FoxFoxFox

No i understood you. I'm saying this notion is incorrect. It is not that life is purposeless. It is just that you are not privy to it in your current outlook. Crudely put into words, God's purpose is evolution, expansion, creation, and integration. God's purpose is to know itself. To say that the purpose of dancing is dancing itself, is a meaningless statement. The purpose of the dance is for God to express its creative power and to experience it personally. However, like i said, this is a very crude way of explaining it. It is not entirely correct. You say you don't feel it to be this way, because it is not! Ultimately, go where you want to. That is what God wants.

@winterknight This is wisdom. So self-referential thoughts, correct? Would you agree that the issue is actually whether one allows the self-referential thoughts to limit one's true nature? Because then there is freedom for the thoughts to flow freely and be useful without causing ignorance.

@Neorez Firstly, it is not purposeless, though I understand from your current perspective it absolutely looks that way. To see that life is not purposeless for yourself, you must operate at other dimensions of consciousness. The mind will not be able to tell you what the purpose of life is, because that is not its purpose. It is simply the wrong tool for the job. As for how to decide what you should do. You are ultimately 100% in control of your destiny. The universe is at your beck and call. Once enough clarity has been attained, you will see how the universe responds immediately as to satisfy your intentions. In other words, you have total freedom of choice. Ultimately, you have to decide what to do with this power. Of course, since your being is possibly fragmented at the moment, you will not be able to realize your power. There are numerous spiritual practices that ultimate grant you that perspective shift. Pick one that resonates with you and stick with it. Be sincere about it. Be honest about what you want. Have integrity and a sense of responsibility. Have faith that your nature is divine. Reduce resistance. Love more. Surrender. All these will increase your vibrations and you suddenly begin to operate at other dimensions of your own being.

@Preetom Very true. And nihilism is one way you can fuck up your experience, as you say. Got to say that bliss is highly addictive. You don' want to go back from it.

@Neorez Huh. I'll look into it, thanks. Btw regarding nihilism. Nihilism is when you make detachment into a philosophy as far as I see it. It serves no purpose and depresses you needlessly. The actual experience of the Self is peace and then bliss. You can think of it this way: God has literally designed your body to be naturally be able to uphold a tremendous amount of endless happiness. Then why believe that the world is depressing? As someone who has experienced depression himself by believing in nihilism, i can only recommend you to do more self-inquiry and work that reveals your God nature. Once you get a taste of bliss, there is no way you could even begin to believe in nihilism.

@Neorez There's another mystic called McKenna? Is he related to Terrence?

@Nahm I might just be ignorant about the topic, but I don't think Adolf Hitler actually killed anyone by his own hands (he might have during the war when he served in the Austrian military, and ofc there are the allegations that he forced his wife into suicide). Anyhow, There is no doubt that his ideology brought about the death and suffering of millions of people, and that is the issue. Like Winterknight said in another thread. The problem is in the psyche. So no. I wouldn't kill Adolf Hitler. I would try to help him get over his demons, if I could. So the answer to all of those questions is no. I wouldn't kill him even if i had the chance during the height of his power and destruction. I don't think death is a suitable penalty even for a murderer who kills personally.

@Lazy Self To surrender is to realize you have never been separate from reality (or God or consciousness) in the first place. Reality is nothing but the totality of your direct experience, no matter what that experience actually is. Reality exists prior to your thoughts and ideas about it. Some would illustrate the notion by saying that surrender is when the world ceases to exist. Of course there is a trap here because you might think this means that the sense perceptions must go. This is not the case. The perceptions don't go anywhere. Instead the experience is a literal understanding that whatever thought you might have about reality is not reality itself. That is not to say thoughts themselves are anything but reality. Look at the attached image (the circles). Here, thought (which themselves are a phenomena within reality) attempt to capture God or consciousness within a framework (which we call the logical frame work). Ignorance, is then mistaking the totality of your nature with the thought. That is to say, allowing the thoughts to limit you. The most common way we limit ourselves is by believe that we end at the boundaries of the body. This is a thought (the start of the Ego). In English, its form is "I am". The "I am" thought is what used to limit reality. For example "I am a body" limits the totality of your experience with that of sense-perceptions of the human vessel. Now all this is just to answer your question. To surrender you do not actually need to believe all this. Surrender is already your nature. You need to investigate this yourself in your direct experience. To do that you have to challenge your assumptions and see if they are really true. These assumptions are the obstacles.

