r0ckyreed

I have been contemplating a lot recently more than meditation. I personally find it easier to contemplate than meditate, and I find more value in contemplating than meditating. I have been contemplating solipsism, thoughts, origin of thoughts, time, free will, determinism, and randomness recently. The first video of Actualized.org's that I ever watched was "Free Will vs. Determinism." I rewatched that video and it seems that the whole free will vs. determinism debate is not as simple as it seems. Both of sides have their issues, and I felt that Leo came from a deterministic point of view in that video. After watching Leo's later videos "Brains do not exist," "Consciousness," etc. I wonder if his stance has changed on the issue. Here are some of the strengths and limitations of each of the theories that I have noticed: Determinism I realized that since time is an illusion and materialism is an illusion, that also means that determinism is also an illusion since determinism seems to assume that the Newtonian clockwork universe paradigm is true. The thing determinism gets correct is that there is an order to reality. However, what I think it gets wrong is that it assumes that everything can be predicted if we know the causes behind it (e.g., the first domino will knock down the second one, etc.). Reality is more complex than this linear cause and effect process. Determinism may exist in the relative domain, but may not be true in the absolute sense. Free Will Free will is an illusion only because it assumes that the ego is the one in control. In the Absolute sense, I have realized that God, the no-self, has free will. However, free will seems to completely lose its meaning if there is no thing that is controlling something else, hence a duality between a subject controlling an object. Randomness or Spontaneity Randomness or spontaneity has been something of interest in my contemplations. When thinking about what thoughts are, their nature, and origin, I cannot help but notice that thoughts appear out of complete nowhere and are sometimes completely random and out of the blue. Sometimes, I will sit in my room and meditate and I will have thoughts come to me completely randomly, out of the blue, with no external cause. I also noticed that memories and events that we may have forgotten can come back to us in a seemingly spontaneous manner. What randomness theory gets right seems to be that "things just happen" and appear spontaneously with no cause and effect. What randomness theory seems to get wrong is that it assumes that everything in the universe is random and up to chance. However, it seems to me that everything in the universe is absolutely ordered in the sense that what appears to be "chaos" or "randomness" is ordered and structured at a higher level of consciousness. Maybe the thoughts that appear to be random are completely ordered or deterministic at a higher level? Conclusion All in all, I think all the theories seem to contain slivers of truth to them. Thoughts happen spontaneously the relative level, but they are highly ordered at the Absolute level. Determinism seems to assume in a clockwork universe. If reality is a giant mind, then free will seems to be true at the absolute level but not at the relative level, since the ego is a mirage (e.g., The mind of God can think and imagine anything it wants, but the human mind cannot). What do you all think? Thank you! “ My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it. ” --- Ursula K. Le Guin

It’s not about believing. Belief is egos way of clinging to a sense of reality and ideology, to preserve itself. You should doubt everything and contemplate all teachings until you find them to be true or not. Solipsism is this reality. There is only consciousness and nothing is outside of it. Notice that deeply and be present in this moment. It’s like a dream or a video game. All the characters and yourself are programmed to identify with the content of the dream. But in reality it’s all made out of mind stuff and of the same substance. Therefore it’s all one. There are no other separate minds from yours. You are talking to yourself in life the same way you do in your dreams each night. Consider that there is no boundary between dream and reality. Keep questioning this stuff as I am. It’s not about belief. Notice that I and you is all imagined content in the dream. There is no dreamer but rather only dream. Recontextualize your existence as headless. Lose your head and realize you are the entire universe experiencing itself through a human form while also realizing that the entire world is also you.

