Mason Riggle

@Wilhelm44 I think Reality is EXACTLY how it Seems AND not at all how it seems.

One time, I was really stoned playing Sonic the Hedgehog II and something strange happened. The designers of the game added a fun little feature to Sonic's 'character' so that if you set the controller down and do nothing, after so long of being idle, Sonic grows impatient and crosses his arms and taps his foot. Noticing this gave me the strange sensation of Sonic being a 'real character' in a real game world, and I was controlling him, and he was aware I was controlling him.. Sounds rather silly to think that Sonic had a perspective and experience of his own. But I also recognize it might be just as silly to be certain that 'others' in my experience have their own experience and perspective, just because it seems that way to me.

One grossly underestimates how fervently One clings to the illusion of separation, to preserve itself.

There is no 'me separate from you' any more than the inside of a cup is separate from the outside of a cup. The separation is an imaginary duality. This is how we 'know' (describe) a cup. Reality 'knows' itself (Is One Infinite Consciousness appearing as many finite 'things') by 'pretending' to be separate from itself. The inside is Relative to the outside. The inside is defined by the outside. You are defined by 'that which is not you'. When you experience Leo tripping.. what exists is not 'Leo tripping' but rather, 'your experience of Leo tripping'. Similarly, when you dream of a dog barking, what exists is not 'a dog barking', but rather, 'your dream of a dog barking'. That you dreamed a dog barking, is not evidence for the existence of a dog barking, only evidence that the dream exists. You only have evidence (it's self evident) of your experience, and nothing more.

"I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware." - Alan Watts

Of course we can call it whatever. When I say 'Intelligent Will', it should be obvious that 'Intelligence' is a relative notion. Humans have brains which process information, use reasoning, etc, and we refer to this type of process as 'intelligent'.. the words we use DO matter, from the perspective of humans conveying meaning to each other. Humans are intelligent in ways that rocks are not.. both behave how they will.

Of course this land is dangerous All of the animals Are capably murderous When I was a boy My big brother held on to my hands Then he made me slap my own face I looked up to him then, and still do He was trying to teach me something Now I know what it was Now I know what he meant Now I know how it is One must eat the other Who runs free before him Put them right into his mouth While fantasizing the beauty of his movements A sensation not unlike Slapping yourself in the face Slapping yourself in the face Slapping yourself in the face

This makes no sense. If reality can 'create impossibility' then it's not 'impossibility'... if it's possible for reality to do, then by definition, it's not 'impossible'. 'Free will' doesn't make sense logically, experientially, or linguistically. My logical notions about [the lack of] Free Will perfectly align with my experience of Reality (I don't need to assume anything. I can literally notice what my experience is like by simply paying attention to it). The root of suffering is attachment (essentially, attachment to the notion that 'what is' should be [could be] different than how it is). Notions of 'free will' are actually the cause of much suffering. Hatred, judgement, jealousy, fear, etc, all arise from this notion that people are 'responsible' for [the ultimate cause of] how they occur in the Universe. Absent notions of 'free will', these things cease to make sense. (you don't hate, or judge, a Volcano for being a Volcano, for example, because you understand perfectly well that a Volcano is not the cause of itself [it couldn't be any other way than how it is]).

@Someone here I like the term 'Intelligent Will' Whether One considers Oneself 'ego' or 'Godhead', or whatever, One does what One WILL Intelligently.

Yep. It's soooooo simple.

@caelanb notice that everything you think of as 'objective' only exists 'subjectively'. "well, ever since I remember"... your subjective experience of remembering. "which I learned in science class".. your subjective experience of learning in science class. 'it's already been proven".. this has been your subjective experience, but you can't say this is 'objectively true'. The only thing you are 100% sure of is 'something seems to be occurring'.. your subjective experience is 'self evident'.. all other 'evidence' for anything 'objective' exists within your subjective experience. (you could be totally confused about what is occurring... you could be a brain in a vat hallucinating all of this, and you are vastly underestimating just how 'immersive and convincing' the hallucination can be) An entirely convincing dream would be indistinguishable to you from 'not dreaming', until you 'wake up'.

Survival. Why survival? That's the real question. (my best answer: it seems to be preferable to the alternative). Questions of 'why do I do what I do' go away when it's recognized that there's no doer, nothing to be done. 'You' are something that is occurring, not something that 'does things'. You might as well ask, 'why am I growing my hair the way I do?'.. the answer is 'hair is growing how it will' and there's no 'you' who's doing it. You can't stop 'growing your hair' because you're not doing that. Who(or what) is growing the flowers? Is it the plants? Well who(or what) is growing the plants? These questions are silly!! Flowers and plants are growing.. the entire Universe is doing that. It's all happening, and there's NO ONE doing it.

@Gabith 'choosing to love everything that arises' happens if and when it does, or it doesn't happen. Not up to you. 'judgement' and 'resistance' make no sense in light of 'no free will'. Judgement- You don't judge a volcano, because you recognize it makes no sense to.. you recognize that a volcano had no part in causing itself to be how it is. Resistance- Any attempt to resist what is occurring, is just more 'what is occurring'.

Humans can act dumb.. everything 'God does' is infinitely Intelligent, even if it doesn't make sense to your ego.

^which is also God's infinite Intelligence

If I train my dog to bite a child and it does, who is responsible for the bite, me or the dog? What if my father trained me to train dogs to bite children? What if his father taught him to train me to train dogs to bite children? How far back must we go to find out the 'cause' of any 'event'?

responsibility is also an illusion. If you stop having a problem with this, then the problem of 'how to reconcile this with principles of taking 100% responsibility for our life' just goes away. You don't reconcile it. Everything is happening and nobody is doing it.

^which is also God's infinite Intelligence.

@peanutspathtotruth well said. Perfect.

@Waken I wish you well too. ?

@Waken to me this sounds like 'being my authentic self' is better than being my inauthentic self.. am I just fine the way I am or not?

@Waken I'm being sincere. I suppose I don't understand how I can be 'more authentically me' since I'm always already that.

@Waken if I release ideas of needing to be better will that make me better?

@Terell Kirby my ex wife 'cheated'. I still love her. I recognize that she only ever behaves with good intentions.

@Waken consider- why the urge to make this post? If we're already 'just fine', what's the point of this post? 'Trying to be like myself' and 'trying not to be like myself' are the exact same thing.. both are 'what I'm doing', which is ' being like myself', and I'm always doing that without trying to.