PepperBlossoms

We are enjoying the illusion and we get mad when the illusion is broken for us. Like when in a dream and someone wakes us up and we were so deep in that illusion and now we realized it was just an illusion when woken up. We get triggered by people who disrupt the illusion that we want to have such as the idea of a perfect family or for however we wanted the illusion to go. At death, the illusion of the life we are having now is thrown off and we are scared of what that means in terms of what here was and was not an illusion and then what the illusion will be like then. We keep on getting lost in exploring illusions and then as they change, if subtle, may still be in the illusion but if there is too much difference or does not add up, we may wake up and can see that it was an illusion. We are going from one illusion to the next. We don't always want to listen to what others have to say or go in to new experiences because we like the illusion we have and we don't want it to get changed. Survival is to fight off the illusion from changing - in terms of death, getting more info, etc. We will tune stuff out or say we "don't want to know" because it may mess with the illusion we have now. People who eat meat are seeing it for the illusion of the taste/nutrition and while vegans see it for the illusion of death of an animal and the pain it had and the cage it was in, but also there is the illusion that the food was even an animal or that you are just eating/interacting with yourself as reality or imagining so. There's the illusion that stuff is dying and needs to be fixed and then there is the illusion that there is an illusion.

@Nahm So despite the notion of fighting off starvation, disease, money problems, flood, drought, loneliness or when one's hand is on fire, one is getting eaten, stabbed alive, falling off a cliff, or a tornado is overhead, etc., one may not feel like anything even close to peace but yet there is a peace in that things are however they are. If I feel sad about xyz and I am the universe, is the universe then sad about it too (from the relative perspective) but rather from the whole, the universe may be okay as it is xyz. Is it then to not force calmness (as that may be fighting and at war with the experience) but rather just try to go with the flow and embrace whatever we are experiencing? If we are angry, embrace that; if we are hungry, embrace that. Wars are then created by trying to force peace rather than just accept but yet whatever we do, war or no war, there is peace. It can be hard to get rid of conditioning (in terms of assumptions and typical responses) or be able to notice where all the conditioning is but me even saying that is from conditioning - even using this language is conditioning. For one to drop conditioning, one may have to notice what one thinks one knows as well as notice the assumptions and typical responses. To go back to not knowing, not having conditioning, and let the mind do whatever without putting any judgement or requirement on it, I could see that that could allow for more possibilities - but yet some conditioning that we have created gives us stuff to work with - such as characters, landscapes, and conflicts to play with; or the colors and shapes to contrast with. I can see that our conditioning could get us stuck and limited and confined to some stuff and not more open. I have had much thought attachment and thinking that thoughts would help for getting to some place and some peace - - but if peace is already the case, we then do not necessarily need to read any books or listen to any podcasts or ask any questions if peace is our goal but yet peace is already so. Even if I say that "peace is already the case", I still see myself stressing about work, relationships, and stuff to do - - but maybe that stress needs to be looked over some more - - but actually just saying that is then saying that I need to focus on a thought to achieve something instead of just being okay. I am used to saying/thinking that "I am so messed up" but I guess even this is just a thought and thought's are not really anything and I am already okay however I am. That is interesting about the idea that the "things" as "thoughts" do not exist - in terms of enlightenment and non-duality and that there is no separation. I do not exist either as a thing but yet I seem to be "here".

@StarStruck You don't need to be a fuck boy. Do you want a fuck girl? Fuck boys get fuck girls and that is all there is - its very superficial, its all about the sex and the looks, and then it fades, both parties get bored/mad at each other, there isn't enough connection to do anything, the conversation goes no where, and each person goes on and moves to someone else - - the relationship goes no where. Fuck boys and fuck girls cannot be trusted either as one will assume that they could be going for quantity and hence there is no confidence in it being monogamous. If the main reason for the relationship is the sex, it may not last. You don't have to talk the whole time- you can just like meet to watch a movie. Go for a girl that is of the same beauty level as you - if she is too high, you may feel unworthy. Do what you want to do that is fun. Don't make the topics superficial - superficial topics are boring. Go for what you are interested in. Find someone that you can be around where you don't have to be on drugs to hang out with as that is not sustainable. Whatever works for you - everyone is different. It is about how see feels but also how you feel. Do you like being with her? Does she like being with you? Relationships can be stable for some people and they can be rollercoasters for others.

