Eph75

@Buck Edwards Consider this, it might not resonate with you, but it's something most people struggle with. I'd suggest it's an integrity issue, about knowing what your values are and being deliberately aligned with those values day-to-day basis. If you are very clear about your values and what you do to maintain and evolve around those values you are going to: A) not be as affected by others as you clearly see what does and does not resonate with your values, and when it does resonate, it's closer to be inspirational fuel into your own personal interest and integrity. When it doesn't resonate, it's easier to just acknowledge this as their success and simply move on, or even appreciate them for their accomplishments. B) more likely be pursuing developing around those values of yours, which ultimately translates into success that is deeply aligned with what's integral to you, translating into sense of integrity. Remember that "success" can look very differently depending of what your values are. C) being clear about what integrity is for you, you can better sense when you're out of integrity and self-regulate towards returning into integrity. Being out of integrity isn't a good feeling, we know it when it happens, and it happen a lot. Calling it out needs understanding those values. D) integrity not having anything to do with morale and what society wants from you, being in integrity can mean NOT pursuing success is a traditional sense, with career progression, status or monetary wealth and so on, in order to favor that which is in alightment with your values. Integrity can exist in the mundane. And, finally, if you don't have a clear picture of what your values are, how your reality connects to those and what being in integrity thus means - which by the way is where ones calling and actualization comes into the picture - how can you be in integrity? Without this "purpose" defined, it's easy how others success can be threatening, not because it's about them, their success, what they do to be successful and so on - but - it's a reminder of you lacking definition of what integrity means to you, and you not staying in integrity in relation to your values.

@stephenkettley There is nothing* that you can experience that is objective, there is only subjective. The effects of the subjective experience can help creating shifts that detach yourself from the perception of reality, and that's "useful" but nonetheless subjective. Anything you can experience and make sense out of will be subjective and a conceptualization that ultimately is false. The only path out of the conceptualization trap is to not conceptualize, not by choice but by manifestation of not knowing where the need to explain by concept drops away - and - at which point the freedom to generate concepts as navigational tools emerges out of the mists of needs. Yes, "god" is a conceptualization that is made up by you, thus subjective. * The only objective is the experience of experiencing (I am) - and - anything within that experience is but an illusion generated by thought.

This is interesting, but not very surprising. I have two "children", they are 21 and 23 as we speak.

The question remains; meditation as a means to.. exactly what.

@r0ckyreed Your question is incomplete. Meditation as a means to, what exactly? Simply silencing your thought, inner dialogue, achieving peace and calm being mindful with the present? Enlightenment? The no bullshit answer is no. The more intricate answer would be, enlightenment isn't prescriptive. Also, you can sit 5 hours and attain nothing at all. You could sit less but sit more efficiently, or arguably not sit at all, and attain "no thing". The latter is not yours, if it was, you would never ask. If you are attracted by the thought of traveling rather than the option, to experience peace, go with that simply because why not. I found walking meditation being a supliment to all other practices. They all weigh into the mix, but it would not have changed anything for me, by walking alone. Part of key here is external stimuli, even in flow states, the external stimuli is there and itself a distraction regardless of experiencing peace or not. -- Could include story of a years long supliment practice of daily 45 minutes walking meditation with blindfold and earplugs, a kind of a partial sensory deprivation and a deep trust building meditation, but I'll leave it at that. -- It's all going to amount to nothing though so maybe just drop the keyboard, sortie, travel the world just because?

