Zeldor

@Ramu I’m not really doing this to get enlightenment, I’m just doing it because honestly I just kind of love doing it. At the time I chose to write the original post, I did it because I had a lot of “dopamine” release in my “brain” in anticipation of a spiritual experience, which I pretty quickly realized wouldn’t come true, but then I did it just because I felt like I should. None of the above is necessarily true and it was actually pretty hard to pin down why I did what I did, but it is my best guess. I will say that my first spiritual experience occurred after thinking about non-duality a lot and doing some kriya yoga, so I'm not actually convinced that philosophy is useless for enlightenment. Even the idea that “philosophy is useless for enlightenment” is itself partially a philosophical idea that would destroy philosophy and then counter-intuitively destroy itself because it proved the very thing it was trying to disprove (if destroying philosophy did get you closer to enlightenment, which would also again paradoxically prove itself but at that point it would not even be a thing that could be proven or disproven). I think this is what Vedanta is trying to do. @Keryo Koffa Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you essentially asking me to consider why the conventional world view that non-spiritual have couldn’t be true? I think it would depend on your perspective, but I imagine that god is lazy and doesn’t want to do much work lol, and my version at least seems to require less work than yours, although that is just what I imagine. I don’t really have a reason to think that. @r0ckyreed I understand why you would think that but that isn’t exactly what I meant. If I say that I walked for 1 day, which of the following perspectives is more true: 1. That while I was walking the Earth revolved around it’s axis once. or, 2. That i walked for 1 day. Is time or change more fundamental, to me it does not seem like you need both.

Just wondering if this makes sense, possibly already well understood, but this is the first time (intellectually) that this makes some sense to me at least given these assumptions: 1. That time is an illusion and change/entropy is fundamental. 2. That “Reality” is a duality between Emptiness (Completely infinite) and Form (what Emptiness is currently presenting itself as). 3. This technically creates a triplicate between Form, Emptiness, and Change. Right now, at this moment of “time”, Form is currently “me” and my perceptual field, and literally nothing else exists at all (except Emptiness which does not exist, at least in the conventional sense). However, while/if you are a person-appearing form reading this, then Form is currently “your experience ” and not mine. Form is the only thing that exists in a conventional sense, and there is only 1 Form: your Form is the same as my Form. In order for form to go from my experience to yours, the form that is currently mine changes into Emptiness and a part of Emptiness that is actually you changes into Form. We are generally not aware of this while we are Form, unless the ego that the Form is currently appearing as experiences themselves changing into Emptiness. This is technically not true enlightenment tho, until Form itself changes into emptiness, or realizes that it was never anything else other than emptiness in the first place. This does not happen in “time”, but rather Form appears as the mental construct time, and probably also space. Theoretically, Form taking on the appearance of me, the writer, is the only version of Form that has ever or ever will exist, but then the same could about the memories I have about my past self, or the future self I theoretically will be: i.e. those selves are just as real as other selves. This could be Forrest Landry’s metaphysics, but I'm not sure. Theoretically you could probably also only have 1 unit of form, like an electron, appear at a time, that contains within it a map of the entire universe which itself contains a map of the entire and universe and so on, and is ultimately the entire universe (like a strange loop).

@OBEler Lol, it makes me feel childish to do stuff like that, but I guess it makes sense.

@Someone here The idea that there is a “you” that could “lie on a bed” is a dream. There is no reality except in this dream that we call reality. Your reality is made up of a bunch of pixels that you then group together into objects and then group into mental constructs that exist through time, which is itself just another pixel that says other pixels are changing. There is no change because there is no 2 different moments of time that an object can exist differently in. There is no past or future, there is only “now”. Although I think even to say “now” is incorrect as that is still operating within the framework of time. I don’t know if this makes sense but this is my best guess.

@Leo Gura is true understanding creation?

@martins name Lol, cool.

@martins name Well, from a Nihilist perspective enlightenment isn’t the only meaningful thing, because nothing is meaningful. Also, nothing is bad according to moral nihilism. You can also say that everything is leading to enlightenment whether you know it or not, or that every experience is an enlightenment experience, both of which make it so that it is the only meaningful thing from a relative level, because there is nothing really distinct from it. I’m not that enlightened either, although I had a cessation like 3 months ago, so I think my insight is a lot higher right now than it would usually be.

@martins name I see, I do think there is a lot to gain though from making sure your language matches what you find to be true: so when you say something like it’s bad to think that enlightenment is the only meaningful thing in life, this isn’t truthful to nihilism, but maybe I’m just misreading you as I basically agree with your response.

@martins name I don’t really understand why people get so attached to meaning: where does meaning come from? If you look up a word in a dictionary you get more words. Even if someone points to a dog and tells you the word “dog”, that process involves drawing a distinction between the dog and it’s surroundings and a whole lot of other meanings your brain/mind presupposes. Meaning comes from meaning which comes from meaning ad infinitum: it is a strange loop, and just like the strange loop of “I”, it is ultimately an illusion. Here’s another way to look at it: why must the ground of everything be nothing? Because if the ground was something that something would have to be something and not anything else. Nothingness (real nothingness, not just a concept), isn’t anything and thus can be anything. Similarly, it is only through meaningless that there can be infinite meaning. So is there meaning? Yes and no and you are God so you decide; personally I find Nihilism liberating and a source of great happiness.

https://youtu.be/A0UTQ2SdZJg

@JosephKnecht Nobody needs anything really, after all: you could just die(;

@tatsumaru If everything is fine then it is fine to not think that everything is fine. I don’t think there is really any “should” in spirituality. There is no reason you should or should not be an entrepreneur. If you are going to be an entrepreneur that is fine, same if you are not going to be one. Do what you want, and if you don’t know what you want just make your best guess. Of course, not doing what you want is completely fine too, so no worries if you think you make bad guesses right now. From a truly spiritual perspective, IMO - even spirituality isn’t something you should do or something that is good to do(;

@Leo Gura Haha, thanks!

@Leo Gura Would it also be fair to say that the highest truth is happiness, as at a relatively high level the two become indistinguishable? Does truth ever not lead to greater long-term happiness?

@Hulia True, unfortunately.