tsuki

Trying to define thought is like trying to bread the butter.

@arlin "I" is a concept that was invented long after the birth of the body. All concepts either refer to actual experience, or are made up and don't. The concept "teapot" points towards something. "I" concept points towards something. What that "thing" is, was before the "I" concept was invented. It was before the body was born. What is the thing that the "I"-concept points towards?

The point is not that "I" was never really there. The point is to understand what is the experience that the I-concept really points towards. It indeed does point towards something that is prior to the body, or even prior to the I-concept itself. It does not matter what is the "answer" in terms of "talking about the experience", or "listing its characteristics". Descriptions won't do it justice.

Also, you seem to be aware of what transcendence is in relation to reason, but your argument is blind to this understanding in with respect to relativity. Transcendence means more-than-just, not instead-of.

This line of thinking is spiritual bypassing. Enlightenment is not contrary to taking action in life. It is merely (and ultimately) about seeing what's true. It is founded upon ordinary life and returns to ordinary experience. There are things in your person that are false, fabricated and unnecessary and they usually fall off during awakenings, but there are also the things that are true. It is true that empathy or moral conduct are relative to being human, but you will never survive as anything else. The Absolute needs no survival and you are no more absolute than you are relative. Ramana did eat, shit and teach.

The inner child needs no advice, but rather loving attention that is acknowledging its needs.

Isolation day 5.

Quite. I picked the question because materialism has a very clear answer (the eyes do the seeing). Whereas in subjective idealism it doesn't: eyes are simply phenomena within consciousness and seemingly have no use, since they are not the primary means of experience (consciousness itself is). So how can a subset of experience (eyes/eyelids), be affecting a super-set of experience (seeing)? Bringing in "form" is akin to bringing in objects from materialism - so I find it unsatisfactory as an answer. After all "form" is still within consciousness (a subset) and hence not primary. Anyway. I have no clear answer. But I thought it was a fun question nonetheless. Maybe it is just God's way of tricking itself? @Gesundheit @LastThursday Are we discussing philosophy (idealism vs materialism), or reality? Because it is not that formlessness is more primary than form (as per idealism), or that form is more primary than formlessness. Formlessness is form and form is formlessness. The fact that there is a conscious individual with the finite mind does not exclude the existence of God that imagines all form along with the person. The person is not conscious of the way in which various dimensions of his experience of a single object are coherent. He is also not conscious of the way in which the experience of a the same object it is coherent for other people so that consensus can be established. But this coherence is form. It is neither materialist, nor idealist. It is idealist only in the sense that reality is mind, but it is not the individual mind! As for the question of the purpose of form, why is it so puzzling that eyes can give rise to sight? The body is a contraction of consciousness, so are eyes, and so is sight. Sight is telescopic, based on distinctions. Is it so weird that if you were to lose your eyes, or your body, you would actually see more, beyond the possibility of recognition? Because what is the loss of sight? It is definitely not seeing black. But what is the experience of true colorlessness, other than everything, infinity? To experience form, is to experience coherence and locality. To have form means to be finite. Yet, formlessness is infinite in its possibility of differentiation, that there is really no end to it. No complete philosophy can be made out of it, as philosophy is finite.

Nothing, the source, is=isn't there . It seems like you are using "distinction" and "concept" interchangeably, which I disagree with. Concept is a distinction in the domain of possibility, or ideas. Distinction is more fundamental than concept as it can occur in various dimensions of experience. You can distinguish the vocals from bass, or TV from the wall, or one concept from another. That being said, I don't understand the question that you are asking. "thing" exists as an abstract concept within the domain of possibility, or ideas. It is a concept that refers to other concepts. What I was referring to by "thinginess" is the distinction in the visual field, "the thing itself" that the concept "stool" refers to. Not sure if this discussion is still productive at this point though. Language is a higher-order construct based upon distinctions. Your statement does not compute for me. There are things that I experienced that are impossible to express linguistically. There are also things that cannot be perceived, and yet - can be experienced. The closest to the state in which I am unable to make a distinction because I have no word for it, is "intellectualism" and I consider it to be a disease.

