4201

Unless you surrender to the body (and feel) you don't know what it wants. You assume the body would just want to drink beer all day and do nothing special but that's an idea your ego have. We could call this a fear, a worry, a concern but it certainly isn't a feeling. In fact if you were to surrender to the body, you would also surrender this idea of a "you being unable" which would set you free entirely. But as long as you are stuck believing in this idea and trying to "do something about it" you'll hold back from letting it go which is the only way out. How do you get out of a cycle? Certainly not by continuing to go. No cycle break because you cycle it too much. If you recognize that it is a cycle there is no point pushing harder, you gotta stop and then you once you are out you can push in the direction you actually want.

"you imagining them" is the same as "you interpreting this moment as being an interaction with human beings". The idea that your current experience is something in particular (an interaction between human beings) is something you are thinking right now. The point is not to try to dismiss this thought about your experience (by saying things like "the people I'm talking too aren't real, I'm just imagining them!") but to notice for the sake of observation that this idea of them existing is a thought. The statement "you imagining them" originally wasn't meant to be an opposition to "them being real" or lead to any sort of argument. The point is not to contradict the idea that people are real but to notice the nature of that thought in this present moment. We are not saying that apples are bananas but just to notice that you are the one calling apples apples in the first place.

What if someone cares about fertility because they want children with their own blood? Sometimes I find it odd how much I care about that while others do not as much. I know you already have kids so it would make sense if this no longer matters to you. But did it ever? As I'm dating I'm judging how good of a mother my girlfriend would be for my future kids and this is basically what defines my attraction toward her. I'm not interested in adopting nor raising children who aren't my blood. While I could have casual sex with anyone, I find it meaningless if it's not the context of building a true relationship with someone for the sake of building a family. So for me any trans women or even infertile women is a big no no. I don't think that makes me a transphobe, but perhaps it makes me a slave to Survival.

Hahaha I mean it works for me

If you were to sit on your couch and do literally nothing but stare at a wall and breathe, would you call this "life"? You aren't forced to take part into that activity you call "life". You can just tune out anytime you want for as long as you want and then come back to it if you want. No one is forcing you to go anywhere or do anything. If you don't want to experience anything you don't have to, you can close your eyes and plug your ears. You talk as if someone is forcing you to live but "living" is an activity you are doing right now, under the form of "venting". You can literally stop anytime if you don't like it, without permanently getting rid of your body.

I don't understand which part of sleeping with someone who has beliefs is "torture". To say that a belief is uncurable is quite the belief as well. It is true that you cannot change what someone else believes but OP doesn't seem to be in the mindset of changing her. Really it is up to OP to choose what he tolerates in a person or not. You don't personally tolerate what you call delusions (perhaps because you don't like in yourself?) but not everyone is turned off by the same things.

I want to live a life of constant improvement, constant change. I want to be better than I was yesterday. Yet "better" already implies a concept of a value which I can define any way I want (Better at playing piano, nicer to other people, having more stuff, etc.) This creates some sort of judgement directed toward the self. I attribute myself a value (bad at piano) and I create a desired value (good at piano) which is different from the present moment (an imagined moment in the future where I would be good). My question is, how can one reconciliate absolute love with self-improvement? If you truly love yourself absolutely, then there is nothing to improve, as anything to improve would be a judgement aka a lack of love. Yet the idea of sitting down and practicing piano seems like a much more loving idea than sitting down and accepting my lack of piano skills. It's as if this "lack of love" toward the self who doesn't know piano (who isn't improved) is out of love in a sense. I don't know how to reconciliate this contradiction, yet after writing this I notice how silly it would be to use this contradiction as a reason not to self-improve.

Absolutely! Love you Nahm

More important than what people claims about vaccines is the source of those claims. I can claim vaccines increase hair loss but without any proof this is just pure bullshit. Rather than being scared about things you've heard, why not look up the sources of those things and confirm whether it's true or not? Don't trust anecdotal evidence or stories coming from people, only trust actual evidence.

According to the definitions of many people here yes. But then you can mistake enlightenment for what most seekers think of enlightenment.

A nice attempt (trying) to not trying indeed No matter what you were doing in the past, you likely had other concerns, other struggles. Something else you were trying. If you actually didn't try anything (for instance if you went out with friends in the past or just had fun without responsibilities), then you problably had fun.