@mrroboto Essentially yes, albeit it's more complex than simple desire. (i.e not falling into the trap thinking that desiring a sports car every evening won't make one magically manifest out of nothing once upon one morning) The emphasis here is that the reality ego generates shifts into undoubtedly being seen and experiences as an illusion, and once it is distinguished as a dream rather than real, you wouldn't interact with it and get lost within it's narrative as if it still was real. You would rather walk the dream, observe and interact with it intuitively, mostly because "why not", albeit there's a deep sense of "not needing to do anything at all". At times, the dream you know intuitively is a dream, will play tricks on you and you will experience it emotionally, it making itself reminded that the line between dream and reality is hair fine. The job after awakening within the dream is deconstruction and reconstruction of the ego, and reintegration with the dream - the ego and the dream being the only thing that's actually here to experience. The walking will grow untethered, the dream will remain a dream. Anything that arises within it, is the dream itself; emotions, what's left of them, thoughts, influence, outcomes and so on. Remaining is a being in the world/dream, not being of the world/dream. Holding the dream content lightly, not the dream narrative having a fast hold on you. Further dissolving the shadows that tether you, emotionally, in various ways, and conceptually, within the dream. That will allow you to walk within the dream character more freely, the remainder of Ego being that by which you navigate within the dream. Ego being a tool, much like a vessel, a car or whatnot, by which you navigate more effortlessly, generating perspectives and opinions in that process that themself also are tools, nothing more. You wouldn't confuse yourself with being your car, so don't confuse you being your vessel, you ego. The ego build require far less for navigation than we might think. Walking untethered is effortless walking. The dream world continue to concoct circumstances that present various degrees of ego challenges, and so it will be, its what it does until there is perfect alignment with what is.

@QandC I've been trough phases as a forward progression towards losening the hold that attcahements have had on me, also after awakening to the make believe reality we are conditioned into. The most difficult detanglement was an achiever shadow that was deeply conditioned within my beliefs, that left emotional shadows also after I detached from it conceptually. It manifested as walking a knives' edge, on one hand intuitively knowing it was false yet on the other hand experiencing the emotional aspects of lack and pull towards a discontent from non-achievement. Took the better part of year of inquiry before it dissolved, and paradoxically, I was trying to give in to the idea of manifesting my calling as an achievement, to maintain integrity, forcing myself to embrace that which I intuited was false. This might not be what you're alluding to, hard to tell since you share so little, almost nothing. If so, the sad yet not surprising answer to the question how to overcome this phase is unfortunately that there is no answer and it being a phase that serves a purpose and itself being something to surrender into to be fulfilled. If this resonates, it could be explored. If not, so be it.

@QandC Can you speak more to the discrepancy you experience between that red and impulsive and the holistic perception? What's there when you "go red" and how is that contradictory to the holistic perception? If you're able to see it, is there some meaning within that "red"? What are the implications of the emotional body?

@PurpleTree Thoughts occur within existing knowledge and beliefs, there is nothing new there. When circumstances are facilitated to accommodated for something new, pieces of the vast unknown enter awareness. Often the unknown makes no sense and we do not pick up on it or reject it. Sometimes there's something attractive there but it's slippery, it can feel profoundly in one moment but that being fleeting and after a few moments it's gone and it's not possible to see what it was that felt so profound. And then, there are the moments where unknown solidifies as new understanding, shifting the existing foundation from where the unknown can be explores and understood. It's an iterative process, no understanding is ever complete or arrive all once. Consistently returning into the unknown and being deliberate and curious about that unknown is key. Outward or Inward exploration of the unknown. Learning how to facilitate unknown exploration also is key. Oftentimes (not to say always) it requires external influence as what we think always show up within the existing knowledge, understanding and beliefs. We have to be "slapped" outside of that known frame of reference. Also growing comfortable with staying out there, in the unknown, more and more will accelerate frequency and depth of insights. It's inherently challenging by nature, as it's rejecting known to allow letting in what's new. Since it's an iterative process it needs dipping toes into, over and over, and with time conceptual understanding will be built, and over time conceptual understanding will to degrees manifest into ones being, ever shifting who we experience ourself as being.

Yes and... These stages being the development of the complexity of sense making that allows for holding on to increasing complexity and taking in increasing complex compositions with increasing number variables - and multiple and contradictory perspectives. Awakening etc isn't on the same axis/scale, it's rather about the point of reference from which things are being observed. You can shift that point of reference independently from the level of complexity by which you make sense of what you observe. The complexity goes into the sense making within the "illusion", while the point of reference shifts how deep into or out of the "illusion" you observe what's there. Thus, you can be an awakened "fool", no need for cognitive complexity at all. Pursuing cognitive developmental stages, as many here will have first hand experience of, likely and quite possibly will intersect with developing shifts in that point of reference as well.

Brilliant experiment, great first step, the second step is to free yourself from the limiting beliefs related to "Trump" - they will anchor you. No need being for or against but to navigate what's here independently. And being aware of voices that want to limit what's possible for yourself, such as this.