Here’s my take. Belief is a matter of conviction of whether you are convinced something is true or false. But beliefs go deeper in that some beliefs don’t care about truth and are all about promoting survival, which may lead to faith. Trust is willingness to be vulnerable to a situation or person out of a deep feeling or intuition that the person will honor their word. Faith is similar trust and hope and belief in that it is a belief and hope in something beyond the evidence given. Faith is not a sign of weakness but is a strength. Faith is willingness to believe and hope even if all the logic and evidence do not ignite the path. You use element of faith every day of your life because faith is a dimension of life. Everything revolves around faith or rather it all works cause of faith. “when the mob, the press, and the whole world tell you to move, you plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and say no! You move!” - Captain America

It’s a paradox. To live a meaningful life, you also need to realize the meaningless of life. In the same way that you don’t know what true freedom is until you have it taken away like Frankl did. Frankl’s meaning and freedom came from meaninglessness and imprisonment. For you cannot fully understand one without context of the other. Its not about one perspective of nihilism vs self-actualization. They are both true and there is no problem with that. Meaning comes from meaninglessness. You are free to construct any meaning you want when you realize nihilism is true. If you think God creates the meaning for you, then you aren’t really free to create your own meaning unless you deconstruct beliefs and identities of your old self. You are constructing reality right now. Enjoy it.

I used to believe in objective morality for the longest time in my life. But after studying philosophy and many cultures, what is right and wrong is completely relative. If you look at history, Moral Absolutism or Objectivism was used to justify all sorts of violence. Look at Japanese Americans 1942 or War in Vietnam or The Genocide of Native Americans. All of that came from a Moral Absolutist perspective of that “we are right and they are wrong so we must change their culture and their beliefs cause ours is correct.” Absolutism leads to ethnocentrism naturally because if you think there are right answers to moral questions which are based on cultural perspectives, then you are advocating that some cultures are better or worse than others. But that notion is relative to you and your cultural standards. There is nothing logical about survival or morality. Morality is useful for survival, but that doesn’t mean you can find the correct answers out in the universe. You stated yourself that morality is a mental concept and social construction. If that is true, then the answers to moral questions are always relative to that. The abortion and gun arguments make it clear that relativism is the case even when we agree, relativism is still the case, but it’s confused for objectivism. It all depends on what you value. If you value the rights of a fetus, then abortion is bad. If you value rights of adult humans to have freedom to make their own choices, then right to abortion is good. Who is right? Nobody. It is perspective. You gotta look at where you are drawing these lines in reality and notice that all lines are relative. See my post on relativism and continue to study relativism. Relativism accounts for multiple perspectives and considers others cultures whereas absolutism demonizes cultural practices. This video also made me question and deconstruct my absolutism

