JayG84

Right. Most of the time I think things are much harder than they turn out to be. But I wouldn't call it effortless. More like, I think it's impossible, but then it's doable, if you take it slow and do the right steps. I just don't know why our "muscles" won't listen to what Consciousness has already given us. Mozart could've heard beautiful music in his head from birth, but he still had to frustratingly learn piano technique just like the rest of us.

Maybe you need to step back and do some self-inquiry about all this "materialist" stuff. Instead of meditating with the mindset of "materialism vs infinite fractals". Contemplate why your ego is fighting against what you have seen. What do these things mean to your ego (the story your ego is trying to defend) Witness it, notice it, don't engage with it, just watch it, realize it don't have any power over your true nature, and it'll eveventually surrender.

Agreed

@Nahm Did you stop playing music?

I settled on a career path when I was 20 years old and followed through with it. 5 Years of schooling, 13 years in total, doing something that I thought was a good field to go into for the money, security, and respect from my family. I have Job security for life if I want it. But this is not my passion. I've spent the last 5 years going through my "spiritual journey" and taking a lot of time off work to do so. My friends and family think I'm crazy for taking months off at a time to try to find my life purpose and working on myself. They don't understand, but I've come to terms with that. I've spent a lot of time and money on this spiritual journey, but I don't feel like I'm any further ahead. In some ways yes, like self-inquiry and meditation have helped me calm my mind. But a lot of my limiting beliefs are still keeping me in this "in between" state of - I don't want to go back to my established career - but I don't believe that I can succeed at my passion. My Passion and Purpose is Music. That's literally the only thing I ever want to do with my life. I spend every day thinking about it, learning it, listening to it, making it. But, some of my most toxic limiting beliefs are: - I don't have enough talent/there are much better musicians than me. - I'm too old now to start a music career, No one would take me seriously. - The industry is too saturated and corrupted, there's no way anyone would give me a chance. - My friends and family wouldn't like the kind of music I want to make, and I'd be to embarrassed to share it with them, or for them to know it even exists. So I would have to live a lie. Conciously, I know these beliefs are false. The ego that's creating these beliefs isn't real, and that I'll never be able to live my purpose if I let these beliefs control me. But they don't even feel like thoughts or beliefs. They stem from a deep seeded inferiority complex that I can't seem to shake no matter how mush self-improvement I do. It limits my whole world to be so small. I feel like I'm doomed to be living in this "push-pull" state my whole life. I want to follow my purpose and passion but there's always this leach tht keeps me tethered to the life I don't want to live anymore. I don't want to "give up" and just go back to my 9 to 5 routine, doing the same thing every day, not being satisfied. But I'm also unable to believe I can be anything else. It's a horrible feeling. Like a prison of the mind. Are there any ways I can overcome these deep seeded beliefs that I haven't tried yet? Are there any people here who feel the same way?

Beautiful. Music really is a celebration isn't it. Took me a long time to let the pursuit of perfection go. The book Zen Guitar really helped with that.

Interesting. So in a way this is trying to surrender the ego too. Like I'm trying to get rid of the belief that I don't know how to play this song. Just like a self-inquiry session, you sit and contemplate if this is true or not. And after some time you realize, you can play it. So muscle memory is just convincing the ego that you can do it. I like this perspective. Thanks.

Exactly, Do you? I love thinking about how humans interface with Infinite Intelligence. We pull things from Consciousness all the time right? The only way I have found to increase your intelligence is to open your mind, and do the work. Opening your mind is like increasing the the strength of your wifi antenna (tapping into Infinite Intelligence) , and doing the work is downloading the data (Being one with it) There seems to the be a Mainline to experience Consciousness, like Psychedelics, or simply Being. But there seems to be a "downloading process" to Intelligence or Knowing. It takes repetitive experiences for it to be Understood. Similar to any skill, repetition breeds deeper Understanding.

Right. I get that. But on a metaphysical level, Consciousness already knows how to play the guitar, in infinite ways. Why can I have a creative idea for a song, but it's so hard to execute in physical form. It's almost like this is our "bandwidth" between the infinite realm and the physical realm. The "download progress bar" is the act of practicing.

