tsuki

@Lucas Lousada Experience with my own awakenings tells me that you ask for the very thing that you "lost": meaning in life. Your realization that anything is truly and utterly meaningless is nothing else other than the death of self. This is not a trivial matter and please, do no treat it as such. Death reminds us that whatever we hold on to as dear is just that - holding on to. That whatever we may think we have control over may be taken away with no prior warning. Mourning is not re-living the past that had been lost in hope to prolong it. It is seeing that whatever is left may be taken away and is to be enjoyed while it lasts. The self is always up for death, so please - try to enjoy yourself while you can. As for the meaning of your life - treating yourself as a mean to an end begs the question: whose end is it? The gaping openness of this question is what you seek. Try to not look away with disgust. This is you after all. The you that you try to dress up with all of your meanings.

How is success not a form of gratification? One may try to quench his seeking by turning it towards a goal, but any goal is temporary and contextual. The only ever-present constant in life seems to be the very possibility of seeking. Why not to try to seek the source of seeking? What if it has no source and is simply present? Wouldn't it mean that there is no goal that satisfies it?

Hahaha, the only reason I would call someone sharp is to say that they are being a smartass ? I will watch the movie in the next few days and post back with more ideas.

@molosku You're welcome. I really enjoyed what you wrote. That meme at the end was brilliant!

@MarkusSweden Your response with love is predicated on your liking. So is their response with slaughter. The moment you start to fear the unknown is the moment you created a threat. The moment you start to defend yourself from a threat is the moment you created an enemy. You can love an enemy and you can fight an enemy. They are both a form of defense in hope to conquer him. The enemy is an enemy, as long as you don't walk him back to the unknown.

Well, the problem with your reasoning is solved by applying the "correct" theory for your domain.There is a theory for flipping a coin, which is a discrete occurrence and there is a theory for continuous processes. If you want to calculate a probability that a given device fails during a period of one year - it is not the same as flipping a coin each microsecond for a year and seeing if it lands tails at any given moment. If you would apply the correct theory however, there is no possibility to calculate probability of your existence, as you are not expressible in the language of mathematics. Even if you had a perfect mathematical theory of human being, interpreting yourself in terms of it to produce a numerical description is a creative task that introduces errors with unknown bounds. Not to mention that once you describe what you are, you are free to disregard this description and behave in exactly the opposite manner My point is that probability of your existence is simply that: unknown. By assuming anything about it, you change what you are - your existence. You can say that it is impossible for you to exist and you would be right, as you are a unique human being - unlike any other. You can say that it is normal for you to exist and you would be right, as you are a human being and we have 7 billions of them. Existence with any of the above assumptions would be correct and you are both a miracle and a totally mundane occurrence. I will even risk to say that you treat yourself as both, depending on your mood. Any mundane statement produces a whole, complete, perspective or a worldview. They are thankfully, temporal.

Sins, wrongs, goods and miracles - these are all expressions of "morality" as a mental framework through which one understands the occurring circumstances. What this mode of being tries to achieve is to impose an order for all possible situations that a person may end up finding himself in. When a given situation is known to be worse than another situation, it is easy to tell what the course of action should be. In short - morality is an attempt to create rules that would allow for automatic solving of life. A direction through which one would elevate his existence. The problem with morality is that it is impossible to create an absolute system that would not break itself in trying to maintain its operation. For example: It is bad to kill, unless there is a war. It is bad to rape, unless inmates in prison rape each other. Then it is called justice. It is bad to imprison an unwilling person, unless the person broke the laws. etc. The other problem is that morality is relative and mostly unconscious. Once a person tries to take responsibility for his own morality, a question arises: Which morality is correct? In other words: What are the rules for establishing rules? There are none, as this is a problem of infinite regress. Each moral statement is a double-edged sword. It tries to fix a problem by introducing another problem. If a person enters a relationship and expects it to last for his whole life, he may establish the rule that "one shall never cheat on a partner". But then of course this is the very condition that ends a relationship! How do you expect to stop a relationship from falling apart by introducing a stopping condition? Wouldn't it make more sense to say I'm going to stick to this person no matter what? No! That's another moral statement that is dependent on the other person not leaving you. There is no possibility to produce a moral statement that does not introduce possibility for suffering! The very reason to produce one is to prevent it, and yet - by creating it you prime yourself for it! The other example is touching a child, or more generally - problem of suffering. Morality tries to prevent suffering by introducing rules, and yet - suffering is the main driving force of change. To molest a child in order for it to grow is a disgusting idea, and yet - not as long as few hundred years ago, we did it. We made little girls marry grown men and we were absolutely sure that we did it for their own good! How are we sure that the current state of affairs is absolutely correct, when we were proven wrong so many times before? Is it simply because we believe that there is progress through time? That we've learned from our mistakes? Don't even get me started on that idea. The third problem is a psychological one. By claiming full responsibility for an outcome, you belittle involvement of independent factors. By saying that you caused an event, you try to elevate yourself by saying that you were in control over what happened. This is Ego talking, trying to keep the driver's seat. How many children raised by alcoholics sweared not to EVER drink only to cave in and beat their wife during an alcohol-induced rage? By claiming responsibility they uphold the illusion that they have control over their life - the control that made them drink in the first place. Morality is no escape from the cycle. It is not its cause either. Morality is just a funny idea that you tell yourself so that you can sleep better.