Of course it is possible to see the stool without having a concept of it! If it weren't possible, then how on Earth would you see the first stool in your life? Did someone have to describe the stool to you before you were able to see it? That's ridiculous! Every time you learn something truly new that does not follow from anything you already know, you have to go through the state of not-knowing. This state lets you make distinctions before having the corresponding concepts. Concepts symbolize, or refer to, experience. They are dependent on it. Hell, when you were a baby you were experiencing long before you invented the mind and had the ability to conceptualize anything (not to mention label it). Of course, when you see something that defies your logic, or expectations, it's not like you're looking at a "stool", but it's more like looking at "what the fuck is that fucking thing?". Yet, that thing is there, "prior to labeling it". Distinction is present in the "thingness" of "what the fuck is that fucking >>thing<<?". Concepts inform experience only as far as they create a possibility. You may hear of something without having an experience of it and create a concept out of it. It exists as a possibility, as something open to being experienced and verified for oneself. That, or the opposite - believed in and frozen as something considered true or false. Looking for something that corresponds to a concept within experience is the inverse "movement" from having a genuine breakthrough, but is still very useful. It is the conventional learning as opposed to inventing/innovating. Still waay different from memorization of facts/believing. True learning is the difference from memorizing math exercises to pass a test and actually "getting" mathematics and "working it". Of course the doctor has a completely different experience than a layman. Even if I memorized all the concepts he has, his knowledge is "fleshed out", actually refers to distinctions that he has personally made and has available experientially. Hell, his experience of his own body may be diametrically different because of all the possibilities of interaction that he has. He is much more responsive, alive. Still, the best athletes and actual masters experience the state of flow where thinking does not occur. It is not the language that gives masters the intelligence in the particular domain. It's experience.

I find the term ego backlash very unhelpful. As if you could ever get past survival, beyond having your needs met. There are times when it's quiet and there are times when it's not. I was never in control to begin with, so why focus on the urge to control the amount of control that I want?

What has been done can't be taken back, or erased. It can only be seen clearly for what it was. Therein lies freedom. Repression is dangerous because the unconscious that demands recognition has the power to possess us for its purposes. That is how abusers are oftentimes born. If it seems like I'm justifying them, it's the opposite. Please be responsible with your psyche. ?

Hey, I was wondering how is your healing coming along. The dream does indeed sound mesmerizing. Deep water/ocean is the favorite symbol of the unconscious, the giver and taker of all life. Not sure how it works in women though because your unconscious is masculine, Animus.

Sorry, that was Jordan Peterson speaking. Jung is still awesome though.

I'm spending my covid isolation time reading Jung's Archetypes of the collective unconscious. Damn. This guy is such a genius. He's smart enough to answer questions that don't even occur for me as something to ask. He's not just snappy-smart, like bright kind of thing. He also did his research and has vast bibliography. Having an encounter with such a person really puts you in your place. Damn. I don't foresee ever getting anywhere close to this guy in my lifetime.

