r0ckyreed

I think I got it now. Happiness is being satisfied of the present moment and suffering is being dissatisfied with the present moment, desiring something that is other than the present moment. The Buddha wasn’t arguing against all desire but of a specific unhealthy kind that leads to attachment which leads to suffering?? To me, satisfaction is the acceptance of reality as it is. In the state of satisfaction, our desires are more focused on the here and now. Instead of dreaming of a fantasy in the future, desire in the state of satisfaction could be the desire to do nothing but to bask in the beauty of meditation. Desire could be just to sit peacefully and fully taking in sensations. The energy of desire is in the present moment. Not sure what that means yet. Looking back at my life, everything I have done started with a will, with a desire. But desire is paradoxical because sometimes the act of letting go of something can get you what you truly want. I can be in my own way.

I would say that more specifically ignorance or selfishness is at the root of suffering. People can be misguided and ignorant about what they really want. And they can spend years climbing the wrong mountain. Not all roads lead to nirvana. Some roads lead to peaks and some to valleys. I think it is about raising consciousness to love and see the magic in reality and to not be attached to outcome but engaged in the moment. But to raise consciousness has to start with a desire and takes discipline. Without desire, where can we go? Do we really want to escape suffering and life, or do we want to learn how to love and embrace it such that it no longer has same affect? This goes to my next questions: Can you truly be free from desire and still live? Can you really surrender what you truly desire? What does it even mean to surrender your life and transcend survival? Can you really transcend survival? What would that look like? Would you truly want to only experience one emotion of happiness and peace or be able to experience the full range of emotions more consciously? This reminds of The Dark Knight Rises. Batman says he doesn’t fear death which is why he failed at climbing his way to freedom. He was then advised to invite fear back into his life and use it to give him the strength to make the climb. For the longest time, I thought that I wanted to become fearless and only experience peace/happiness like a Jedi detaching from all negative emotions, but I realized that I would rather have courage to experience the range of emotion more consciously. Courage isn’t the absence of emotion, but it is rather the embracement of emotion to take action. What do you think? Thanks!

Absolute Truth is what reality is and what exists always. God is the ultimate reality and what exists always. Truth and God are most fundamental. There is no difference. Now, if you are talking about the finite god that people imagine, then there would be a difference. The God of religion isn’t the same as the God of Absolute Reality. Religious people can easily confuse their ideas and beliefs for reality. This is called confusing map for territory.

Now, contemplate the role logic and intuition play in your life. You can start by reading and contemplating the questions I laid out in my first post on here or come up with your own. Yeah. I kind of noticed the circularity of this as well. This is kinda like the difference between implicit vs. explicit understanding. People who are more rational tend to care more about the details, steps, and chain of reasoning. This can be from the bottom-up or top-down. This can be known as inductive vs. deductive reasoning. It sounds like you are talking more about deductive reasoning, which is when you start with general idea and work backwards through the chain to specific steps. It is still highly logical, but it shows you how thin the line can be between intuition and logic. Ultimately, there is no such distinction. On the testing site, it says ability is related to your personality and engagement is your preference in making decisions. Your results may suggest that you are a highly rational person both in personality and in preference in decision-making. No test though is absolute truth. Lol. That would be nice. I guess developed introspection skill is the best thing you got to that. I agree. Intuition is the connection to our higher mind or subconscious mind. Logic is how we can make sense of it and process it. If you use both, which would you say you use more of? I like that. Intuition doesn’t need to depend it’s positions. Can you think of any other ways to tell the difference? I think dogmatic people or prejudiced people could say the same thing about intuition. Are they really using their intuition or are they just acting out of belief? How do we tell the difference between intuition, fear, belief, automatic thoughts, etc.? I guess we can’t explicate the implicit. But this is something interesting to me is how can we know we are following intuition or just being influenced by something. For instance, you may have a feeling to go to a certain place and you think it was your intuition, but you fail to realize that you were suggested and influenced by an advertisement. You get what I’m trying to say? How can we know if our intuition is really authentic or if we are subconsciously influenced by external sources to make a choice? That’s a good point. In their efforts to explicate the inexplicable, you could say they modified the meanings of original teachings. @Ulax I sincerely appreciate your post, time, and insights. I just read it all and will be contemplating all of that.

