abrakamowse

“The fact that man produces a concept “I” besides the totality of his mental and emotional experiences or perceptions does not prove that there must be any specific existence behind such a concept. We are succumbing to illusions produced by our self-created language, without reaching a better understanding of anything.” Einstein

So, if there's no self... how can there be "free will"? Whe "think" we choose, but there's no chooser. Because the fact that we think we choose doesn't change that when we choose we have no options. There's just a thought that we have options, but once we think we have decided to do something we just do it. Our thought make us appear that is "us" who choose, but there's no "us" to be found. The idea of self is an illusion, there's not a separated entity out there choosing anything.

I just wanted to quote Metzinger about this: "This experience is a naive realism. If mobile organisms were privy to all of the countless neural and other “internal and external” interactive processes that occurred with the act of walking for instance, they could never function. Immeasurably complex events had to be reduced to representational images in order to make sense to the mobile organism. These representational images would of necessity, include a unified and independent subject perceiving a world separate from and external to itself. The feeling of looking directly into the world from the vantage point of a perceiving and cognizant me or self, is a neural-representational process that is most convincing. We are not aware of this duality as an adaptive function, but view it as reality. Because we are unaware of the immeasurable neuronal activity involved in the production of an image-based reality, Metzinger refers to this opacity as a tunnel." More here: https://emptinessteachings.com/2013/04/14/the-myth-of-the-self-neurology-weighs-in/

What are your opinions about Kabbalah? I'm about to begin an online course and I was interested to know if someone knows about it. Thanks in advance!

Thanks @KabbalahAdvisors

I found the next @Leo Gura project... :-P

There was a time when I was teenager that I was like having doubts about "God" And I decided to become Atheist I decided there was no God But I wasn't sure about that because I had the idea that there should be something or some "happening" who or which made everything appear So I decided that I couldn't have a way to know that, so I heard that some people were agnostic, that meant that they think that the idea of God is beyond our understanding, so they don't take a position. They don't believe but they don't "not believe" either. They say it's beyond comprehension, so better not think about it. So I decided that I was agnostic, and I was agnostic for a long time. Alan Watts likes a lot to talk about the origin of words So he explained that long time ago there was a Persian priest called Dionysius the Areopagite. And this guy wrote that we can reach God by Agnosis The word Gnosis means Knowledge in greek (I think) So A-Gnosis is the negation of knowledge So me, by being Agnostic in fact , was denying knowledge without "me" being aware of it Lol :-P Words meaning are distorted by our reality. Agnosis or Agnostic doesn't mean what most people thinks it means.

Love you Ayla!!! Thanks! I will be posting something soon about some synchronicities that happened! :-)

Lol!!!

That's awesome @Sky this is how synchronicity works. You are confirming me something. Why? Because you are me, we are all ONE. I began to watch Rupert Spira like two or three days ago, I watched him before and I wasn't interested. But I watched him again and I began to understand things that I didn't understand before! Good to know that self-inquiry is working!!! I am happy for you. Thanks, brother!!! :-)

Right & Wrong When Bankei held his seclusion-weeks of meditation, pupils from many parts of Japan came to attend. During one of these gatherings a pupil was caught stealing. The matter was reported to Bankei with the request that the culprit be expelled. Bankei ignored the case. Later the pupil was caught in a similar act, and again Bankei disregarded the matter. This angered the other pupils, who drew up a petition asking for the dismissal of the thief, stating that otherwise they would leave in a body. When Bankei had read the petition he called everyone before him. "You are wise brothers," he told them. "You know what is right and what is not right. You may somewhere else to study if you wish, but this poor brother does not even know right from wrong. Who will teach him if I do not? I am going to keep him here even if all the rest of you leave." A torrent of tears cleansed the face of the brother who had stolen. All desire to steal had vanished.

Everything Is Best When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. "Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer. "Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best." At these words Banzan became enlightened.

I am reading it (actually listening to it, I found it as an audiobook in my local library) and I recommend it a lot, it helps to clarify a lot of things about religious beliefs and spirituality. https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religion/dp/1451636024

Yeah, he's good... and it helps a lot to have one's feet on the ground and to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I took a selfie today...

Cool @Nexeternity I am very happy for you, although there's no one to be happy!!! hehehehe... Cool! I I would like to know a bit of the story about how was your path to enlightenment.