@Hardkill You need to stop these narratives and focus on what's in your sphere of control. Let's assume there is a level of truth in what you fear, you still need to recognize that the absolute majority of what you experience including that fear itself is sourced by the very thing that generates the narratives, unquestionable truths and thoughts that occur to you. You are literally creating you own personal hell, which you reflect onto here. That hell is yours, it's not objectively true. The one thing you can do is to inquire into that hell and become aware of you creating hell yourself. Only when you stop leaning on external justification and blame can you own up to the internal generation of your own reality. I'm sure you are wanting actualization - well, actualization require hardship and it's through hardship within those personal hell experiences we create for ourself that we cn grow and transcend the former sense of self. Meaning, as long as you lean on Trump "out there", you are effectively stuck on your internal journey. You wouldn't write here if you wanted to be stuck, there are better places for spewing out fear into the ether. You can be deliberate about switching your focus from the outer world experience towards a non-judgemental inner world observation. "There is no Trump"

Suffering is relative and hell only exist as a personal manifestation that will make it perfectly "hell". @jacknine119 You haven't indicated what kind of problems this involves, so it could be as simple as them serving you pasta without mindfulness Ketchup. It does matter as some abuse is absolutely untolerable and much else is made up within your own mind based on how well or poorly you self-manage thought and emotions. Lots of people are going to say that you should distance yourself and whatnot and oftentimes projecting their own history onto those who ask. First thing you should do, unless it's absolutely abuse which you indicate it is not, it to try assess soberly and as objectively as you can while also questioning how you could be the problem in terms of intolerance and unwarranted expectations placed on some other person - over whom you do not have control or authority to change. You can only change yourself, and others might choose to change as a response.

It really is not, it's about more or less effective forward movement in terms of evolution and understanding how one's actions may or may not have the effects you might consider. For example, the dems losing the election is going to be focusing on the republicans that are "stupid" enough to vote for Trump rather than dems being self-reflective around that which is not resonating or pushing away the majority of the population. Some leftist politician in Sweden got caught on camera a number of years ago saying "it's not that we're wrong, it's just that the others haven't understood that we're right.. yet" Very arrogant and self-righteous stance, where themselves being wrong is an impossibility. Note that they can be wrong at the same time as the opposition also is wrong. Exceptionally pushing for evolution is going to generate exceptional push-back - and - this will generate a flow back and forth between resistance, perceived regression, and again forward movement, while overall movement still remains being forward. In the micro something may be seen as regression but it might just be the essential component for a more healthy longer term evolution. There's a tention between polairities that together tightly link to and influence evolution itself. It's part of, not something unwanted. Another option is to focus on understanding you audience and meeting people with politics that is more broadly acceptable change, rather than spearhead change that a system isn't ready to accept. But politics and society in whole isn't at a point where this is possible other than in more constructive subsets, and around some concerns. Are the stupid ones those that resist out of fear of change, or those that force change around which there is not widely spread maturity to accept more so than embrace fully. The only "stupid" act here would be to categorize the other polarity as being "stupid" deminishing "them" to some "dismissable nothing". Alot of this is done out of self-righteousness, allowing ones dogma not to see that there are multiple perspectives and they can all be true at once, as seen from different vantage points. In a sense Trump is a manifestation created by the audience and not the other way around. Trump may be an opportunist for his own reasons but he as a possibility to be president is generated by the people, as a response towards something. Examine that something, discard the toxic components of that something, envolve the aspect that hold potential - adjust and adapt. You can't turn this around towards the Trump/reps simply because fear wins when grounds get shakey, and Trump uses this to gain power. Conservatives and progressives cannot employ the same strategies, success are fundamentally different and calls for different strategies. (Im not evaluating the nature of power, just looking at this from a structure point of view) Much like this, people use similar power plays e.g. here and Leo is historically a player of power and arrogance, where attack is valid without substance, and it shaped his trusted following.