This is for people to share their own experiences in their process of Spiritual Autolysis, which is a way to annihilate the ego. Enlightenment is all about Truth-realization, by becoming less false and less full of shit. If you negate all that is false, only truth remains. For example: “all belief systems are just the stories we create in order to deal with the void. Ego abhors a vacuum, so everybody’s scrambling to create the illusion of something where there’s nothing. Belief systems are simply the devices we use to explain away the unthinkable horror of no-self.” ― Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing In case you don't know, this is how you do Spiritual Autolysis: “Listen! Here’s all you need to know to become enlightened: Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know. That’s it. That’s the whole deal; a complete teaching of enlightenment, a complete practice. If you ever have any questions or problems—no matter what the question or problem is—the answer is always exactly the same: Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true until you know. In other words, go jump off a cliff. Don’t go near the cliff and contemplate jumping off. Don’t read a book about jumping off. Don’t study the art and science of jumping off. Don’t join a support group for jumping off. Don’t write poems about jumping off. Don’t kiss the ass of someone else who jumped off. Just jump.” ― Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing So here's how this process works. Write down what you know for certain, and then tackle that statement and realize that everything you write is false. All thoughts, words, beliefs, and concepts are full of shit. Here's my example: "What is true? What do I know for certain?" 1. I know that I am typing right now. - How do I know that I am typing right now? What is the I? What is typing? The assumption is that my senses are based in reality. How do I know that I am actually typing on Actualized.org? I do not know. I believe!! 2. I am a human being on planet earth that is rotating around a sun. - I assume that I am a human being on an earth that goes around the sun. What is a planet? What is a human? Sun? Rotation? These are all beliefs that I have never verified. If I dream that I am a butterfly, does that mean that I am a butterfly or am I just a butterfly dreaming that it is a human, or neither? 3. I am NOT dreaming right now - How do I know this? Since I am so convinced in my dreams that when I wake up, I see its absurd, why am I falling into the same trap when I "wake up?" How do I know that what we call the "real world" is just but another dream? 4. The Universe Started at the Big Bang - Is this really knowledge or is this a belief? This is a belief. I believed the mainstream cultural story of creation. Big Bang is basically the scientists' God. Science is making the same flaw as religious folks, and yet, I fell into this trap. How gullible of me. The Truth is that the origin is unknown, but that assumes reality has an origin, which cannot be known either, or can it? - Claiming that knowledge is impossible is foolish because there is no way you can know if knowledge is impossible. If you knew that knowledge is impossible, then that would mean that the statement is false because knowledge is possible. If it is true that knowledge of anything is impossible, there is no way for you to know if it is or isn't. This is still the ego trying to grab hold of the tiller. Some thing is always assumed and taken on faith from that which all other explanations are based. 5. I have a brain that allows me to experience - I don't know this either. I have never seen my own brain. Based on my memory, which may be true or false, I have seen another person's brain. But I have never seen my own brain. I assume I have a brain and that experience is rendered by it. How do I know that the object of a brain that I see on the table is what "my brain" is? A brain is seeing a brain according to this logic, but since the brain interprets reality, how do we know that our perceptions have any basis in reality. - This whole materialistic proposition assumes that consciousness is objectified in a brain. If this is the case, you cannot know anything. Even if it isn't the case, you cannot know either. I know it sounds like I am claiming that knowledge is impossible, hence my fallacy from above, but I am saying that if you do not experience reality directly, how can you know that your sense of reality is reality? I mean after all, according to this materialistic view, everything is interpreted by electrochemical receptors and neurons firing in the brain that interpret reality. But if you look for neurons or brains in this experience now, you will realize that in your experience, you never experienced neurons or brains. You only believe them, and do not actually know them. If this is a dream, how can we trust anything to be real? All authority figures are agents in the matrix that prevent us from reflecting inward. So this is my example of Spiritual Autolysis. I came to the conclusion that we don't really know anything, and this includes that I don't know if we can know anything. Anything that is believed to exist, cannot be known to exist. This process is basically like Cogito Ergo Sum. The only thing you really know is that you exist. That's it. Anything else is concept and imagination. I would like to see some of your threads on how you all tackle Spiritual Autolysis (I assume there are other people who will respond lol!) Good luck with this work. I still realize that my journey with Spiritual Autolysis is not even close to complete because I am still so full of crap. In fact, I already see the bullshit in trying to explain why I am full of shit. Everything I wrote on this form, will be attacked the next day (assuming a next day exists or "day" in general).

Sounds like you all have been reading up on Douglas Harding and Richard Lang's work on the Headless way. I am trying to understand the bible verse What I gather from this is that YOU CAN see MY FACE and LIVE because the No-Face is All-Face. The Face of No-Face is the same for all. Oh but I think I am getting another interpretation here in that No "man" meaning ego can see the God-self of No-face and continue to exist. The No-Face shatters the illusion of having a head or ego and thus when you see my face, meaning the no-face of nothingness in all of us, then your ego is gone and you no longer live, meaning living as a self in a world, but rather a world experiencing a self. Did I get it?

Hello everyone! I would like to make a thread dedicating to understanding and diving deeper into Native American Philosophy and Spirituality. Native Americans have been victimized, demonized, oppressed, and have had their cultural identities stripped away by the white men over the years, which is very unfortunate. After reading this really awesome article here: https://www.powwows.com/native-american-religion-and-spirituality-common-threads-unique-beliefs-and-too-many-misconceptions/ I have found that certain Native American philosophies resemble those similar to nondual teachings. For instance, the term Mitakuye Oyasin, means everything and all beings are related and one. Also certain Native American traditions view life, God, and reality as animalistic, polytheistic, monotheistic, and even pantheistic. Wakan Tanka is a conception of God that translates to mean "The Great Spirit" or "The Great Mystery" and is considered the sacred life energy, spirit, or unknowable force that is within all things. In addition, Native Americans valued being in harmony with Nature and viewed the sun as very spiritual and would honor nature and each other through Sun Dance rituals that were outlawed until the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. The video below has insights and describes the Sun Dance rituals and Vision Quests and how they were used for Enlightenment and Spiritual Traditions to connect with Love. This is what I leave you all with thus far! There is so much wisdom that is overlooked from Native American ways of life. I plan on adding more to this as I learn and grow more knowledge of Native American Spirituality and way of life. Feel free to contribute your own findings of Native Spirituality. My goal is to bring back Native traditions and philosophies to the mainstream, de-stigmatize Native Spirituality, and gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of Native American way of life because this population is still largely marginalized and oppressed even today. “Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.” -- Cree Indian Prophecy

