LastThursday

And for emphasis: and a lot of other kinds of suffering.

It's actually a bluff to give your conceptual mind occupied - sugar for the mind. But you've managed to see through the bluff, amazing. The idea is to keep the conceptual mind occupied so that it gets out of the way of your authentic self - the authentic self is happy and confident. Normally your conceptual mind likes to sabotage the real you via all kinds of negativity and perhaps cripling self doubt and insecurity. As you've identified, it can backfire because the conceptual mind is sneaky enough to find ways to sabotage the success, and one way it does this is to compare things; so you get things like 'that guy is stronger than me', 'that person is more beautiful than me' or even 'I've failed to live up to my amazing self image'. It's all bs of course, because in reality people can't be compared to each other in any way, every single person is unique - and that amazing self image is a mirage.

And Leo has presented plenty of 'proof' in his videos. Ironically, it's not scientific proof I grant you. But a talking head can only do so much. He advocates that you do the 'experiments' yourself and not just trust his word. No. It constitutes evidence against dogma. Your argument against 'living in a dream' is done by asserting that science and materialism are true. But how can you trust that truth if there's even one iota of doubt? It's a matter of perspective. On the scientific/materialist side: Your subjective experience is not to be trusted, because the 'real world' is 'out there'. To reduce self bias (delusion), experiments are carried out by many different people. marks (mappings) are made, and those people agree amongst themselves that those marks constitute reality, by building conceptual frameworks which are themselves just made of words, thoughts, speech, arrangements of marks (mathematics) etc. For a scientist the map is the territory. On the spiritualist/idealist/dream side: Your direct experience (a.k.a. subjective) is the only thing to be trusted. To reduce delusion (self bias), you strip away the equivalences between appearances (experiences or perceptions or qualia). In other words thoughts, words and other forms of indirection (pointing) are not reality. Basically, the word 'dog' is not a dog, only the direct experience of a dog is a dog - so the map is not the territory. It says the ego is a sham, because it's a mapping onto itself, like two arrows pointing to each other. Like the definition of 'Recursion' in a dictionary saying 'see Recursion'. It's self supporting, but groundless, a map without a territory. It then goes deeper by saying that even the appearences are delusion, because there are really no boundaries between them and they're in constant flux in any case, they can't be 'caught' and examined. So you are not your ego and you are not your appearences. So if even appearences are delusion, then what exactly is left? Nada, zip, nothing. Nothing exists. You don't exist. Everything you think you experience is a dream.

I know, it seems absurd. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What's realistic is based on what, you personally, have experienced so far to be real. And what you've experienced so far is only available in your memories, and science tells us memories are unreliable. And the reports of people around us are unreliable, people lie and manipulate. And the laws of physics are constantly changing and being revised (is Gravity Newtonian or is it the bending of spacetime? Is light a particle or a probability wave or electomagnetism?). What I'm getting at, is that you can trust nothing, and anything you do trust you ought to be very suspicious of. That's the scientific method.

That's a great question. Why doesn't it? I would really really question that. A good place to start is this: what has changed over the course of your life? Is there any one thing that has stayed rock-steady constant and unchanging throughout that time? Is there anything that hasn't fallen apart?

Before I started to learn about spirituality I had been depressed for quite a number of years. Despite the depression I've always been able to do one thing very well, and that was program computers - it's my profession. As you might imagine this takes prolonged periods of focus and a certain amount of motivation. One of the reasons I stumbled into spirituality was to stop the suffering of my depression and to understand myself better. I realised at some point that what was causing me a lot of suffering was negative self talk, and I set out to kill it - it took an immense amount of daily practice. Another problem was an almost constant level of anxiety about almost everything. One way or another I've come out of my depression and conquered both problems. In the past few months however I'm having the exact opposite problem. I often go for long periods without any self talk whatsoever, and I'm not anxious about anything at all, not even being fired from work. This seems to have affected my ability to both think in a focussed way (my mind goes blank regularly or I loose the thread of my thoughts), and I have no particular motivation from fear of losing my job. Result: no productivity at work. Any thoughts on what's going on here? If I keep on the spiritual path, I feel it's only going to get worse!