@Spiritual Warrior Have you noticed that some things that you might know you should do don't really appear as a choice to begin with. When you speak intention you feel it, the inauthenticity of the words, the lack of integrity in those moments. Such things that remain "shoulds" until a great number of factors align in such a way that you suddenly occur as wanting and willing to choose - if ever. For example, the fitness you mention it might be so grounded within your experience so that one day you occur as someone that chooses to get fit or remain fit. You manifest as someone that does fitness. The choice being a maskerade. For many that fitness choice remains unreachable, not really being a choice as it hasn't occurred as an actual choice that can be actioned. In a way destined to fail. The choice being an illusion. Pure will isn't enough, there's more to it. I'm sure you have some things that you struggle with staying true to. We all do. Those secondary choices do play in, or continuous influences that move in mysterious ways. One act of influencing may shift something else and at one point choice has shifted to not be really being an effort to begin with. Occur as "ready" and only when time is ripe. What we occur as, is much an amalgamation of ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, but also others, we occur differently depending on who is near and when, and other circumstances/situations as well as the environment. Simple all variables that feed into our sensations and perceptions. Being in tune with these forces is powerful, as that which we occur as is fleeting, and the windows of possibility of flowing with what's indicated in that moment, can be easily stepped into when it's there, but destined to be a struggle or fail when forced into. This is something I've played around with for a number of years now.

@r0ckyreed Mind wants for make out enlightenment/truth realization and awakening to the illusion as something extraordinary - which it is not. It's the most obvious and plain thing imaginable. Yet mind not yet seeing it makes up bedtime stories that will keep you fast asleep within the dream. Mediation can be a tool, but also might not. Contemplation can be a tool, but also it might not. A divorce could equally be a powerful tool, or a rejection or some sort, or an unexpected death, or some other seemingly random event that spins you off into a depression. Key is to have things/sense of self unravel in a certain way. You can't choose this, but you can practice things in certain ways so that you help yourself loose the tight hold of the illusion you're stuck within. See if it gets a grip and things start unraveling. Meditation can be the tool that lowers the noise to signal ratio so that contemplation around the right questions become more clear and powerful. Same with all of these things or tools that can serve awakening and later possibly enlightenment, if they become vessels moving you in the right direction. If you just use them and they run in any direction it's likely just a waste of time. You mention drugs that don't get most people anywhere, same thing, vessels. Equally, you don't have to leverage any of them. It might just unravel without choice or awareness of what's going on / where it's heading - and you might just become aware that your entire life has been a journey in that direction, after the fact. Meditation feels good though so why not, even if you gets you nowhere but pleasent consciousness states. Does that make it false? No, just incomplete within something that is far more complex than a simple practice. Distinction: complicated, hard to learn but reproducible once you've developed a blueprint - complex, non-reproducible and dependent on many variables that constantly change and vary between e.g. different people, situations and even points in time.

@Something Funny Just wear confidence, the clothes don't matter at all, and interestingly when worn with confidence anything goes. Shoes look comfy. The problem is likely that you care too much about what others think, manifesting in, e.g. asking this here.

Thus denying yourself being powerful, creating a stigma around it, likely experiencing shame and guilt when needing to be assertive. You denying yourself to be assertive, choosing words like you did here, "estimate how rude I am allowed to be", when the aim isn't at all about being rude, that'd be a different kind of shadow if you went around and were an arrogant, rude asshole to people, and it holding you back in some way. This being the opposite, about powerfully asserting that which prevent things to overstep your inner or outer boundaries, and push back. Notice how the external boundaries in this case is about others overstepping into your space, you selling yourself short, not standing up to your beliefs and values and so on. But be equally careful about you yourself overstepping your inner boundaries, deminishong your ourself with the result of your authentic self operating from a progressively shrinking space, rather than creating plenty of space for your self-expression and normalizing that.

@caspex How do you make up this lack of integration of red/red shadow aspects show up in your life? Some general things to engage with: Engage in conflict where you otherwise would stand back and selling yourself short. Set boundaries powerfully, Inwardly and outwardly. Give yourself a voice, and speak up your authentic mind without fear. Say NO when that's what you intuit, respecting self over risking letting others expectations down. Practice daily so that you can engage with your powerful self with ease. Don't confuse being powerful with being forceful or engaging with some kind of aggression. Doing this will build self-esteem, being authentic and putting who you really are on display for others to engage with.