Intelligence isn't YOURS. But in material reality, It takes a lot of DOING to master something. Tapping into Infinite Intelligence can make you more creative and ideas can flow. But skills have to be carved out. Why don't skills form like ideas. You would think that becoming aware of something once would "download it" to your being. And knowing would be effortless.

Can you help someone's emotional problems by the act of Loving them? As is the Unconditional Acceptance type of Love that is God's Love? Sort of in the "Manifest your own Illusory Reality" kind of way. Or Law of Attraction. For example, if someone close to me (friends, family) is struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction issues. Is the reason there is even someone in my life struggling with these things because I (my illusory self) is afraid of someone close to me going though it? Does that thought in me manifest these issues in other people who are appearing in my reality? And if I practice complete surrender of how I would WANT reality to be (them not struggling) and accept reality the way it IS (Loving them is the Absolute sense) would that be enough to "Unmanifest" it out of my reality?

I've been trying to gauge lately how much to bring spirituality into my friends and families lives who are struggling with some things that I have also struggled with and have worked through. And in a way I feel like it's my duty to try to help them in my limited way. But I feel like anything that I would say would be pointing out things that they're not conscious of and getting them all worked up. Which I'm not sure is helpful. They may take it as criticism when I'm just trying to "Spread the Love". Is there a "Pay It Forward" type intelligence to Karma that to practice Self-Love is to be of service to Others (which is also yourself)? Is the infinite intelligence of God working in this way? Or, counter-intuitively, maybe it's by doing nothing and accepting everybody for who they are and trusting that they'll find their way, a better act of Self-Love. Hard to know.

lol Fair enough. Is this how Karma Works?

Lol. That seems against complete acceptance. I've had people give me the "Hard-Love" approach in my youth. I definitely respond more to Connection, and words of Kindness...but maybe that's just the ego talking...lol

@ivankiss Is the above sequence of events how it happened in your case? Yes. There isn’t even two (you & someone). Yes. Complete reinterpretation. (And not even) Have you noticed in your life that the more Self-Love you practice, the people in your reality seem to positively benefit too in an unobvious way?

@Leo Gura So the practice of Self-Love only helps me accept what's in my reality, right now? It doesn't necessarily mean that those things will be solved in my material reality because it's still a label that I'm placing on the whole thing right? As long as I have the thought "addiction is bad" I'm not truely practicing Self-Love. But If I tell my friend "addiction just IS, and I love you, and I'm here for you unconditionally". Maybe this would be true Self-Love? And this would lead to them caring about their health and getting better, paradoxically and counter-intuitively leading to their recovery?

Lol...nice. Have you gotten there through just pure inquiry? I can imagine that its probably is a radical sling-shot into Infinity when you're on 5-meo or something. I've never taken a phychedelic, and I'm not really interested in doing so. I'm not against it, just rather a slow and steady aproach. What I'm interested in though is how it feels everyday when you've reached Enlightenment. Like I'm pretty sure we can't be in mind-blowing tripping balls ectasy all the time right? But how to you go about in the world after you Awaken? Or is awakening just a temporary experience you have that you always come back to "Normal" Is it possible to just "slow and steady" it to the same feeling people have who have had many Awakenings?

Anyone have any similar insights?