Thank you. I guess that's the fear that I know deep down I'm going to have to face. I will need to be both authentic and true to myself and survive too, otherwise life carries on being mediocre. However I'm in a deep tar pit of inertia: well paid job, easy commute, mastery in my field, no debt, no ties and so on. Pulling myself out of the tar pit is going to take suffering and lots of time, naturally it's difficult to engage meaningfully with this. Good question! Nothing that involves being subject to the whims of anyone else. In other words would I have to completely own my work, ideas, way of working, without interferrence. As to the 'what' thats wide open, in fact so wide I can't get a mental handle on it. My hope in some way, is if I can dissolve my ego enough, I can get past the inertia by just flowing or gravitating into my preferred way of living. Anyway, thanks, it's good to splurge it out in writing. Maybe that's the trick?

A journey is not a journey without change, look out of the window and enjoy the scenery. Before you were interested, now you're disinterested, next you're...

The supermarket set out to poison you, you just chose not to pay for it twice.

There are three ducks swimming in a pond. Are they three ducks or a duck family? Is my coffee table a table made of wood, or wood in the shape of a table? You look at your reflection in a mirror then close your eyes, then open your eyes and look again. Is the second you the same as the first you? Have you not aged between the two reflections? Whether two events are separate or the same event, depends on how you frame the observation. The second problem is the one of 'time'. This is just materialist nonsense: time as a flowing river or unbroken thread is just plain untruth. There is only the current moment and that's it. The illusion of time is woven purely from memory and memory always operates in the now. Of course that's not a real answer, because 'memory' and the 'current moment' are both deeply deeply mysterious.

Hooray! I'm glad it makes sense to you. This is just information theory. The more cuts you have, the more 'bits' of information you have. So nonduality is a complete lack of information: zero. But it is 'made of' infinity so to speak. If you bend the metaphor a bit more, then the infinite paper and the infinite cut are actually the same thing. Duality (and information), is infinity cutting itself. But BEWARE. The metaphor is not the territory. I'm just talking like a run of the mill scientist, and playing fast and dirty with words and concepts (cuts).

The same link as between the number 1 and the number 2? So here is my poor metaphor for nonduality versus duality: Imagine a large sheet of paper that is infinitely large in all directions. It is perfect paper, it has no discernable attributes other than the fact that it's infinite. You can however count it, there's exactly one nonduality. Now, get some scissors and some infinite time and cut the paper in half. Now it has an attribute a cut (or boundary if you like). And if you count the areas, there are now two areas - this is duality. Interestingly you've created a finity (two) from two infinities: the infinite paper and the infinite cut. End of metaphor.

I'm by no means an expert, but surely there are different types of infinity? There are many things about ordinary everyday conciousness that is infinite in nature. Take thinking about counting numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. They are finite in that you can never get to the end, but, somehow your conscious mind can extend the sequence to infinity, it understands that sort of infinity. Or take the classic statement: 'This statement is false', an infinite regress creating a paradox. Yet the mind somehow understands it in it's totally. Then take a colour for example, there are infinite shades of green from very dark to very light, but your concious mind gets it. And the more you poke around with things that seem finite, they are actually infinite in nature. I would go so far as to say that nothing is finite at all!

So as I get deeper into being ever more concious, I hear this word 'identify' being banded around like it's some type of evil omen. But it wasn't until just now when it hit me, what the hell is this 'identifying'? It seems like the more I try and think about it, the less it means. Apparently, it's the source of all suffering, and suffering is to be avoided or at least dodged. I understand the sense in which identification is a narrowing of the immensity of being and the point of enlightenment is expansion, infinitely. But surely identification is just recognition or awareness? I identify with being a human being, living in the 21st century. I identify with being a white middle aged man. Those attributes may be an arbritary construct of my mind, which in turn is an arbritary construct of my society. But surely if I do away with identification, I do away with reality altogether? And pop, there I go out of existence...

I know I don't particularly need that romantic version of me. It's just a narrative which salves the current suffering. But you've hit the nail on the head, I'm a control freak. Why do I control? I suppose because I've felft that others have always had more control over me than I have. If I can't control the world, I can at least control myself. Don't let that fool you, I know well enough the foolishness of what I've just stated. There is no 'me' to control. But that's why I'm a Zen Devil, I can think my way out of anything to the n'th degree, but I don't embody it. Maybe it's lack of practice?

