Mason Riggle

@WokeBloke are you the same you as from 12 years ago? You are something occurring, right along with 'everything else'. Not something that 'does things'.

@WokeBloke its the same way you can recognize the inside and outside of a cup as two separate things, or the whole cup.

@WokeBloke I suppose we have differing understandings of what God is. For me, God has no otherness, just like me, just like Reality. God is all there is. I am all that there is (What I am IS Everything that I'm aware of.). Reality (God) is all that there is, and I'm that. My leg. My thoughts. My table. My experience. My neighbor. All me. All God. (Some might say, it's all Gods dream, but to me that again implies a separation, God and God's dream.) I could happily replace the word 'is' with 'seems to be'. My Steelman of your idea of God, is a God that is separate from Reality. Creator of Reality.

@WokeBloke I didn't say God is a creation. I said God is Creation.

@Kamo idk, I'm pretty good at reading my wife's mind. I've experienced telepathy with my brother while we were both on acid... but then again we were both on acid. I've known people who experience this discomfort you talk about. It's kind of a knowing people's intentions perhaps in spite of their words. I may have experienced it mildly myself when my awareness was hyper focused on what others were thinking/feeling about me.

@Kamo I'm not quite sure what is being asked. One organism can tell another organism what thoughts are occurring for them. Two organisms could have similar thoughts, I suppose.. Or one organism could maybe have some idea of the thoughts of another organism by observing their facial expressions, behavior, etc..

@ShardMare I see Depression and Anxiety as two ends of a spectrum, where Depression is what happens when we are lost in thoughts of the past.. what we could have done differently, what could have happened differently, etc.. and Anxiety is what happens when we are lost in thoughts of the future.. what will happen next? What will I do next? So to move away from either is to bring your awareness to the present moment. Mindfulness Meditation is a way to practice this.

@Wilhelm44 that's how I see it. Saying 'God Created' implies a subject/object duality.. There is God, there is you, there is all of creation, and all 3 are the same thing.

@BipolarGrowth don't see what's wrong with an impermanent, constantly in flux Self. That's what I seem to be, when I seem to be it.

@Wilhelm44 If God has a plan, it's suspiciously similar to that of someone with no plan. In all seriousness though, I think it's a mistake to think of God as a 'doer' or some separate entity who 'creates' reality, or 'knows' what will happen. I tend to think reality is unfolding how it will, and there's nobody doing that.

I ditto what @Preety_India said. My wife was 35 with 2 kids when I fell in love with her.. tummy, stretch marks, cellulite, saggy boobs.. I've been turned off by the looks of women who had "better" bodies than hers, because I didn't love them. My wife, who I fell in love with in an instant, only gets sexier and sexier to me as gravity and the sands of time work against her. I think it's a limiting belief that you won't/can't find a guy who finds your boobs to be utterly sexy, however they happen to be.

@Kksd74628 absolutely. Language trips us up often and is perhaps a major cause of ego. When we use the language, 'I am digesting my lunch', it's typically understood that this is something my organism is doing (there is no separate digester who causes the digesting).. but when we say, for example, 'I am deciding what to have for lunch,' we somehow create this illusion of a 'separate self', a 'decider', inside our organism somewhere, perhaps in our brain, who is deciding what the organism should do... but this is all just more of what the entire organism (and indeed the entire Universe) is already automatically doing.

it's a trap!

@Seeker_of_truth no problem. Alan Watts puts it this way- "I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware." Its kind of sloppy language, but it's a good pointer. I like to think of it this way.. I am everything that is typically considered to be 'not me'. Everything that is 'not me' defines who I am. This 'triangle' is actually not there.. it's really 'everything that's not the triangle' that gives the illusion of a triangle.

@Wilhelm44 predestined is a redundant word. Destined is already past tense. I have no doubt I will meet my destiny no matter what I choose, because my choices will always lead me to my destiny.. I just don't get to know what my destiny is til I get there. I don't know what 'random' means.. uncaused?

@WokeBloke what caused the Universe to be born? I think your 'source' is identical to 'I don't know'.

It's not really that there's no self.. It's that there's no 'separate self'. You are all of it. Everything. Many organisms have the sense of being a locus of attention that resides somewhere in their body, usually behind the eyes, who controls the organism, is aware of its thoughts and feelings and actions, but this humunculous doesn't exist. "What is often mistaken to be the thinker of thoughts, is just more thoughts."

@WokeBloke I disagree. How does 'consciousness' or 'subjectivity' decide what to do? Is consciousness deciding how to grow your hair? Is consciousness choosing what thoughts you think? How??

So.. the creator doesn't need a creator, but the Universe does? Why does the Universe require a creator? Why can't it be unborn, it's nature inate?

@WokeBloke computers that play chess make choices. Would it make sense to say, 'what the computer does with itself is it's choice.'?

What did?

I am this, but as this, I don't 'do' anything other than 'be this'. 'The Self', what I am, doesn't 'do anything'.. it just 'is something'. The Self just IS itself.. not the cause of itself. I am not causing myself to be how I am being.. I just 'am being how I am being.' Any attempt to be other than how I am being, is just more 'how I am already being without ever trying to be that'.

@WokeBloke What do you think the source of creation is? What determined the nature of that?

Nope. Choosing occurs all on it's own the same way 'growing hair' occurs all on it's own. Organisms grow hair, but they don't choose how their hair grows. Organisms make choices, but they don't choose what choices they make. It's a trick of language that gives rise to the illusion of 'doership'. When we say, "I am growing my hair." we understand that we mean, 'my organism grows hair all by itself' and we are never tempted to imagine some separate 'grower of hair' inside us somewhere.. but when it comes to thinking and choosing, we somehow make the mistake of thinking there's some 'me' somewhere inside of an organism who is 'controlling what choices it makes' or 'thinking it's thoughts'. But there is no 'doer' of what's being done. No thinker of what's being thought. No chooser of what's being chosen. There's no clouder who clouds the sky.. there's no grower who grows the trees.. Clouds occur.. trees occur.. thinking occurs.. choosing occurs.. and all of this happens.. is happening, all by itself, with no one who 'does' any of it. You are something that is happening.. not something that 'does things'.

@Bufo Alvarius I'm just saying.. it's kind of like using a cell phone to google whether or not cell phones exist.