@Barbara The instrumental way in which you speak about your feelings and your subconscious is symptomatic of your distrust towards yourself. That is why you are lost within relativity. The fact that your feelings are relative to you does not mean that they are arbitrary, or irrelevant. Nor does this mean that you should try to fabricate them. This only leads to being progressively more lost. Feelings are always about you. They are telling you how aligned you are with your true self. Thoughts are secondary to feelings, not the other way around. Their true purpose is to "unpack" the feeling, make it more tangible, a coherent story that helps you to understand yourself, your surroundings, and act with loving intent towards yourself. Thanks to language, you can also express your feelings clearly so that others can understand and respect you. To respect you, means to treat you in alignment with your true self. Respect feels good. Transforming feelings into thoughts takes honesty, while expressing feelings via language takes courage. This is the basis for any genuine relationship. Both partners need to be able to be honest and courageous while respecting each other. There are, however, things that are conventionally called feelings, but upon closer inspection reveal to be something else. This has to do with traumatic experiences, shadows, and unhelpful conditioning from society and our parents. Sometimes we're conditioned to avoid feeling or expressing certain feelings so we developed smoke screens that prevent us from noticing them. For example, hate is a smoke screen that prevented me from feeling anger. Smoke screens have the effect of lowering our awareness and taking hold of us. Their defining characteristic is that the orientation is about something external to you, ie. "about them!", "that nasty boyfriend that always leaves dishes on the coffee table!" etc. Depression and anxiety are other examples. Smoke screens appear in response to your will, or rather, unwillingness to feel certain feelings. This will may have various levels of depth - it may be superficial, as in social settings with your friends, when you inhibit your bad mood, or deep, coming from emotional/physical abuse and stored as trauma in your nervous system. Smoke screens, however, are always sure signs of shadows, which are autonomous aspects of your psyche that unconsciously try to satisfy needs that you reject. Shadows are not evil, they mean no harm - they are simply unskilled in having your repressed needs met. They are the parts of you that you do not accept and throw under the rug (hence the arrival of smoke screens). Apart from the conscious and the subconscious (subconscious is made of the repressed stuff), there is also the unconscious. The unconscious are the depths of you that you normally have no access to, but is arguably the most amazing stuff, the portal to God, or what I called "true self" in the beginning of this response. The guardian of the unconscious is what is usually called "the inner child" and having relationship with it gives you occasional glimpses, or full experiences of truth. The point of this relationship, however, is to give the inner child the ability to guide you in your everyday life. To align your mind with your heart and make the mind a follower, which is its true place. This is the only way to experience the truth, regardless of whether it is about you, or about externals. Integrity comes about when you stop repressing the parts of you that do not fit into the image of your ideal self that you hold in your mind. Instead, you have to re-calibrate that image to encompass all of what constitutes your experience in an accepting manner. All of you have a purpose and nothing is worth discarding. All of it has to be understood though and seen for what it really is. Emotional maturity, freedom and individuation is what you get out of this process. That is, being truly adult, while being a child, as opposed to being adult contrary to being a child. The latter is false adulthood, oftentimes seen in males as posturing.

Oh yes, it's definitely a thing and you're curing it very well - by putting food on your table. Likes and dislikes are not opinions. Opinions are arbitrary and serve to stitch holes in our understanding of the world. Aversion and attraction, however, are feelings. Feelings are the only reliable compass we have because they are direct. We are always feeling ourselves. Align your life with how you feel about yourself and you will find absurd amounts of integrity. Good luck <3

Love and mastery. When you awaken to love, then you know that desire is not selfish.

By something being physical, I mean, having form. I defined form as the coherence between various dimensions of experience. I said: "manifest from", not "manifest form". It "comes out" of nothingness. I can't find the right word for what is happening. The table is there only in your experience which gives it its "physicality", or form. The table does not exist before the distinction is made.

It's even weirder than that. Let's say that you are making the distinction in your visual field and label it as a table. This distinction is not arbitrary, you are not having a groundless fantasy, the table is there. It is true. And yet - prior to making that leap, prior to having the experience of a table, the table did not exist. Physically. By making that leap, the table became manifest from, or through, or within nothingness. Nothingness is more fundamental than form. What I was referring to as "form" was, perhaps, the coherence of the experience of the table. As in: the table is a table, regardless of whether you are seeing it or feeling it with your hands. The shape as you touch it is not distinct from its visual appearance. Have you ever wondered why is that? Why don't you pluck your eyes out and "see"? ATM I'm going through covid and lost my sense of smell which is an interesting experience. I do have my nose but air is without quality. The movement of air I'd say comes via the sense of touch, but food is "flat". I can imagine and remember how chicken smells, but I can't actually feel one in front of me. When I'm using the phrase "prior to labeling", I mean without thinking with words, the actual thing. Distinctions are more fundamental than language. I'm perfectly capable of seeing the difference between the stool and the floor without chatting to myself. When it comes to sight itself, it's more tricky, because in order to understand that you are seeing from a particular place (eyes), you need to see in the first place. Yet, that "seeing from a particular place" is a distinction. We make distinctions in various dimensions of consciousness (sight, sound, taste, etc). It's helpful to learn the aggregates as they are described in Buddhism. The order in which they are described is important, but I'm having difficulty expressing why. IME they are progressively closer to nothingness/source. Experience is what really is. It is the truth. You have access to it when you stop fabricating reality with expectations, beliefs and fantasies and look what's really there. It is apparent when you stop thinking about it and actually do it, or be there. I highly suggest reading Peter Ralston's Book of not knowing and experiencing for yourself what is being communicated there.