I agree. The last paragraph reminds me of Tony Stark's (Iron Man's) worldview of making weapons and how he thought it was good, until he realized the weapons were used against him. Then, he saw his weapon-making as a corruption of evil and shut down Tony Enterprises. It depends on what you mean by "natural" and "progression." I think you make a good point about natural progression in the analogy of math, but don't forget about the plateau in life. You could say that spirituality is the process of going from addition and subtraction progressing all the way up and through to calculus to eventually jailbreaking the mind and going beyond math all together to realize its illusory and constructed nature. So likewise when one meditates and inquires into life, one goes from unconsciousness to consciousness from survival to liberation over time. But I could be wrong.

So I have been contemplating relativism and recently rewatched Leo's Relativism Part 1 video after I watched his Nihilism video. I am stuck at a wall when trying to see how relativism is true and yet not all perspectives are equally valid or "true." The thing I am trying to understand about relativism is the seemingly hierarchy of perspectives that Leo mentioned in the Nihilism episode when discussing higher vs. lower perspectives, which boil down to Love vs. fear. So for instance, Qanon is a cult to me, but to the followers of it, it is the objective truth and reality. This is all based on fear from my perspective, which makes it a lower perspective, but judging perspectives as higher or lower seems to be a construction rather than being a written truth in the universe. In addition, the Qanon person could say that Biden supporters are based off of fear and not love. What is delusion to one person is reality to another, but relative to the facts (which are relative) could we say that a Qanon supporter is deluded and misguided? If everything is relative, where does that leave delusion, and what metrics are we using to say that a person or ourselves are deluded or not? Obviously, I am still in this process of contemplating and unraveling relativism. I am kind of in the phase of thinking that all perspectives are equally valid, but in my personal life, I do not act like this at all. My biases infiltrate my worldview and color how I see the world such that I see more corruption on the Right wing than on the Left wing. But the concept of corruption and what qualifies as corruption is relative to each individual, so a Right winger could see more corruption on the Left than Right depending on how they construct and define corruption. But who am I to say that the Right wing is deluded or that Qanon followers or Flat Earthers are deluded? If perspectives are not equally valid, then what is the standard for which they are not equally valid? Love vs. fear?? The whole metric of higher vs. lower perspectives does not seem to be a written truth in the universe, but is rather a construct and projection of the mind? But I guess the same logic applies to viewing perspectives as hierarchical in that some perspectives are more valid than others. But when I say that some perspectives are more valid than others, it does not seem like relativity anymore, but maybe I am still misunderstanding relativism. So I guess my final thoughts on the matter is that the Elephant is Love and Truth, and all the perspectives of the blind men are partial, relative truths and the Qanon and Neo-Nazis are up deep in the elephant's asshole in fear because Nazism and Qanon is a form of love? Whereas the Christ's and Gandhis are in the brain and heart of the elephant because they embody higher degrees of Love? I appreciate any of your thoughts and perspectives on this.

@Flowerfaeiry @Godhead Thank you so much for your inputs and insights! These are so helpful! Thank you so much!