I was walking and contemplating infinity this morning. I came to a realization that some people may have talked about before, but it's a new insight for me, and maybe some mathematics minded people might find useful, so I thought I would share. We all know the concept of infinity, but I think it's very useful to explain the nature of reality. We all want to think of what's behind the thing we are experiencing. When we say that Everything came from Nothing, we ask where did this "Nothing" come from?It's hard to understand Nothingness. We want PROOF. We want to "Picture" Consciousness. We can all think of 0 as Nothing right? The absence of Something. Even 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 is not 0. It's Absolute Nothingness. So 0 represents the substance of what reality is created from. Consciousness. The ever present formless void of Anything. But, reality is created through DISTINCTIONS. Anything that is not a distinction is Nothingness. These distinctions represent our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, etc. Essentially, anything that makes US. The story we've been told, the story we tell ourselves. Our EGO. It's all DISTINCTIONS. Anything else would be Nothingness. So 1 is a distinction. 2 is a distinction. 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 is a distinction. And as we know numbers go on to infinity is every possible way. There is just as many numbers between 0 and 1 as there are between 0 and 0.1---- INFINITE POSSIBILITIES. But there are also Negative numbers as well. So this is useful when we think of what is behind the Nothingness. Are there other Nothingnesses? But there can't be. because anything that is other that 0 is a distinction, in the negative direction too. I think of negative numbers as "Going Meta" We're still making distinctions but we think we are getting closer to the truth. Lol Our first distinction was I AM ME. And from that, all other distintions were created on top of it. From there we build equations and we do calculations to make sense of all of our life, but that's just creating other distinctions, in turn, creating more reality. So all of OUR reality is just a specific zoom level of the Infinite Fractal of number possibilies of distinctions. So in that sense, the realization that I had was that: We are all a Number on the scale of Infinity that is constantly changing with new calculations we make every day. And the goal of this math is to get to 0. Loving or Unselfish things will Subtract or Divide your number and Selfish or Devilish things might Add or Multiply your number. So calculations can be small like eating an apple might be 3582958239535239582 - 10 = 3582958239535239572. Meditation might divide by 5 everytime you sit down. Doing something selfish or devilish might Add or worst, Multiply your number that may take to years to do the right calculations to bring it back. But Taking 5-Meo or staring at your hand for a week will Divide by 0, showing you a glimpse of Absolute Nothingness, but then your ego quickly multiplies it back. So I like to think of all this self-actualization work as just making little calculations every day to bring me closer to 0, in other words. God.

Is that recognition based on belief or authentic experience? It's based on intuitively knowing through self-inquiry. When I deconstruct things far enough, this is the only thing that feels true.

Leo has said something like, Consciousness is an Infinite Nothingness that makes distinctions. And these distinctions make up reality as we perceive it. Does anyone have any insight on how Nothingness can generate distinctions?

Exactly. I once heard a story about a guy that got super mad and he blew up at a pretty chill dude for doing the most insignificant thing that wasn't "proper" according to his socal rules. The chill dude just looked at him, smiled, and said "Jeez, you got some stuff going on inside you, huh?" The angry guy had his whole world shatter after that encounter. He had never looked inward before in his life, and just the simple act of forcing someone to focus his awareness to the source of his anger, opened up a journey of self-discovery and relieving of suffering. So some people may need to have their world shattered. But you never know how someone's ego might react.

If this reality is an illusion. What is this forum? Who is giving who advice? Am I asking myself questions? Are you my illusion or am I yours? I always get tripped up at the notion that other people don't exist. Other people obviously have their own lives that they're living. What purpose do they serve in my illusion? I know this "Is it all imagininary?" question has probably been ask countless times on this forum, but it is the biggest mindfuck of all consciousness work. I can understand that all of this is like a video game, but I tend to think of it like a multi-player game. Yes, I might be Mario playing the game, not being aware of the pixels (Consciousness) that makes up my reality. But Luigi is also playing his seperate game at the same time. Is this not how reality works? Infinite players in an infinite game made up of infinite consciousness with infinite possibilities? I keep chasing this "understanding" of it. I catch glimpses of it and I know intuitively that it MUST be an illusion, because if you deconstruct anything far enough, you realize that, fundamentally, everything is just thoughts and perceptions that the ego is creating. But Leo has said that there are levels to this thing, and that even when you think you understand it, it goes even deeper. Even if it is all an illusion, so what? It still FEELS real and your actions have consequences in other peoples lives. I get the "desolve your ego" part, this relieves suffering in peoples lives that they're creating for themselves. But what is the point in going deeper than that. It doesn't leave people at peace with themselves, it just makes them chase an idea of enlightenment for "knowings" sake. When maybe completely knowing it isn't possible for these "meat beings" we are stuck in. Would I be better off to just recognize that this reality is crazy, beautiful, and mysterious. Desolve my ego as much as I can. Except it for what it is, and play it like it's a game? Or is there benefit to "Becoming God" that is beyond just giving your mind closure of trying to understand?