r0ckyreed

The Force/Truth doesn’t hate. It just is. Reality is absolutely neutral and doesn’t care. The whole human race can die and Truth won’t bat an eye. There is no such thing as God’s Judgment because to judge is to be in the illusion of ego, selfishness, and duality. The True nature of reality is completely unbiased.

Decide to become a leader and become original. God is your guru.

There is an interesting paradox around satisfaction that can be hard to unravel. On the one hand, satisfaction as in being content with the present moment as it is, is absolutely essential. But too much satisfaction can be dangerous in that you can easily become complacent with your life as it is such that there is no growth. I mean if you are completely satisfied with your life and development as it is right now, then it will be very hard for you to grow. We all type words just about everyday, but some people have hit a plateau. In the book Mastery, this stage I am referring to is called the hacker stage. The hacker stage is where you are satisfied with where you are and have no desire to improve. I have received some hacker stage vibes from mainstream Buddhist/Taoist spirituality. I don't think I am alone. The Buddha by nature tells you to not be attached and stop fearing and desiring things and you won't suffer. But what followers of this philosophy may not understand is that sukkha and dukkha go full circle. The sukkha to its extreme becomes dukkha and dukkha to its extreme can become sukkha. Sukkha = satisfaction and dukkha = dissatisfaction. Growth requires getting outside of comfort zone. Growth requires going against complacency. We have emotions for a reason. The downsides of certain happiness philosophies such as Buddhism, Jediism, Taoism, etc. is that they are filled with toxic positivity. This means that these philosophies tend to look down upon negative emotions and only strive to have peaceful emotions. As a result, emotions like fear, desire, and anger can become suppressed and bypassed. The point is to use the strengths from fear, desire, satisfaction/unsatisfaction, anger, etc. to fuel your growth. If you are satisfied with your health right now, how will you improve your health? The reason why my typing (words per minute) has been the same since high school is because I am satisfied with where you are and have no desire to improve. Many people fail to reach their fullest potentials in life because of this satisfactory complacency. However, the paradox I am presenting here is to about striking a balance between having an overall satisfaction of reality, the present moment, and consciousness (i.e., falling in love with life), and to be dissatisfied with laziness, mediocrity, complacency, etc. Now, there is nothing wrong with laziness, mediocrity, or complacency absolutely. It all depends on what you want. If you are like me, you value growth and living up to your fullest potential. We all start at level 1. What is the highest level you want to reach? My answer (because of my own true nature) is infinity. I want to continue to grow at reading, writing, contemplating, meditating, health, business, etc. until I die. I don't want to have an end point. People often complain of Jason Capital, Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett and other millionaires for continuing to grow their business and making money. They are like "dude, just retire, and stop chasing money!" But what you fail to understand if you argue that point is that they are aware of the satisfaction zone and nobody with a strong life purpose will give it up so easily nor trade it for comfort. The idea of retirement is like a form of death and people like Warren Buffett and others may be exactly afraid of that and that is totally reasonable. Your life purpose is central to your life and it is something that you continue to refine and improve across your entire life. There is no finish line. Life purpose isn't just about your career, it is your lifestyle and grounding purpose. It all starts with an overall satisfaction with life, and a desire to be disciplined. The paradox can be resolved by if you love yourself completely and are completely satisfied with life as it is, then you will want nothing more than to continue to grow and improve because your infinite nature knows that you are not confined to one level in life. Confining yourself to one level in life will put you in conflict with your infinite nature. What do you think about this paradox? How do you come to terms with it? In what areas are you so satisfied that you are satisfied with plateauing? For me this is my typing speed, math skills, piano playing, walking, driving, etc. How can you improve if you are satisfied with plateauing? Of course we spend most of our lives on the plateau, so it is essential to be satisfied with where we are to a point, but it comes to be a danger when satisfaction limits your growth. Even though it is a movie, Rocky Balboa got to where he was because of his immense desire to improve and his extreme dissatisfaction with his mediocre lifestyle. It was only in Rocky III that we see the costs of being satisfied -- you can lose your edge and stunt your growth. For more on the topic, I made a post in the past called "If you are satisfied, then you are doing it wrong."

Wow! So glad that was helpful for you! Yes, we need to challenge ourselves if we are going to grow. That is one of the main reasons we get stuck in life. Our minds don’t like challenges and would rather do what is known and comfortable. This applies to anything whether it is your chess tactics, exercise, reading, or even your meditation practice. It is important to not just go through the motions. There is no mindfulness in going through the motions. Wishing no you well!

Glad that was helpful! Glad to be of service! The simplest way to say it is to love and honor your own personal growth while also loving who you are now. God didn’t have to create but God did. The same applies to us. We don’t have to create or grow, but we do because it is our nature to.