@Emerald Wilkins Same thing happens to me. I think is just moments when those states arise and we get caught by them. Yesterday something like this was happening to me, I was very susceptible, I got angry and I realized it was just stupid because there's nothing to get angry or no reason to feel that way, but anyway it was there. And my mind began to ask to "my non existent self", why is this happening to you if you saw that nothing is there? The mind is trying always to "understand" or make sense of those states that arise, but in reality there's nothing to understand. I know you know that, but maybe to know that others are experiencing the same thing make you feel better. What happens to me is that I see those feelings, or I notice them, but I'm not affected by them. I feel an space between the feelings and awareness, like they are not mine. But anyway there's like a kind of clinging to them, very subtle but I notice it. Anyway my mind is also, like trying to make me doubt, like... why are you perceiving this if you are supposed to know that there's no one there? I think I have to understand that the feelings, thoughts, are going to continue arising and I have to get more and more detached from them. Right now I am working on that, I am still like looking in the dark, I don't know what's next but I know something will appear in the right moment and in the right time to make more parts of the illusion fall away. Hope this helps, :-)

I found this koan on reddit, I thought it would be nice to share it, here it goes: Koan of the Month: Tôzan Unwell Introduction: The lower do not discuss the higher; the humble do not move the dignified. Even if one rules over oneself and follows the others, One should not burden the heavy by the light. When the four elements are not in order, how would one attend and serve? Case: Tôzan was unwell. A monk asked, “Your Reverence is unwell. Is there anyone who does not become ill?” Tôzan said, “There is.” The monk said, “Does the one who does not get ill take care of Your Reverence?” Tôzan said, “‘The old monk’ is properly taking care of the other one.” The monk said, “How about when ‘your Reverence’ takes care of the other one?” Tôzan said, “[The old monk] does not see that there is illness.” Verse: Casting off the stinky skin bag(1), rolling over the bulk of red flesh; Right here the nostrils are straight, right now the skull is dried up. The old doctor(2) doesn’t see the previous traits [of illness]; The young one(3) can hardly encounter and approach him. When the water in the field becomes meager, the autumn lake recedes; Where the white clouds are no more, the old mountains are cold. It must come to a complete annihilation – don’t cheat! Fully exhausting non-accomplishments, he attains his state; Lofty and solitary, he does not share the same scales as you. 1 the physical self 2 the essential self 3 the phenomenal self

We are not real also @Christian if you think about it. Having a physically appearance doesn't mean we exists. The idea of identity, of being something is a thought too. IMO thought is what gives us the possibility to interpret the world in certain way, then when we grow up we have to realize that the idea of "me" is like the idea of "santa" in some way. There's no "me". Mooji talks about that, I think it's interesting.

I agree with @Naviy one will tell you "kill the ego" , others will tell you "love the ego"... and both are true and false depending of the perspective you are talking from. You have to follow your intuition, meditate and only trust in your experience, not in others. Others can give you just "pointers". That's why is called "the pathless path".

I agree with @Swede the best solution is meditate. That will give you what you are looking for effortless.

No in that text that I found, I really know about Fromm but I am not an expert. If I find something I let you know. But what I understand is that the natural tendency is to preserve life, that's why we have the preservation-instinct, for us as individuals but also for us as human race as a whole. Someone who goes against that instinct is a "perversion" (using Fromm's words) and it happens when the individual cannot "see" the natural state of things, that is "reality". In reality everything is perfect, our distorted view because of the thought process we can't see reality the way it is, so we see us as separated selves, that we are in "danger" because someone is going to "attack" us, or "steal" from us or whatever our distorted view of reality wants to see.

@Orange did you read the part that I marked in bold in what I posted? What do you think about it? I will post it again here: the pleasure in destruction is a "Secondary potentiality," a perversion which occurs necessarily when the primary, life-favoring potentialities fail to develop. That's the important point for Fromm not the one that you choose to remark, think about why are you doing that. That doesn't show that peace is unattainable, on the contrary. It gives us hope that those perversions can be transcended by our true nature.

Peace will never be attainable if we act through our person-hood or false idea of self. There will be always victims and wolves in the world as long as the world continue believing in a false idea of a self who tell them you are "this" or "that". We are really nothing of that. We are consciousness. So, there's hope. It will take time to reach at that point, but it will be done.