Nice. Interesting results. What are your thoughts on my questions. What questions do you have about the nature and interplay of logic and intuition?

Don’t rush through the magic of learning! I would much rather you solidly implement one book on that list into your life than to read all the books on that list with no application to your life. The key to good notes is to write down specifically how your behavior will change from reading the books. No need to write down redundant info. Just write down what you need to do differently than you are now.

I had a similar experience when I was around 8-9 years old. But I wasn’t terrorized by solipsism. Having the realization now vs. entertaining the idea, I still feel much happiness and love. Why are people so terrorized by solipsism? Is it designed like that so that God avoids waking up? If people told me about how terrible and horrifying a restaurant is, I probably wouldn’t go to it after many people telling me that. Ever since realizing that I am you, I feel like I couldn’t be any more connected to life.

I’m an introvert. I listen to who inspires me, and I spend time contemplating and basking in the beauty and magic of my solipsistic field.

From my experience, I notice that hardly anybody talks about the paranormal and psychic abilities, especially on this forum. I am interested in exploring my mind and gifts to the fullest. I believe we all have psychic gifts, it is just that not all of us have accessed them. I am wondering if anyone has experience with unlocking their psychic gifts or has an resources or books on the subject? I have already read The Holographic Universe, which has been an inspiration to me. I am a magician, but I would also like to enhance my psychic powers. I remember that one time, I dreamed of a conversation and it happened just like I dreamt it. I also remember being able to foresee what was going to happen as well. I think it is call connected to the power of intuition, but I would like to access my gifts more. Unfortunately, I have noticed that as I have gotten older, I am become more logical and thus out of tune with my gifts, intuition, and dreams. This is a flaw of the materialist paradigm. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

I wish to be more connected with myself and reality. We are all gonna die, but to me, the worst thing for me would be to live my life never tapping into the full potential of my gifts and dreams, etc. I guess the first step to accessing these gifts is to deconstruct negative beliefs/fears and the materialist paradigm beliefs.

1. I don’t want to depend on a substance to be access my gifts. 2. I have no desire to use substances right now. And it’s not legal where I live. 3. I want to be able to use my psychic gifts free in any setting/environment. 4. Drug use robs the joy and fun out of the process for me. If spirituality is a marathon and if psychedelics are using artificial intelligent legs or a car, then I would feel cheated. I have always felt that if I couldn’t have a mystical experience without drugs, then my mystical experience is not strong enough. The highest mystical experience and highest thing I think is to be able to have a mystical and magical experience with mundane, sober consciousness. If you can’t see God without drugs, then you don’t know what God is. That’s my thoughts on that because God is here and now, always. No need for drugs when you can bypass that middleman. 5. I value my mind. My mind is most important to me. 6. I want to directly tap into the source of my psychic gifts at will and bypass secondary things like drugs or crystals or whatever. I just wanna use my mind. Those are all the reason I have right now.

What’s wrong with mental masturbation? When you get the orgasm, you will appreciate the mental masturbation. Cool stuff Greenwoods.

Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it is right. You could say the same thing about human trafficking, DUIs, substance use, rioting, slavery, racism, or anything else. The morality of it seems more convincing when others are doing it with you. The ego-mind uses other to rationalize its selfish positions. Without a sense of other, it is harder for you to rationalize stealing online art.

Take a break. I'm not sure if this is true, but I can imagine that having your vision locked in close range for long periods of time could cause detrimental effects. You want to also look away out in the distance to engage your long range vision as well. EDIT: Actuality is here right now. You don't have to strictly look at your hand. Just be present in the now. Actuality is meditation and is being in the present moment.