No. You just have to write one.

Consciousness is seeing through all eyes. There is no duality.

All dualities must collapse. Spirituality = Science

I want to steel man science. I feel like a lot of people take Leo's critique of science without actually thinking about it for themselves. One of the dangers of dismissing science as "a human dream" or whatever seems like a straw man and is no different logically than a religious nut dismissing science. I feel like that is a serious trap. When we critique science, we are merely explaining its limitations. But I am going to argue that there are no limitations to science. To quote Ms. Grant from Life is Strange Episode 4: "Nothing beyond science except for our lack of knowledge. We may never know why, but that doesn't change reality." Science is merely about truth and understanding. However, I do understand Leo's critiques in that mainstream science is narrow and is full of biases. But what people may not consider is that even doing psychedelics is a form of science. Why are we accepting the mainstream cultural definition of what science is? If mainstream views science in a narrow way, we should be showing them more advanced ways of doing science. The wrong approach is associate all of science with mainstream science. I truly am convinced that there is nothing beyond science but our lack of knowledge. Reality exists as it is whether or not we agree with it. I am not going to pretend like I know anything, but anything we say is "beyond or transcends" science is within science in the same way that you might argue that whatever is beyond consciousness is inside of consciousness. We may not be aware or know much about our reality. But there is even a science to voodoo, witchcraft, potion making, cooking, spirituality, psychedelics, math, meditation, religion, psychology, parapsychology, awakening, etc. Nothing is beyond science but our lack of knowledge. If you think science is a dream, then I could also say that awakening is a dream. I even question whether awakening is even possible or if it is just another dream within the dream. Reality to me is too profound to be known or understood. What even is the difference between an awakening and an insight? It seems like people who say they have had an awakening are really meaning that they have had an insight. You can have an infinite amount of insights. But I doubt that total awakening is even possible. If reality is infinite, then that means that it will always been infinitely mysterious and you can never fully awaken to it. We have so much finite time in this form. The part can never grasp the whole. Awakening is an illusion but we can do the best we can. What else is there to do?

Ever heard of chaos theory? How the hell would you know that nothing is random?

By our nature, to survive is to assume that there is a world that we are in. All beings have this fundamental assumption in an external world whether they are aware of it or not.

How do we know the patient exists and can see? @spiritual memes Gotcha. I was referring to epistemological solipsism. Sorry I didn't make that clear from the start. Here is an interesting article for you all: https://qz.com/866352/scientists-say-your-mind-isnt-confined-to-your-brain-or-even-your-body

Deep down. We are all epistemological solipsists. We cannot know for certain anything existing outside of consciousness. Our epistemology already limits us to all being solipsists. Of course, you can deny you are a solipsist, but the reality is that you can't know anything outside of your consciousness, which makes us all solipsists. We cannot know if we are dreaming or not right now with absolute certainty. Anything else like dualism, physicalism, idealism, etc. is all just a game you are playing. The truth is that I can only know that consciousness exists and nothing else. If you exist, then I assume that your epistemology is similar to mine. So actually, I cannot state the claim I made in my second sentence because I do not know that. But I assume you exist and assume that your consciousness works like mine.

All analogies are limited. Everything depends on something else. But there must be a point in which there is something that doesn't depend on anything. A game depends on a console and tv to exist. There is no GTA V without a TV and game console. There is no picture without a camera. There is no consciousness without a brain. There is no brain without an Earth, star, universe etc. There has to be a point in which there is a foundational energy or Force like in Star Wars that holds everything together and keeps it all in balance. All dualities are contained within The Force even the duality between the material and immaterial. If my Consciousness is God, then why is it dependent on food, water, brain, biology, genes, etc.? Of course I am perceiving all of these within consciousness and can never perceive their true absolute nature. Edit: Please note that I am agnostic about all of this stuff. I am merely trying to steel man the materialists position. I feel like we get a lot of straw mans of the materialist worldview from Leo. I am merely trying to present the best arguments for that worldview which I think I have done so already. My ultimate position is that I don't know anything except that consciousness exists. Maybe consciousness is an illusion and produced by brains and nervous system, but I cannot doubt the fact that consciousness appears to exist. I am aware of this sentence so that presupposes that I am conscious of it. But I could be totally wrong in assuming that my conscious experience exists independently of the world of phenomenon.