30. I am you. 31. I am more conscious than you. 32. Help. Girls don't want to date me. 33. My parents are the worst. 34. Help. Get me out of this wage slave job. 35. I am so sad.

@SamC If you think about it, men are stronger. A man could more easily crush and kill a woman by over-powering her than the woman could do to the man - so it takes some level of - "hey please don't kill me". She could be terrified of him if he gets angry. She could love him when he is otherwise compatible and things are going well or well enough. Women could provide a whole lot more than just that. Women can be nurturing, smart, gentle, funny, creative, courageous, intelligent, athletic, etc. When you say feminine, what do you mean? Some guys do have higher standards for their women and do care a whole lot about how their partner acts/is - they may tell them what upsets them and want the woman to stop doing xyz because the man doesn't let that slide or like that. Men can have an ambivalence for women too. If you had a partner, there may/will possibly be things that you do and do not like about him/her as with everything. It is not all about looks either. I think regarding inadequate, we kinda tend to go towards a partner that is of the same adequacy as us so that there is no inadequacy feelings (or being out of one's league) or not so much of that otherwise it probably won't work. Question the idea that only women have ambivalence for men and not vice versa. Have a girlfriend for even a week and you will see things that you do and do not like. Interesting. Tell me more about this male perspective... Yeah understanding each other can be helpful.. Um.. not when I am scared - - when I am scared I want to get the heck out and go far away. Regarding essence - I feel like I can't just use one word as there are so many different things I want haha. A jolly essence. But yet that has to be in combination with many other things. It is like how when one has a color, when you put that color next to other colors, it changes how the color is. So if I say jolly, I don't mean in combination with obnoxious/dumb/superficial. Jolly and curious. Thanks. @Leo Gura I think the social calibration preference will also depend on the person. Some girls may lack that as well and be more okay with having a disfunctionally socially calibrated partner. The more socially calibrated someone is, the more they may want their partner to be like that too - based on whatever notion they have of what social calibration is "supposed" to look like. But yeah there may need to be some sort of social calibration to make some sort of connection and have enough communication to understand each other and keep on seeing each other.

@Nahm (just trying to paraphrase what you wrote:) being free (liberated) from - the thought (about) the idea that thoughts are to be sought - noticing that a thought is a doing action - noticing that one can be better at a thought as a doing action - and then one can feel more calmness (equanimity) The better we get at tackling and harnessing our thoughts and awareness with them, the less susceptible we are to crazy, wild, angry, sad reactions to those thoughts (as we are the one (possibly) making the thought and making the reaction to the thought). We can separate ourselves from the thought and look at it distantly as well as get deep in with them and both are cool experiences.

You can still love and cherish your partner even if there are things that you do not like about them and they do not like about you - you will cherish them anyway. You pick someone and make it work for the both of you. The stuff that you don't like about each other will be stuff that you can both use to grow and work on and it keeps it interesting. I think what we want in a partner is also kinda how we want ourselves to be.

Stuff is a mixed bag. There are the good and the bad, pros and cons. (Also I added a few more to my list just now). You are welcome. Everyone has different things that they want in a partner and different things they are okay with and not okay with. I'll ask the same for you: 1: What exactly does a woman provide for you? Why are women so " Awesome"? ( for men) 2: What does make a woman a creep/ scary? ( what invokes fear in men) 3: What is the most important thing a woman can do to not make men feel afraid but safe? ( if you have to go down to one word, to the essence).

1. Knowledge, compassion, friendliness, sex, partner, love, joy, curiosity, adventure, beauty, reliability 2. Aggressive, loud, domineering speaking/tone; too much drinking; not seeing the beauty in life; being overly flirty and overly confident; talking to too many females; having had a history of going from girl to girl to girl to girl pretty quickly; being too egotistical; lack of compassion/joy/love 3. Innovation/compassion/silly/playful/strength

5. Life purpose driven 6. Spiral dynamics and ego development integration 7. Supportive of meditation and mindfulness 8. Likes to discuss illusions, paradoxes, rationality, deception 9. Non-duality is king

