I think many/most of us agree that most people are 'asleep' as it were, as we've experienced 'waking' ourselves. These 'sleepers' often are members of an organized religion, awake enough to know mortality but not enough to look past accepting another person's ideas instead of there own. Also, I realize many of us get into transcendentalism and etc. However, does anyone else agree that following [i:f3a25a624f]any[/i:f3a25a624f] kind of complex system of thought is essentially going back asleep? Personally, I like religion and philosophy immensely, and have so since I was a child, but I stay away from reading it if only to not set pitfalls of expectation and experience. That said, when i happened upon Leary's 8-stage path of consciousness, it fit exactly in with what I have experienced myself, ending my Chapel Perilous. It's not that I don't believe other more experienced travelers, but that I like to keep my philosophy 'loose,' so to speak, to accomodate change and to have it be a bit more of 'my' experience rather than another agreed upon reality. I'm interested in everyone's thoughts and experiences with the realization after Chapel Perilous of a Greater Reality.

We can (shall) experienced things by ourselves but hints and insights from more mature people are important to help integrating our own insights in the 'standard' world. In case you don't know him and his bestsellers "Conversations with God", I strongly suggest reading them. Website: http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com

He seems a little hokey and I almost suspect that he's out for the money. Would you be able to provide the basics of his philosophy?

According to Krishnamurti all systems of thought and philosophy inherently split the world into different pieces and therefore prevent the seeing the totality of everything.

That's the 'trap' in all language - it breaks everythng into dualisms. 'Awake' is sleepwalking !.. a state of consciousness that is laminated by our language, and crucified by our senses, time and gravity. It's so hard to 'shake it', so engrained, so 'pushed upon us' - this normal waking mode of being so sensorily and materially aware. When we wake up each morning we are actually in the 'basement' of our psychic beings, sonambulist egos that can't find the doors that lead 'upstairs' When we awaken each morning, it's actually a deliberately un-enlightened state of consciousness, the base-level that will 'get up' and feed the organism, drink water, breed a bit, and then fall asleep again. All the rest we busy ourselves with (ie culture) can end up as distractions and trappings for the ego. Art too... although art is an essential expression for the numinous - it is still in a sensory realm and bound to be limited like language. Art and language can 'point' to the way out, but that's it ...