@Scarecrow What I would suggest is to recognize the importance of both. I see them as periods of doing the work and appreciating the work already done. There is no point in working if you don't enjoy its fruits. You won't have the fruits if you don't do the work. What difference does the length of the cycle make? To achieve harmony you need both, regardless of whether it takes a minute, a day, a week or a month.

@Shin Responsibility is a double-edged sword. When you take responsibility for your actions you belittle involvement of other people and claim that you run things. You don't. Any suffering can be traced back to Ego that tried to fix things by responsibly managing the world. As for my own struggle - I will think about the wording and post it soon.

@Leo Gura Isn't it the perspective that "all perspectives are partial"?

Yes, this game of communication is relative and agreement on meaning can be achieved in many dimensions. When one states that two objects A and B are in relation R, the other may try to understand how objects A and B are such that relation R occurs, or may understand how relation R is such that it links A and B. You can change the game by moving the pieces according to rules, but you can also change the rules so that the game is different without moving the pieces. What I claim is that the two are identical, or equivalent, in the game of communication. By the mere act of seeing your coherence in my words that were previously "unknown" you expand your notion of truth. It is not the same truth as mine, but they overlap in a sense. We are playing two separate games, but the rules and positions of pieces are "understood". This first-hand experience of "understanding" of things is nothing else than "lack of surprise" so that Ego is calm. There is no tension between us. In this sense there is one ego that encompasses both of us and we may defend our understanding once a third party challenges it. This is nothing else than culture, or society. Once you say that truth is absolutely relative, you are simultaneously saying that relativity is the absolute truth.

I don't think that there is ever a misunderstanding of concepts. My understanding of concepts is no better or worse than yours as long as we use logic to validate them. What logic is is simply a feeling of coherence between thoughts. My thoughts are coherent and your thoughts are coherent in our separate contexts. When we talk and "misunderstand" each other, all we do is build a shared coherence of thoughts. In a certain sense we become a single person and blend our physical worlds together. See, there is no deception! Even if my mode of being is different than yours - I AM what I AM. There is no lie in that! What concepts I take to be true is what shapes the world around me. Any concepts may be true as long as they are coherent and they will be the answer to a question "what does it mean to be?". Ego is simply the thing that prevents the shift of true concepts one holds, but it is false in the sense that any concepts may become true as long as you build the bridge of consistency between your current self and what is "misunderstood".

@Joseph Maynor It is very similar to asking what is truth. In both cases you ask what is X of X? What is truth about truth? What is the concept of concept? @NikitaW The funny thing is that once you start to answer questions about concepts, you use concepts. Once you start asking "What is X?" you need assume that every concept you bring to table while explaining is understood. This of course brings us to experiences that are inexpressible, like: "what it means to be?". You ARE, as you ask this question. It's like the part to @Joseph Maynor : What is X of X? There are no linguistical answers to that question.