Literally ask yourself, "am I limited to the body?" Yes or no? The answer is obvious.

Ah yes. Then you are correct. There should be noo separation whatsoever. The best word for it is surrender really. Complete surrender. I gotta say, even after one surrenders, there is still so much more than can happen. Of course there is no longer a 'you' which these 'things' happen to. But still there is potential for infinite expansion and heightening of perception.

@Serotoninluv I got to say, Koans are dangerous to attempt without a master watching over you. You really need those slaps in the face otherwise your intellect might jut never give up. Before I learned how to surrender (paradoxical statement, i know) i wasted so much trying to imagine "What my face looked like before i was born". It ended up with me identifying with a hazy, imperceptible being - which really is just the mind trying to objectify God. But yeah all it takes to awaken is to allow the Koan to silence the mind. At that moment one is pure awareness. Took long enough to realize though.

That is interesting. Needs longer and more consistent abidance as the Self on my part to fully realize. Scratch that. Thinking is not apart from God. There is great potential for misunderstanding here. I doubt if Ramana meant there were no thoughts. What you say only makes sense if one presupposes that ego, mind, thought etc. are separate from God which cannot be the case. Then the issue is whether the thoughts obstruct the truth, which they can't. I reject the notion that thoughts -even self-referential ones- are antithetical to self-realization , but i don't think that's what you are implying.

@mandyjw @DrewNows Amen.

@Serotoninluv Pure detachment is what I call integration in the post Although, the way you described it makes it sound like a mediation practice. The idea is that there should not be an observer and an observed phenomena and that can only happen if the two merge. That's why i called it integration. I know you understand this. Just clarifying for the sake of others.

@CreamCat Yes. Both God and Ego are concepts. Just be!

@luckieluuke There are no illusions.

@winterknight And thus would ultimately be of no use to a society that operates on an egoic level. We cannot realistically expect an entire society of millions to be enlightened overnight. Not being able to do it themselves, the other thing to do would be emulation. It is then the responsibility of the enlightened one to provide as crystal clear of a guideline of emulation as possible (if he cares to do so, of course). This is of course nothing new. Religions are nothing but an attempt at this.

@winterknight Yes, I agree that the core of the problem is in the psyche. But can you give an example of how the unbroken experience of silence might help? Societal life requires accepting the hypothesis of the ego. How then, would this ego be better if it is purposefully adopted by an enlightened being? Can we expect such a person to be able to portray a constantly present sense of strong forgiveness? Also, how best to bring enlightenment to a large group of people?

I know the question is very open ended. I'm not asking how you would change the specifics of your country's legal code. I'm asking how to improve people's sense of justice. How to improve forgiveness. How to reduce the tendency to hold grudges. How to change society from a rigid organization aimed at tyrannical efficiency, to an adaptable one that is based on improving people's lives and alleviating their actual grievances, rather than exacting impersonal revenge. Here's an example. One could reduce the number of superfluous laws by mandating a review for every law after every 5 years. If laws are not passed after this period, they would be automatically rejected. Another example, and this is hardly an novel idea. You can alter prisons in such a way, that when a person is released after having server their term, their overall livelihood would be improved. For example by teaching them practical skills, and turning their prison terms into paid but mandatory jobs.

@now is forever What is the detail of this legal solution. What are the changes themselves that you would like to make.

@winterknight I know you are a lawyer. The context of the story is not that important. I just want to hear your ideals of how a more just society would look like. What actionable steps can be taken to get there. What core societal values should be altered to produce such a change. That sort of thing.

@winterknight We are not talking about US. The legal system here is nothing like the US, which is at least decently robust afaik.

@tsuki Hmm well i believe if you want something to change, you should do something about it right away. You perfectly described the current model of justice and that model is exactly the issue. So what do you suggest a better model would be? Use your imagination.

@tenta Well no i do believe there can be change. Even now there are many countries where they have entirely different approaches to this stuff. Just look at Scandinavian countries. I want to know what sort of social doctrine results in that.

Please share your understanding of fear. It can be anything. Any discipline, any thought etc. I just want to hear perspectives. Thanks.