Conditional arising, three characteristics, stilling of sankhara, end of dukkha. To put your awesome insight in some more context, maybe you could check out the personal sharings on this blog (which I'm not affiliated with, but enjoy nonetheless): Awakening to Reality

Thank you. I'll do that.

I want to speak on this I found in the blog.

• Emptiness is not a substance

Correct.

• Emptiness is not a substratum or background

Correct.

• Emptiness is not light

False. Light is empty (massless). There is only Energy and mass and mass is the content. Light is not content, Light is massless which means it is empty.

• Emptiness is not consciousness or awareness

False. There is only awareness and non-awareness. Awareness isn't information. Information is non-awareness. Awareness envelopes information.

• Emptiness is not the Absolute

False. Emptiness or Nothing is the only Absolute. All 'somethings' are relative or conditioned. Emptiness is Unconditioned and, therefore, Absolute.

• Emptiness does not exist on its own

False. Emptiness is Existence Itself. All content has no inherent existence and depends on conditions for its relative existence.

• Objects do not consist of emptiness

True. Objects are information or thought in Mind (which is Emptiness).

• Objects do not arise from emptiness

False. All information (conditioned reality) arises from the Absolute (Unconditioned Reality).

• Emptiness of the "I" does not negate the "I"

True. The Egoless is Superpersonal not impersonal.

• Emptiness is not the feeling that results when no objects are appearing to the mind

True. Emptiness is not a feeling.

• Meditating on emptiness does not consist of quieting the mind

Meditation on emptiness is impossible because Emptiness isn't an object but awareness. Can awareness meditate on Itself?

Could you describe in more detail the event that happened on Christmas morning? Sounds like it was a permanent shift (is that correct?) – was it sudden?, seconds, minutes, hours? How did it feel when it happened and the days following?

Prior to this event did you have earlier permanent shifts or was this the first?

Were there earlier events of a temporary nature that stand out and if so in what order and time frames between them and the last one (on Christmas)?

It was a sudden shift or Realization. That word is a very appropriate term because that's exactly what happens. You realize what reality is.
I was blessed with a very interesting event. Someone I never had communication with before PM'd me on Facebook Christmas morning which allows me to provide real support for my claim.  I can't seem to get copy/paste to function so if you email me at sgman0202@gmail.com, I can send you a text file of the chat log that took place on Christmas 2014.

Hi Stephane

I'm not sure if what you are trying to paste provides more descriptive detail about what happened on Christmas morning, but I would be interested in that.  The copy paste function on the forum is tricky to use (sometimes nothing shows up when pasting).  Some others have posted more details, but what I find helps is first pasting the text in something like notepad (on windows) that strips out all the additional formatting information.  Sometimes that alone is enough, but if not, I revert to grabbing sections of the text to past in sequence.  I sometimes have to skip copying some beginning characters when grabbing a chunk of text, and then fill in that by hand. It's a trial and error thing.

I find I have to add a line of some text at the beginning - like '---' then a blank line then the body of text I want to copy and then another blank line and another 'xxx' line of junk. Then I copy the entire thing and use Cntrl V to paste it in - almost always works. If I don't add in the other lines to wrap the text to copy, it usually drops at least one paragraph and sometimes the entire thing.

Edited "The Buddha has room for development" to what was intended "The Buddha has no room for development"