Cool stuff! @Mason Riggle @WelcometoReality

Is reality real or imagined? If all of this is real versus if all of this is imagined - does it even matter if it is real or imagined? But what is real to me may be imagined to you such as a difference of opinion, etc. We can say that something was imagined such as when we wake up from a dream but yet - was the dream real so was that real? We can say that we have to imagine that there is a universe but yet, is there a universe? We cannot prove or disprove. If we think it is real, do we take it more seriously and fearfully or act differently than if we think it is imagined which we may then be more playful and distant from the experience? But how can one separate real and imagined in non-duality terms? If I am playing a scary game and am aware that it is just a game, I may not get as scared as I would if I thought it was really happening. When you say imagined, do you mean constructed?

@Nahm Your webpage is really great. Thanks for sharing. So essentially, we can seek to be liberated from believing our thoughts as truth and the better we are at that, the more mental and emotional calmness we may feel. Thank you.

Yeah good point haha. That seems to be the case! No wonder we have a hard time changing our view sometimes because what we see seems to be so and it can be hard to switch to some other view when we feel like we already have the one.

It is whatever it is and we won't be able to tell if its real or imagined so those words then don't matter in that sense.

I was thinking last night after my last post that, yeah if we can't verify if something is real, then real and imaginary are the same thing.

@Nahm Oh interesting. Thanks. What do you mean by end of undesirable rollercoaster (to stop searching for knowledge as it is nothing)? What do you mean by liberation is the stark opposite?

I guess one may not really ever fully verify that anything is real or not real. Real and imagined are like short and tall - the duality where one defines the other. But we can see that stuff appears to be real all the time and then we get more information and then we change our opinion as to what is real and imagined. It is like the notion of real is an opinion, a perspective. Non fiction books and college classes are supposed to be "real" but those are based on opinion. Sure it seems like stuff is happening and we could just say our interpretation of it, or what we see, is based on what we are aware of, how narrow/open-minded we are, what we are seeing. I don't want anyone to hurt themselves or cause harm. There could be imagination happening within a real realm. There could be imagination happening within an imaginary realm. It then doesn't matter whether the realm is real or imaginary as that doesn't really make a difference - - the realm is whatever it is. Imagination could be real. Real is real. But we have to imagine what is real.... "based on my imagination, that could be real or based on my imagination, that could never be real" However.. real and imagination could both change... And what person A sees may not match up with what person B sees. We tend to say that what we see is real and that others have it wrong. We have to imagine what the notion of real and imagination means as well as what reality is. Because we have to imagine that something is real, we can't tell if it is or isn't and it doesn't necessarily matter but may have an impact on how we interact. Wow way to take charge of them aliens. In my last nightmare from a few years ago, I hid and then tried to save my tied up friend from the witch and when there was no other options, I lit the witch on fire and hit it with a baseball bat and then woke up.

@Nahm @AlphaAbundance (I'm trying to see Nahm's view and Alpha's view and came up with this:) Everything is conjecture. We will never have absolute proof or disproof for anything - hence then one could just stop all discussions, questioning, research, etc. as nothing can ever be fully known. So I can see that to say that there are infinite states of consciousness/enlightenment - that there may not be proof or disproof but it is interesting to create models/theories/observations anyway... but yet we may stay stuck in the "mind matrix" but can have the illusion of varying degrees of liberation from it. We can imagine that consciousness could go on for infinity but we can't ever verify that it does.

I remember when I prayed to the god in the clouds everyday and then I felt like I was talking to myself and that religion was all made up. And how I have a dream and then wake up and it was like that was imagined. And how I used to think poor people just wanted handouts and were lazy and that now I think Republicans are narrow minded. It's super interesting to go from one way of thinking and then have it completely changed and there are more things being considered in so many realms whereas previously we had not ever experienced or considered. Then to just look at, well if I was narrow minded there, what else am I being narrow minded about and some of that is based on what we are exposed to as well as what we are able to imagine - - like how people can't imagine that it was possible for the Holocaust or moon landed to have ever happened. It doesn't necessarily have to be helping or promoting any cause but it can be fascinating to explore the mind and illusions. If one doesn't want to explore illusions, they don't have to - but others may do it anyway.