@Preety_India Awesome! Do you have a friend that will hold your back no matter what? That will not tell you to understand that parasite, to look through his eyes, etc? That person is where you go when you really want to let your anger out. You don't contact that freak to tell him how much of a lowlife he is. You go to your friend and ask to vent. It is a good idea to ask that friend to help you break contact, be your hotline. You go there and smear shit all over his face and enjoy it. Get everything off your chest. If there is no such person in your life, a journal is the second best. That, or a therapist. This is very important. Recognize that you've been hurt and experience it to heal.

@Preety_India Okay, you did what you thought was right, but I need you to promise that you will cut contact with him. Don't respond to his messages and don't post your own. He will not reflect upon his actions and will give you no closure. He will not admit to what he did because he knows that you want him to and this gives him the sense of power over you. Ghost the shit out of him. I know how difficult it is when hate is knocking on your door. The only purpose of hate is to distract you from your feelings of being hurt. The sooner you see this, the sooner you will be able to make progress. That man is not needed for you to heal the wounds that he inflicted. I repeat, he DOES NOT hold the keys to your healing. He is a parasite and needs to be treated as such. Clean cut, and off to the fire.

@Preety_India I'd suggest focusing on getting the anger out of your system before trying to forgive that son of a bitch. When thoughts about wanting to murder that fucker come, change the orientation and focus on yourself, on acknowledging that you've been hurt. Don't judge yourself for wanting to rip his balls off. He deserves it. Focus on you and on your strength that he's been preying on. In case you are ashamed of crying, let me tell you this: the amount of work I've done to get my ability to cry back is just absurd. Crying releases pain and gives you strength to take another step. It is a literal blessing. If I were to choose to keep crying or laughter, I would pick the former. Oh, and DON'T contact him, even to tell him how much of a parasite he is. This is what he wants, validation.

@lmfao Hey man, I'm very sorry that you went through this alone and that you are still experiencing the the consequences. I think that it is admirable that you are fighting for your well-being and are willing to confront the pain head-on. I am also very glad to read that you are clear about the fact that you have not done anything to deserve such treatment. It was bullying and these people deserve to be despised. It is apparent to me that you did heal from these incidents to some degree, but there is still work to do to free yourself from it. Having been through a similar process relating to anger, I will tell you that freedom is possible and that life will be better if you chip away at it. As already been said, expressing the anger is very helpful. Bullies have the purpose of making you angry and punishing you for feeling this way. It is natural for victims of bullying to shut anger away, or transform it into hate. Looking deeply into the nature of anger and why it's an absolutely crucial emotion for happiness will be helpful. It is not possible to truly love yourself and know your worth if you are disconnected from anger. The difference between anger and hate is that anger is about you being hurt and wanting to protect yourself, while hate is about the other person. Anger is how you communicate to yourself what is not okay to do with you. It is similar to fear in this regard, but fear makes you retreat, while anger is active and presses you to take action. Expressing anger has many forms, but you can research physical exercises that are designed for this purpose. TRE method, or things invented by Lowen come to mind. What is also important is to not take the bullies' lack of apology as a sign of something being wrong with you. You are capable of having closure without his permission. Closure in this situation comes from understanding. From understanding the circumstances that led you to keep playing on these servers despite being repeatedly hurt (IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! YOU WERE A CHILD!) and understanding why people bully. Psychotherapy may be helpful. When it comes to bullies themselves, they are deeply disturbed (even more so than their victims become). All they know is hate. This makes connection impossible. That is why he genuinely can't tell the difference between jokes and cruelty. He can't joke because he has nobody to joke with. He is not targeting you, specifically. A lot of people in his life are like you and he is creating bullies left and right by intimidation and making example of someone they pick. The other players at that server were most likely motivated by fear of the admin, not with hate of their own. It's horrible and nobody deserves this kind of treatment. He didn't even consciously choose you as a victim. It just happened for him. That is why he can't properly hear your heartfelt message. It was never about you for them. I wish you the most happiness you can get because you are worth it and you are a better person now than he will ever become.

When people pressure governments to change, they usually have experienced the insight personally. Take women's rights for example.