Ha ha ha ha. That made me chuckle. In laughter there is truth eh? No offence. I suppose language gets in the way. With all this conciousness work, my definition of 'you' or 'I' has somewhat expanded from the everyday version. I know or feel or whatever, that whatever 'I' am it is the totally of all the appearences and not apart from them. I feel or experience myself in everything. In other words all the appearences have 'me' in them, they're tainted with the essence of me and there's no way for me to step outside of that - in fact I wouldn't know how. So it's a simple step from there to say that I don't exist as a separate entity from the appearences, I am those appearences and no more and no less. Included in all the appearences are my thoughts and mental constructs, conditioning, yadda yadda. But. My ego is still part of reality, I am told that to be rid of it is bliss. My ego is part of me and I am my ego in small part, so what?

@lens I guess I'm at the stage of being a Zen Devil. I know, but I can't/won't/don't know how to apply. I know deep enough to realise my entire experience is a fabrication, but I'm still intoxicated by it. What keeps my in my place? Two things. Imaturity and I guess the fear of death does, or more precisely the fear of lots of suffering does. There is an irony there. What would lack of suffering mean to me? Complete freedom to be the animal I am. To kill my food and feed my loved ones and myself, to roam wherever I see fit, to mate when necessary, to use my skills to impress and to survive, to be bonded to a set of other animal humans, to understand the intricacies of the environment I live in, to live by my wits every second, to be sharp and alive and in tune with reality, to be pushed to my extreme as a human animal and come out of the other end, to be a hero! I know, romantic isn't it? Instead, it's 9 to 5, stuck in a artificially lit office, in front of a dazzling rectangle of meaninglessness, pushing buttons like a monkey all day, to go home and push a pizza into an oven for ten minutes, to sit and type nonsense into my laptop, then rinse and repeat. And for good measure an endless round of visiting and holidays in a pretense of 'getting away' from the grind. As Leo kindly says, prison.

@Mighty Mouse Ok, ok, I get it, nearly. Any sort of mental web or layer or net I cast over reality is a context, interpretation or 'identification'. But honestly, at this precise moment in time - whatever that means - to understand anything about what I'm experiencing, I need context. If there is no ground, then what? Absolute oneness is surely absolute no existence in any sense, it's less than a bit of information, zero. I identify, therefore I am, I am therefore I suffer? I want to stop suffering, I really do, isn't that the point of being self-actualised? I want to reach a point where I'm not impeded by suffering and I can be fully authentic, a.k.a. I don't give a fuck, or more to the point, I'm not even aware of not giving a fuck? That would mean not identifying with a whole shed load of crap I currently immerse myself in. But If I drill down to the the essence of the thing, then red is red, pain is pain, and lack of oxygen is death. How can I possibly not 'identify' with those things? Are they not reality?

Thanks. So: indentify = context?

The present moment is an illusion. Take a moment and think about something that happened yesterday in as much detail as possible. Now seriously question yourself and ask: 'When did that happen?', yesterday, right? Then ask youself: 'WHEN was I thinking about what happened yesterday?', just now, right? And so, next: 'What was I thinking about, when I was thinking about what happened yesterday?', exactly the same thing, yes or no? The only realistic conclusion you can draw, if you submit to it, is that yesterday never happened yesterday (or at all), it is in fact just a hallucination you're having in the present moment. You can draw exactly the same conclusions about events in the future, they're just the same hallucinations in the present moment. So what about the present moment? Ok, turn your attention to say, some music playing in the background, pay attention to the lyrics or the melody. Ask yourself: 'WHEN is it happening?', now, right? Ah no, it's gone already, it's already turned into a hallucination of a past moment. It's like trying to grab a pint of running water with your bare fist, you think you have it, but you don't. So again, the only sensible conclusion you can draw, is that the present moment is also a hallucination. BUT, at least the present moment IS the whole of reality, you just have to come to terms with it being JUST a hallucination.

This sentence is not real.

Is there such a thing as being in a state of non-duality; is this enlightenment? And if so, how would you know it, without comparing it to a previous state of duality? The comparison itself being dual? Confused.