Well. If Solipsism is true, the person does not have conscious experience and is like a robot. They have no qualia. Their brain is like the operating system that produces the illusion of conscious experience. I cannot know for certain whether other people have consciousness. Everything I know about another being is objectified. An animal is an object in my consciousness. In my subjective experience, I am the only subject there is. But I seriously doubt that I am the only subject. If you are actually conscious right now and are not just some philosophical zombie or dream character of mine, then I could never possibly know, but that doesn't mean that metaphysical solipsism is true. Epistemological solipsism is the case, but metaphysical solipsism is still a big question mark. There are so many limits to my epistemology that I am always limited to my own point of view.

Without the camera, there is no picture. Without the brain, there is no consciousness. Why are humans conscious and intelligent whereas an amoeba and tree aren’t at least to our degree? It has to do with the organization of the brain. The brain is made out of The Force or God or Nature or whatever. If the brain isn’t the originator of consciousness, then why is it that we can make change peoples consciousness through a change in their brain? I can poke your arm and you would feel pain. But if I poke your brain, you would no longer be “you.” But we don’t just stop at the brain. You are the entire Universe. The entire universe or God or Force has created the brain and subjectivity/ego. Without a brain, sun, plants, oxygen, etc. there is just empty Force Consciousness. What really baffles my mind is how is there life at all? Why is my couch considered lifeless whereas a plant is considered to be life. Our brain is constantly making our life movie. Our memory and brain are linked together in the same way that a camera and picture are. Camera and picture are one. The brain and consciousness are also one. Brain = Consciousness.

I could also use my phone camera and take a picture of it in the mirror. The image of my phone is in the picture and yet was the source of the image. How do we know the brain doesn’t work like that? I will add another perspective that with consciousness it seems different because how can anything you see (an object) be the source of the subject?

Where did you get that worksheet from? I didn’t know there were worksheets for each video! That is too cool!

Experience = Consciousness!!!

Is change/impermanence an illusion? My thoughts prior to reading Parmenides: Given that the past and future are imaginary and only the Now exists, it follows that change is an illusion since there can be no change without time. And there can be no change without Truth. If Truth is unchanging, then change ultimately is not true. Change is an appearance of that which is unchanging. But appearances are content within Truth. The boundary between changing and unchanging doesn't exist. Everything is Unchanging because Everything is Truth. If the Truth can change, then the Truth has not always been. But the Truth by definition is eternal and unchanging. If the Truth can change, then Truth is not an Absolute since what used to be the Absolute is no longer the Absolute; hence, it is a self-defeating. Truth is unchanging by its nature. That is why Truth is more fundamental than fact. All that appears to be changing is the Unchanging. Change is imaginary and is ultimately relative and not Absolute Truth. Parmenides thoughts on change: Parmenides gives the argument that if something exists, then it has always existed and always will be. He states that the appearance of change is an illusion and we are misled by our senses. Our mind is constructing change. Parmenides also argues that everything is one. Since the Universe is one thing, that means that all differences and distinctions are arbitrary such as the distinction between the changing and the unchanging. Differences in time are also an illusion according to Parmenides since the Universe is One and Time is always Now. All of history is like a movie all contained on The One DVD. The appearance of movement is an illusion. It is just one impression and one occurrence. The mind is imagining movement and frames. Zeno's paradox - To get from point A to point B presupposes that you must go through an infinite number of tasks in finite time. To get to point B, you must reach half of the way, then 1/4, then 1/16, then 1/32, then 1/100, and this goes all the way to infinity such that you never actually reach point B. Point B is only imagined. You are always Here! You are never There and you never get There. Here is all you can be. Reason tells us that change is an illusion but our senses seem to tell us that change is possible. What are your thoughts on impermanence being an illusion? Given your understanding of Buddhism and the concept of anicca (impermanence) and the Eternal Now, how would you resolve this paradox? How can Now be unchanging/eternal and yet also be impermanent? Maybe it is like I suggested, impermanence is relative to the Unchanging Absolute?

But change is an illusion since time is an illusion. Truth is unchanging by its nature. See my recent post on Why Impermanence Is An Illusion? for more on that. Edit: If other minds don't exist and external reality does not exist, then it is not too difficult to further state that change, location, travel, and time don't exist.

What are your top three? I like the techniques you listed there. Can you tell me a little bit more about them and where you got them from? my top three are 1. Actuality 2. Solipsism, and 3. Contemplation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/13/tik-tok-utah-china/ I am not so sure what to think about the issue anymore. It gets complex because where is the line between safety and tyranny? People should have some freedoms. If alcohol and weed are legal, then why make TikTok illegal? You would need to apply the same logic across the board and that would look tyrannical.

Isn’t impermanence relative though? I thought Truth was unchanging by its nature? How is change Absolute? Parmenides says that impermanence is an illusion and lays out an interesting argument that appearances are relative and can easily deceive us. Consciousness is Truth and appearances are relative you could say. What do you think?