The absolute infinity creates so many possibilities in terms of infinity that yeah I guess imagination just lets infinity go wherever, in any realm, however for all bases. We could still say imagination then isn't necessarily separate from reality but rather increasing infinitely the possibilities of what is instead of a more narrow-minded viewpoint which is relative to what it is compared to. I think people think reality is real (the narrow-minded of what is real) in terms of Christianity as they want to go to Heaven and not Hell, in terms of conforming to social, financial, and ideological norms, in terms of having an emotional reaction to stuff (as narrow minded), in terms of thinking and contemplating deeply about stuff (but possibly in a narrow minded way), in terms of taking pills to avoid pain, etc. Even to wake up from this dream if that was even a thing wouldn't prove or disprove.

I was in one of the most populated cities in my country and I felt anxious - the cars were quite loud from the highway and there were so many cars and so many businesses everywhere and not much in terms of scenic rivers/lakes/parks/open space. It was a jungle of ugly buildings basically everywhere. I then drove home and on the drive the sun was shining and there was open landscape and parts where I drove over water crossings. Then at home it felt quiet and serene. There is less traffic, far less population, less businesses, less crowded. I no longer felt anxious. I felt more calm and more okay. I could think again, I could smile and laugh again. Yes the environment helps to set the context. Police presence can create tension as police have historically killed people as well as locked them up for a really long time or for life. So a lack of police presence can be more calm than a large police presence. When I go to museums and see employees stationed around the place, I feel scared of them as they to me are like an extension of the police, someone there with a watchful eye that may report me if I do something wrong - - even to work in an office building, that too is like a police presence of more people there to watch you. I guess too it is partly all imagined and projected and everyone will see the situation differently. There is definitely a nice middle ground of having some security but not too much and also some freedom but not too much.

The relief can feel so great when we let ourselves free from the burden we were imagining - - but we can also be scared to break everything too much and stepping into the unknown of what exactly that means... Stepping into a universe that lasts forever with no change can feel like horror and so this constant forgetting and constant change can be nice (at least as it is now). When someone says they have mostly scary dreams - - it is crazy in one way as "hey the dream isn't real you don't have to be scared" but yet it feels too real in the moment. And then the fears that we have here - those could be imagined but yet the death of what we are imagining now has so much unknowns and even knows are not actually known.

Finding and discovering those stages can be exciting. I was also thinking that our emotions - like when we are emotionally struggling - - that is us still deep into an illusion about whatever - - We are constantly working to break free of illusions and depending on how we do it, we could get deeper into others. It is hard to tell where one is on the axial consciousness tree but even that is all illusion too. I was noticing that movies and cartoons have us going with the illusion that the characters are who they are acting to be or drawn to be and even the characters themselves sometimes break character and whacky stuff happens or some characters freeze and others don't to show a meta awareness of the show and that it is just a cartoon, just a tv show, whatever.

There is a peacefulness/calmness when one is out of the illusion such as living in the chaos of a dream and then waking up and being initially mad of "hey I was dreaming and want to go back" but then noticing how funny it is how that was just an illusion that it was happening. Or "hey I was angry/sad/happy. I want to go back to feeling that". A break of the illusion can feel like a disruption of the flow, of the status quo, of such a great change that it is hard to adapt to, a large jolt. We react so many different ways to the breaking of illusions or changing from one illusion to another - sad, anger, laughter, meh, curiosity. Nothing to do feels very calm. There is nothing left but whatever illusion we want to create or wherever the illusion we are in - what path that transforms to. The illusions can feel so very real and then the question comes - what is an illusion and what isn't? If everything is an illusion, then that pain I was feeling, or sickness, or the struggle - was it all in my mind? And even so, the dream was in my mind. But then what is my mind is part of the universal mind. I think I am still in the illusion of wanting to chase knowledge, insights, ideas - - but they can come regardless of whether I chase them or not -- and so can other things. I was wondering - if we are part of the universal oneness, but there could be so many rabbit holes to that - - how much do we have on an impact of everything? Yes stuff is being imagined in the mind but can our personality imagine what kind of music is going to be playing and how the characters are acting on the tv - - or is it rather that is what we are noticing things based on what our awareness is and it may have been there otherwise but we are just now aware of it...