Depends on your intention of the practice. What do you really want to get out of your visualization? What is the intention you are setting for it? This is up for you to decide if you think it is worth writing them down. If I had some golden insights and ideas that outweighed my initial intentions, I may write them down as the insights are running through me. This is one of the reasons why it is hard for me to meditate. But for me, I think it is worth it. However, I am trying to go to the next level and working on trying to let go and detach from me wanting to engage in my creative thoughts. When you visualize, it is important to set an intention or question to focus on. Sometimes you can be playful and explore your imagination. Your visualization can be for insight, creativity, relaxation, identifying limiting beliefs, exploring trauma/shadow work, overcoming fear, etc. Sometimes, you can train your mind to let go of the ideas and continue the visualization. This helps you train your memory, as opposed to being reliant on remembering through writing it down. Keeping your focus solely on the visualization can help train other parts of your mind. If you keep going off and on then your practice will be weak. So it is kind of a trade off, and you are the judge of what is most important to you. EDIT: I would also note that you may miss out on an even deeper realization if you disengage from the visualization practice to engage with the ideas and insights. It can sometimes be hard to tell if the ideas you get in your practice are the seed or fruit of the insight. The solution can be to experiment with doing both ways to see which strategies work best for you. But whatever you do, follow your highest inspiration.

True Freedom is that everyone gets what they want, and as a result, no one gets what they want.

Good. Go act on that inspiration. Life is paradoxical. You find your greatest treasures in the areas where you never thought they could be. Doesn’t matter right now. All you trying to do is plant seeds and water them with inspiration. They will grow fruit only if you continue to water them. The plant dies when you stop believing in it and giving it love. I hear ya. It is tough. However, there are other ways to use your philosophy skills down the road. Getting work experience wouldn’t be a bad idea. How can you know what you want without knowing what you don’t want? Use early work experiences to figure that out while also making money and building resume. Good idea. What is your plan to stop? Also, it would be interesting to examine your feelings and beliefs more around sex. Use a therapist and a journal. Btw, don’t expect you quitting the porn drug cold turkey. If you can, then great. Sometimes, it takes small, brave baby steps to accomplish your goals. Strive to take one baby step of improvement each day. It is helpful to have an accountability partner or coach because if you have set goals and failed them many times, it is not uncommon to lose integrity with yourself. You gotta slowly build back your integrity with yourself by setting goals you know you can accomplish that day. If you set too many high goals and don’t achieve them, you can imagine what this could do to your self-efficacy. It’s like having a friend who promises and never delivers. If you have such a friend, you will eventually lose trust with them. The same can happen to yourself. Gain back that personal accountability and keep staying hard! This is my last post on this post here. Wish you well.

Best Productivity Hack For Spiritual Entrepreneurs by David Lion https://youtu.be/HDxmILIExeY

I asked David Lion about discipline and here is what he said https://youtu.be/C_p8wo_UV2U This may be the problem. No wonder you procrastinate so much. Your goals that you set seem to be too strict and unrealistic. It is like your trying to run a marathon when you haven’t even ran a mile or even taken the first step. Start small. Work out when you get the inspiration to. Be more Blissiplined instead of disciplined. The energy you approach things matter. What excites and inspires you the most in life right now? Do that. It depends on what it does for you. How does that help and serve you? Does it excite and inspire you to be more of who you are or is it an escape from something? Notice how you feel. Notice the impact it has on your life long term and your beliefs. Where do you think you should start? Start with what inspires you and excites you the most. Nobody can tell you what that is. You have to feel inwards. No amount of logic will help you decipher what you feel most alive about.

Your asking for a logical answer when the answer is actually emotional. I already stated it before. You need to act upon what lights you up the most. If you are inspired by animals, go volunteer and work with animals. If your desire at this moment is to go camping or see a friend, then go do that. When it is your heart it is freedom and when it is your mind it is fear. If the mind is not working with your heart, it is not working for you. Do an experiment where you quiet your mind, listen to your heart, and imagine what desires come into your consciousness.