@Spiritual Warfare It's quite natural to wanting to create new categories without paying attention to the increase of categories. The more completely specified something is, the more excluded grows that which is yet to be included. Depending on where the drive to uphold new categories is, a favorism or preference typically emerges within such systems, having some adverse systemic impact. Albeit, while might not be explicitly saying that the new categories are better, it can be deeming old categories less prominent than the newer/newest category/-ies. If that's gender, race or otherwise, it's not a direction where we should move towards, and what we're seeing now is one example where the progressive take something fundamentally well-meant, and spins it out of control into something toxic and thus unsustainable. Rather we need the opposite direction, where categories matter less and less until not important at all other than from a strict biological point of view (e.g. medical) Unity will prevail over categorization over time, it's mostly a matter of time scale. This does by no means imply that people are not free to have individual self-expression, it's the opposite, but rather that it not shaping systemic factors based on an individual need to be acknowledged within a system. Singling out based on individual self-expression should never happen, which goes both directions, not to be criticized or repressed, nor requiring special treatment from others or systemically so. The broader biological categories are not self-expressions. It doesn't make sense for example to have mixed sex changing rooms/showers based on this, while it would make sense to have isolated dressing rooms/shower stalls to protect the integrity of the variety of individual self-expressions. If ones quirk is that others should consume ones own self-expression, likely rooted in a need attention, that's an individual responsibility to keep in check, it's not up to the system to accommodate for. These, along with many other similar phenomena, I make up are speed-bumps in evolution: progressiveness running unchecked as healthy evolution is not paid attention to. It's fascinating how few can have so high impact on a human system far beyond what the represention deems warranted. Few can be loud, and fear can allow loud voices. That's just how it typically goes. With other words, rather than ending up creating hundreds of categories as a means to accommodate for that which only imagination is the limit, minimize categories around absolute need and around absolute minimum use-cases - and - other than that look for using broader categories such as "humans". No self-expression should be persecuted by others. No self-expression should require others attention or accommodation in order to build own self-justification, self-esteem or self-worth.

@Spiritual Warfare Sorry, I edited when you posted so I moved part of the text to a new post and now it's kind of messed up. It is what it is

@Spiritual Warfare Yes, you are experiencing, what you are experiencing isn't verifiably true, as it's a subjective interpretation bound to the dream world. You know this from own experience, for example emotional maturity changes how you emotionally experience the same events today compared with say years ago. The dream narrative keeps evolving. You could ask, "why do you share this, isn't this in itself a concept?" and the answer is yes. It is a tool within the dream state that provides a disruption to other concepts that present a more complex trap than a simple one that will be easier to let go after you've accepted it and what else is there to do in here...

Yes, for navigation within this dream of ours, concepts and perspectives are tools that can serve some dream-bound purpose. They should be consciously held as entertainment within that dream navigation, not as truth. And certainly not be mixed up with tools for breaking free from the dream - or - to pass through the gateless gate. The question then becomes, are they means within the dream state? Outside of the dream state there's nothing there except that experience of experiencing / consciousness and it carries no preference or flavor. That's the stuff of the dream bound ego. The trap is that the more compelling concept you manufacture, the more locked down within that belief you become, while the path forward is dropping the belief paradigm alltogether.

@Spiritual Warfare That's like saying, I know that I make believe, but it's important to keep make believing to understand what's not knowable. In a way, breaking free from the dream only to dream up a new more entrapping dream. Since this is inherently unknowable, it will remain a newfounded illusion. We can have peak experiences, temporary consciousness states that may feel as real as could be, but ultimately it falls into the same trap, mind making up illusions for no other reason than to be let go of. It is a trap where you can stay spending forever getting lost in conceptualization. As much fun as it can be - albeit can be helpful to some degree to unfold the journey towards that end of conceptualization, towards unknowing - it's ultimately just distraction.

Well, it does. As long as we're caught up in conceptualization, there's a need for an ever more complex concept. No concept is going to be able to describe what is attempted to be conceptualized - as it's inherently unknownable. The path ends with the ending of conceptualization. The only thing verifiable/knowable is the experience of experiencing / consciousness, everything else is happening within experience / consciousness, no matter how compelling you might make that concept, it's still make-believe. That is where the search ends, where all questions dissolve.