@electroBeam I will tackle your statement in three steps: You always have one thought at a time and each thought is a continuation of the former thought with relation to the rest of the senses. You think thoughts in response to what happens around you, specifically as you are reading this text right now. You are now being primed to show me that you can randomly think things unrelated to what is happening. What I do right now is not argue that there is no free will, but I am showing you a perspective that can be acquired which can coherently explain what is happening. This is important. We can. Whatever coherent explanation of reality you have physically shapes the possibility space of your actions. You will not even attempt to do things that you think that are impossible. Will you try to walk through the closed door to prove me wrong? What is the difference between physical impossibility of walking through walls and your unwillingness to even try? Science tells us that in fact it is possible to go through a wall using principles of QM! Have you ever tried to dream up an ice cream? Did it work? I guess that you didn't succeed, as you wouldn't have asked this question. What is the difference between physical impossibility of dreaming up an ice cream and you not trying hard enough? If you did try: what is the difference between physical impossibility and you not knowing the way to do it? You don't have an ice cream in both cases! There is no difference! The point is that it is both that thoughts shape reality and reality shapes thought. They are a single process that has no causality. It is not that reality -> thoughts, or thoughts->reality. It is not even thoughts <-> reality. It's thoughtsreality. Or tRhEoAuLgIhTtYs.

I never knew that this person meant so much to me. I can see now how I always had him for the singularity he tried to understand. It is unbelievable how this small, troubled shell could at the same time be the embodiment of impenetrable mystery to me. With his passing, the mystery returned to itself leaving me with confusion.

If you still accept ideas, here's my vision: seamless blending of the internal and external world. Whatever I want to achieve in life is caused by whatever happened to me in the past. I may achieve my desires by action upon the world, or by action upon myself by seeing the sense in which I already achieved them. My soul is not present somewhere outside of the external world, but in the possibility of action I may take upon everyday objects. It is not something else other than the objects themselves. Without the soul, there would be no objects, but indistinguishable mass of senseless sensations. I am the consciousness of acts upon things that are unconscious part of myself.

And how do you know that your memory of it is correct and you simply don't fit your memories to what is currently happening? You need reference to claim consistency and your memories are indistinguishable from fantasies. Are you going to claim that your memories are consistent? Consistent with what? Memories?

There is no reason to go through chemotherapy if there is no reason to live. Holding your loved one's hand and cleaning his/her vomit for a five years is as much of a commitment as sitting through med school. Committing to seeing through chemotherapy is not a decision that is made in the past, but a one that has to be made each morning when you look in the mirror, unsure, whether you are saving your wife's life or wasting your own.

The paradox of valuing enlightenment vs materialism comes from the fact that you see it as a binary choice (or non-choice in your formulation). Your life is both materialistic and spiritual and growth occurres from your recognition of the latter and incorporation in the former (or vice versa).

Dabbling and jumping around for your whole life is a world-class performance in itself. By introducing stability via the LP course, you are effectively admitting that you can't even do that! Commitment is not determined by the amount of time you do something it in a streak, but how much are you willing to gamble on it. Commitment is intensity, not duration. You are committed to saving a person if you are willing to sacrifice your life for that person. It doesn't matter how long it took you. You can be committed to saving a child in a burning building, or to saving a person having cancer.

Inner conflict is the creative force of growth. You transcend yourself by seeing how conflicting perspectives are actually one. By committing to recognizing enlightenment of ordinary, everyday, people you effectively surround yourself with enlightened people. There is no difference between them being enlightened and you seeing them as such. There is nothing stopping you from pursuing entrepreneurship and enlightening others at the same time if you accept this. I'm not too familiar with life purpose course, but here is my second advice: Why does "life purpose" have to be something constant throughout your life? If it doesn't have to be constant, then what is the correct constness period? Does it have to be a year, or can it be a day? Or a minute? If you would commit 100% to what you are doing every minute of your life, you would become an outstanding person even if your LP would change every minute. It's called multitasking

I wasn't serious. Thanks for sharing.

In other words: it works only if you don't need it. Brilliant!

To maintain the cycle. The lower is the receptive one. The one that follows. It thrives in order. The "unconscious" one. The higher is the leading one. The one that creates. It thrives in chaos. The "conscious" one. The lower one needs a discipline to become the higher. The higher needs expression to become the lower. When the lower resists discipline, it stays low. When higher resists expression, it stays high. Being high is not the ultimate goal. When you stay high too long, chaos becomes the order of things and your life falls apart. Being low is not the ultimate goal. Death is the ultimate stability. Seeking of the higher self is an expression of the lower self. If you mistake the cycle (or simply change) for progress, you always seek the higher self as the other always seems better than the current. Progress in this sense is simply observing the cycle and letting it run. Once you let go and let the lower and higher do their things, the cycle speeds up and life "smooths" out.