Yeah. This can happen. You don’t want to complicate things to much. Your trying to conceptualize “work” too much when you need to have a direct experience of it. You are getting lost in your mind with different concepts. You have to see “work” around you and contemplate that. For instance, you may see people “working” and bees and butterflies “working.” Just observe the actual process of what “work” really is then ask more questions about “work.” Work ethic is a code and set of principles for how you use your energy. It is that simple. You don’t need to go into what code and principles are just yet. As long as you can grasp the essence of what work ethic is, you can then ask questions to contemplate deeper. Do animals have a work ethic? What is the importance of work ethic? How can I increase my work ethic? How does it relate to my life purpose? What is the opposite of work ethic? Why am I lazy and procrastinate? What are the obstacles to my work ethic? How is a bee able to have such a strong work ethic? What is the relationship between work ethic and survival? What are the most optimal principles that I could live by to increase the quality of my work/energy? These are a few examples to go around the iceberg, as well as penetrating deep down the iceberg. No. This is you getting lost in your mind. You have to focus on one topic of inquiry at a time. Use the example method I described above. You want to have a direct experience of it. You can always contemplate other topics that come up, such as what is direct experience? But don’t expect all your answers to be conceptual. You want the experience. To know what happiness is you have to experience it. Just defining happiness is not fully contemplating. Hope that helps.

Your own philosophy. Don’t limit yourself to one school of thought. Study all the schools of thought that you can and pick the gems you find resonate with you. Don’t be strictly Buddhist or strictly stoic or hedonist or nihilist or skeptic or solipsist or whatever. Study everything and just be you. Watch Cobra Kai on Netflix. Mr. Miyagi, a karate master, ultimately tells his student, Daniel to live by his own philosophy and make it his own. You have to see the creativity and ingenuity in just being yourself. It is so amazing that we would want to be somebody else other than ourself. Wonder about that. It boils down to finding out what you love most about life and doing that as much as you can.

Yes. You got it. Yes. You got it. Yes! Way to go. Get out of your head for a little bit and into your heart. Go out and have a little bit of fun by yourself. Go to a zoo. Go to a national park. Go to a nearby nature trail or lake or whatever. Feel what it is like to be a kid and have sex with life itself and see what you reproduce. Following your passion for career takes time. In the meantime, give yourself some self-care and feel alive. If you can let yourself go towards your highest excitement, you will have the energy, inspiration, and insights to do what you need to do.

You don’t. You only have today that is guaranteed. What do you want to do today? Focus your heart fully on what you can do today. You are living it. You gotta be clear about what you want. Be a leader of yourself and be a disciple to your heart’s desires. Act on your highest inspiration. Only you can know what that is. Explore why you backslide. You seem to have the answer in that you need a sense of direction. Get out a journal and write down your goals and dreams. If you don’t know them the write down your past dreams or read biographies of others can help. That’s the challenge in life. Ambiguity is part of this journey. You gotta be clear about what is right for you. Life is meaningless, which means that the only right path is the path you wish to lead. It takes time to sort out confusion. Take it baby step at a time. It sounds like you are focusing on the marathon instead of on the step before you. None. You want to be a leader and not a follower. Deconstruct religion. Live by your own principles or you will never be able to follow your own dreams. Live by your own philosophy and not someone else’s. Sounds like myself. It seems like you have fallen into the same trap I did, which is you have “put the cart before the horse.” You have focused on answering existential questions so much that you probably haven’t given your personal survival the same focus. Go on a vision quest and search for these answers. Nobody can tell you want your personal/career holy grail is. Treat your personal life with the same attitude you treat philosophical questions. Edit: I know your future may be filled with a lot of insecurities, but you are not alone. You can be secure in knowing that everyone is insecure. That’s my thoughts on all this. You can take it or leave it. Best wishes.

For me, it is acting from inspiration rather than force/fear/obligation. When you act from your highest desire and inspiration, you are positively motivated to achieve your goal. It’s about going after what you love rather than avoided what you hate. You will find resistance lower significantly if you choose the former. True. But is it done out of love or fear? Be clear on that distinction. Success to me is simply being able to do what you love most.