Hello everyone! I have been dealing with screen addiction a.ka. technology addiction, internet addiction, etc., where I have been craving to play video games, play chess games on chess.com or watch James Bond movies to get a dopamine hit. I have been avoiding much of the spiritual work of contemplation/meditation and I have been avoiding my Life Purpose and my ambitious passions to exercise and kaizen my knowledge. I am just curious if anyone has gone through, is currently going through, or has beaten their screen addiction? What solutions have been most helpful to you? Here are some of the solutions I have considered: (1) selling all my games (although, I feel so attached to them and selling them won't get rid of the addiction because I will still have movies and my phone) (2) doing a meditation retreat all day (I have not tried this yet and I plan on doing it soon before I get busy) (3) Doing more activities outdoors in nature (4) Make a star chart and reward my behaviors to control my impulses (5) put screen timers The issue with screen addiction is that screens are a normalized part of our world today. Everything and all knowledge and accessibilities is on technology and technology is so accessible that it is a hard addiction to overcome. I believe it is a real addiction despite it not being listed in the DSM. I think the main causes of screen addiction for me are to escape the discomfort of spiritual and physical work and that I am addicted to comfort. I appreciate your time and input.

Thank you for your time and detailed response! It makes much more sense now. Thank you! So on the one hand, there is a way that reality actually is and the way we imagine it to be. So for example, earth is round from outer space but appears like a plane from earth perspective. What I did wrong was I confused objective truth for relative truth. So flat earthers are wrong about the earth being flat from space relative to their perceptions and sensations. If an alien looks at earth from 7D and sees it as flat and I am in 3D seeing it as round, then we would be both “correct” and no perception in this case is more valid than others relative to survival. If the human who sees in 3D and is on a planet in 7D, their perceptions won’t match with the survival needs of those in 7D in this hypothetical. So assuming we all perceive reality in the same dimension, a flat earther would see a similar social constructed spherical shape, dictated by our culture as spherical and round. The flat earther would be fooling themselves if they denied their perceptions that the earth appears spherical when it is. But the Alien in 7D May see our earth completely different and not spherical at all. Maybe aliens see shapes totally different like you mentioned in the Cat and Boop example. And to a blind man, the earth is neither flat nor round in the experiential perspective. Shapes and colors do not exist visually to a blind man and shapes are relative to how we define shapes. Thanks for your response and I plan on contemplating this a bit more and I will reread your post again to add more clarity to my contemplation and to make sure I am getting this and not confusing or deluding myself.

Knowledge is impossible. The only thing that can be known is consciousness. Descartes got it wrong. It’s not I think therefore I am, but rather Experience or Consciousness therefore Existence. Nothing outside of Consciousness can be known. Knowledge is illusion because it is a duality between knower and known. Once you realize the illusory self, you also realize the illusory nature of all dualities including knowledge. But illusion isn’t good or bad because good or bad is just another label and illusion created to sustain the illusion. Nothing is known. Nothing is everything. The real question is how do you know the moon exists even when you are experiencing it. This leads you to Esse Este Percipi

Awesome! I found the solution to my issue. I need to be out in nature more. I notice that I am in a more contemplative state in nature than I am indoors. I am connected more to my existence, which is true and makes sense. The issue is that the mind makes excuses for not going outside such as Covid, bugs, fears, bad weather, etc. But overcoming and observing the minds rationalization is a good spiritual practice that can lead into the insights and the mechanisms of mind that keep the cycle of addiction going. The key is not to abstain totally from technology as it’s not really possible in our world, but to be a conscious user of it as always. At least this is what I have found this far in my contemplation.

Oh wow nice. Good luck on retreat mate.

Thank you!

Hello. I am really getting interested in exploring Stoic thought. Currently, I am reading Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins, but after I finish that book, I plan on exploring Stoicism more. What Stoic Books do you recommend? What translation or versions do you recommend? I plan on reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations next; however, I am not sure which version/translation to get or which is the “best.” I would appreciate any recommendations. Thank you!

