Mason Riggle

@Tyler Durden not just your visual field tho.. if you hear a car outside, or feel a breeze.. do you consider yourself those things?

@Tyler Durden is there an 'end' to what you feel you are?? If 'you' are 'all around you', what is 'outside of' that?

do you consider 'you' to be separate from 'your body'?

@Tyler Durden all there is, is the entirety of experience. You are questioning if there's stuff that 'exists' independent of 'you', and to this, the answer is no. (it's like asking, If I were dead, what would exist for me?) A things 'existence' and 'your experience of that thing' are the same thing... no separation. There is no 'you' and 'that which is not you'.. it's all you.

'when you are putting in effort' (or when you are not) IS the path.. and it's effortless. There is one path, and you're on already on it, and any move you make to stay on the path, or stray from it, is just more 'the path'.

If a bird is singing a song, and you are very attached to the idea that the bird should not be singing, it's singing will cause you to suffer. Suffering is what 'thinking things should be other than how they are' feels like. If you think you should not be in pain, pain will cause you to suffer.. but if you have just completed a grueling workout, and think there should be pain, perhaps to confirm that you got a good workout, you will experience pleasure from the pain. The same pain that can cause suffering, can cause pleasure, if thought about differently...

@iboughtleosbooklist You are doing the best you can (an infinitely good job) to maintain the illusion of not being God.

@Tyler Durden it's all very convincing.. it seems real. Perhaps consider the absurdity of it all.. that there should even be humans, and brains, and memories.. why not other things? Our lives 'seem normal' because we're used to it, but if you had no human experience to compare your life with, all of this would seem completely absurd.. like you looking at some alien species with two heads that vomit on each other to communicate and reproduce by pulling it's own teeth out and planting them in Jello.. if that was your 'normal'.. it wouldn't seem absurd at all.

@Tyler Durden perhaps not devastating, but it would be inconsistent with your current paradigm, which is that generally people don't have memories of very early childhood because their brains aren't fully formed or some other story. This inconsistency would press up against your current paradigm, threatening it...

@Someone here I'm not sure how I can say it any other way.. I'm absolutely sure something seems to be happening right now.. I may be totally confused about what exactly that something is.

just recognize that all the 'behind the scenes stuff' exists as more appearances.. there really 'seems' to be that stuff, rather than 'there really IS that stuff'. The dreams we dream at night are a useful analogy, but the map is not the territory. Reality isn't 'exactly like a dream', with some sleeping dreamer who is dreaming, dreaming all of this. The dream analogy is used to demonstrate how real imagination can seem, and yet, we can still be confused about it's 'realness'. It's a guide to show you that the SEEMING is what's important... SEEMING is happening, and we can't be confused about that, but we can't know if 'how things seem, is how things are'.

@Tyler Durden because this would be an internally inconsistent dream, and it would shock you so much, it would wake you up, and end the dream. It's a survival strategy the ego employs to keep itself alive. Your question is like asking, "If this is just imaginary, why does a table appear as a table, and it doesn't just randomly look like a chair? Why don't I imagine that scenario?" If that happened to you, it would destroy your current paradigm... a.k.a.. you would helplessly wake up to some new paradigm, where it makes sense that tables can sometimes look like chairs.

I don't know the character of the contents of experience. When I see a duck, maybe it's just a really good animatronic model of a duck, maybe I'm hallucinating the duck... I can't be sure.. but the 'appearance of a duck' I'm sure of.. when a duck appears.

I wonder if there are 'really' illusions, or if illusions are also illusory. What does 'real' mean?

@Someone here I don't know I'm not dreaming right now. I could be a brain in a vat hallucinating this moment. I DO know 'something seems to be happening'.. I openly admit I may be completely confused about what that something is.

@Someone here as much as anything else is 'happening'. Don't your dreams happen? Don't confuse 'I am dreaming' (known) with 'the contents of my dream are real' (I could be confused about this, unknown). edit: when I say 'real' I mean, exist independently (separate from) of some experience of them. (a.k.a. not just a dream).

@Someone here it's self evident.. the appearance of this very question is just more evidence.

@Tyler Durden "I remember being 4" is just more memory occurring now. Don't you remember having that memory?

I know something appears to be happening. I may be totally confused about what that something is, but the lights are on, that much is self evident.. that much I'm absolutely sure of.

"There's nothing you can know that isn't known Nothing you can see that isn't shown There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be It's easy" - The Beatles - All you need is love.

Here's the important thing to understand. Reality is like a dream, but it's not exactly the same as a dream. Reality is 'created' via the process of 'imagined duality/multiplicity'... essentially what this means is- Reality SEEMS Real (it gets it's realness) when Mind/God/Infinity sets imaginary limits on itself. When it imagines a 'you' and 'that which is not you'.. when it imagines an up and a down.. a hard and a soft.. these things 'exist' relative to each other.. this is relativity, duality. So you see.. it's not that physical reality is 'just an illusion'.. it 'exists' as illusion. The 'illusion' of separateness literally gives rise to, or 'manifests' reality.. it makes it 'real'. This is why I ask people to consider: Is this forum real, or imaginary? The answer is, 'both!' or 'it doesn't matter which it is, Either it IS real, or it's not real but seems like it is, and I can't tell which it is'.. It's the SEEMING that's important.. how things 'SEEM' to you, is how they ARE for you, until they seem some other way, at which point things are still 'how they ARE to you' (how it seems to you).

If I told you it wouldn't be a secret.

@Endangered-EGO I find it fascinating.. and rather telling. If you were me, you'd have no choice but to behave like me, because you would be me. This also means that I have no choice but to behave like myself. I could only do 'other than what I am doing' if I was someone other than who I am, which I never am. If I'm not free to 'be other than how I am being in any moment'.. then I'm not free to 'do other than what I'm doing in any moment'. 'The self' is something that is happening (not a thing exists independently and 'does things').. like anything else, but really there is no distinct 'self'.. there is just the process of 'being', which everything is doing, 1 big process.. and then we make arbitrary distinctions and say 'this is doing that', which is how we fool ourselves. That tree is growing leaves. Well is it really? Is there really a 'tree' which 'grows leaves'. Well no, not really.. the 'tree' is a collection of processes which includes 'growing leaves'. There really is no consistent distinct 'you' which exists.. there is just the process of 'being you' which is occurring as part of a larger process. Consider.. If I have a car, and I slowly replace each part of the car with parts from a catalogue.. at what point does the car stop being 'the original car'? Well, there really is no distinct 'car'.. there is a collection of parts and processes which we call a car.. that's the only part that remains consistent.. our notion of what a 'car' is. The 'car' I drive home today will not be the same 'car' I drove to work.. some paint has chipped off, some metal in the engine wore away.. it has changed from what it was.

This is just the chicken/egg conundrum rephrased. Does the chicken come from the egg, or the egg from the chicken? Separation is illusion.. the 'paradox' arises when it's imagined that there is a difference between a chicken and an egg... that they are two separate things.. but they are just one thing.. a 'chicken/egg system'.. that's always in the process of creation. Everything is happening, and no one is 'doing it'.