@kinesin wow thank you so much! I will read Epictetus, Zeno, Seneca, etc. before I read Aurelius. I Appreciate your insights and inputs! Thank you for the resources! Does the translations of what I read from Epictetus, Seneca, etc. really matter or make that much of a difference? There are so many translations, and it is kind of overwhelming to feel pressured to find the “right” one because I don’t have time to read all translations of a single book. Thank you from bottom of my heart! I will get going on Epictetus now! <3

I have read 3 of Jed Mckenna's books: Damnedest, Incorrect Enlightenment, and Theory of Everything. The last book to read of his is Spiritual Warfare. My impression of what I read from McKenna so far is that he misunderstands the importance of meditation. He gives an analogy or an example to highlight how mundane meditation is. He says something along the lines of "each day you fail to arrive at the truth, you will cut off an ounce of your body. If you take this exercise seriously, you would drop meditation." Those aren't his exact words, but I think they capture his idea in that Spiritual Autolysis, taking the First Step, and finding out truth by negating all that is false is all that matters. I, however, disagree. In my experience, meditation has not revealed truth to me, but it has helped me gain more control over my mind and emotions. In other words, meditation has allowed me to think more clearly and not be so sensitive and reactive to life. Meditation is the ultimate tool for equanimity and being calm in the storm of adversity. Spiritual Autolysis (SA) is basically contemplation with a journal. But doing SA alone may get one to truth, but it won't necessarily liberate one from the forces of their mind. Meditation is mental freedom to me. When we can sit down and shut up and be with ourselves in stillness no matter what is going on, we have developed ourselves. I guess Jed McKenna kind of contradicts himself. He says that meditation is useless, but yet he tell Jolene at the end of Incorrect Enlightenment for her to observe her feelings. He says it is easy to observe ourselves when sky's are clear, but it is more difficult to observe our feelings when "clouds are black." In addition, I interpreted Jed Mckenna's saying of "Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what is true" as meditation. In meditation, we sit down and shut up and then we inquire in our meditation after a period of stillness and then sit back into stillness for answers. So I think Jed McKenna is advocating for meditation without even knowing it while also criticizing meditation. I think he might just be criticizing meditative traditions and not the quality of mindfulness itself. Ultimately my main takeaways from Jed's work is to think for yourself, be your own teacher, learn from others' blunders, and that Enlightenment is not about peace or freedom, but it is about Truth by cutting through Maya's Bullshit Palace of Delusion. Freedom and peace are not the goals of Enlightenment because Enlightenment is the death of ego, which is something that the ego does not want to do. The process of SA or the process of waking up is a literal Hell for the ego based off of my understandings of the readings. But it is important now for me to take action and do the work of meditation and SA. Just reading book after book and not taking action is being asleep in the dreamstate. This is my analysis from what I read from Jed Mckenna's work. I have not read Book 3: Warfare yet so my analysis is limited as always. Please let me know your thoughts, especially if you read Jed's books.

Thank you! You just gave me more inspiration to do meditation! Thank you! Much love indeed! Thank you! And thank you all for your responses! Lol! I thought he was related to Terence at first lol! I initially thought I was reading Terence’s books, but I realized it was Jed’s lol

Okay thank you! That’s kind of what I got from it. In my own experience, I have gained more insight through contemplation than through meditation. Thank you for clarification!

I took the pfizer and so did my family. In my experience, I experienced no side effects, but others experiences are that the first dose is easy, but the second dose is the one to look out for.

Thank you all! I realized the solution: Deep Work is not about workaholism, it is about the Mastery Mindset. "Excellence is not an act, but a habit." --Aristotle. It is important for me to work on developing routines and habits for Mastery, but integrate play into it to enjoy the plateau of life. I need to train my mind despite its resistances to develop the habits I want to. I will have my periods of Deep Work scheduled as well as my days of play. I realize now that if I want to commit to Mastery, I need deliberate practice. This does not mean I become a Christopher Robin, but that I become a Mike Wazowski where there can be a combination of both Deep work and play. Or as Alan Watts says make work your play. The divisions between work and play are what make us suffer. The challenge is to view my work as play, but I believe I can do it. Self-care is also something I need to strategize into my schedule, which self-care is basically an adult's form of play lol! Thank you all for your insightful comments thus far! They helped me gain more clarity. Thank you!