So you are saying that you've tried not trying in the past and it didn't work? Not trying is only something you can do now. By refering to the past you are trying to prove that it's impossible, as a distraction from letting go right now. Enlightenment is not an achievement. What is "hard" or "impossible" is your notion of enlightenment. You can back up your notion of enlightenment from quotes of "enlightened people" but that's not Truth, that's hearsay.

I can see how thinking isn't that much of a thing. I can experience voices, images or even imagined sensations but the "thought" itself is never there without an associated experience. Most of my thoughts are vocal, it's like I'm dreaming a voice talking to me (that I label mine). I never interact with the thought but only with the voice that is being dreamed of. One could say those things are just the "labelling of experiences" and the labelling itself is thought. Labelling here is just a synonym for duality. Like if I label the experience of a voice as a thought saying me things, is the labelling itself another experience? Am I experiencing the labelling of an experience through another experience, or is there just no actual labelling? Are dualities experienced? Or are they just "not"? The answer sounds obvious, especially given the name Nonduality. But I long thought that dualities are experienced as part of consciousness (experience of thought). In actuality I don't experience the dualities themselves, but voices and images that I later attribute to thought. I can see how there might be no thinking. But it will always appear as if I'm thinking, either from neuroimagery or by looking at the actions my body does. The neuroimagery of someone in a total state of flow playing basketball would probably reveal brain activity about basketball and about motor skills. But perhaps brain activity is different from thinking.

Isn't conceptualization necessary for communication though? I need to turn things into concepts to be able to talk about them. My day job is programming, where I literally talk to machines all day. I struggle to see how I could do all that without thought. But then it's easy to notice the identification with "communication" or "thinking" with statement like "thinking is important in my life" or "I spend a majority of my time thinking, therefore it's hard to stop". Those are just thoughts, the type that aren't necessary, yet I wouldn't be ready to say all thoughts are unnecessary. I kinda "know" that what you say is true because feeling aligns with it but I don't quite see exactly how it's true. @Leo Gura @Preety_India Yup totally agree.

Many great answers! Thank you very much Yes definitely. I notice that wanting change and change are different. When I say "I want X" I'm identifying with the desire and creating a self who does not like the present situation. But there is no need for that thought in order to change the present situation. Like you said many times, I can just focus on changing it instead. Focus on what you want instead of focusing on the idea of wanting something and what that leads to. You definitely can but actually learning something and reaching material success feels better than convincing myself I don't really want those. But it's a misconception to think one must abstain from doing in order to reach absolute love. It's more abstaining from worrying about it, abstaining from looking at the current moment as if it was a problem. Very well said! Absolutely, the total irony from me of worrying about this rather than living the flow is insane

Having the concept of "nature" vs "not nature" is already post-beige. Beige doesn't even know about "nature" it just hunts what it needs to eat directly without even conceptualizing about it. The need for conceptualization comes for the sake of exchanging information with others in a purple-like group. A raccoon is not orange because it eats trash in a city rather than in nature.

They're really trying lol (The actual paper https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/22/2/247/htm) They're really getting close to it with We discuss a non-materialist view called the self-simulation hypothesis, wherein everything is information, which we define as thought. The universe self-actualizes itself into existence but then loses it via self-simulation using a mathematical code and a simulation game rule called the principle of efficient language. The whole principle of efficient language seems for me to be a property of the human experience (or rather any living thing) since the most concise way to express things is valuable for survival (while in the absolute sense, there is no preference for simplicity). This whole idea that the universe would be simulated with "mathematical code" that is driven by thought is also just adding unecessary steps. If the universe already "self-actualizes itself into existence" (just is) there's no need to add a mathematical code. But it's common for an assumption to think language is intrinsic to the universe, because of how important it is to human experience.

My understanding of SD must be incorrect then. But if Spiral Dynamics is a single model dictated by one guy it kinda loses it's value. In his chart he places Beige at 100 000 years ago but Homo sapiens came about 200 000 years ago and they've been social for millions of years. It's not like we decided to form Purple-like groups magically 50 000 years ago. Orange 300 years old is even funnier. What about the ancien greek mathematicians, what color were they? According to the model Turquoise is "Experience the wholeness of existence through mind and spirit". This screams nonduality/enlightenment. If Jesus wasn't Turquoise what was he? As much as SD has value to understand our current society, I don't think the way it defines it's own evolution over time is accurate at all. Perhaps then I'm not talking about SD, but defining Beige to be pure survival and Turquoise to be enlightenment makes much more sense.

Yet evolution does not necessarily means new stages will be added at the end of the spectrum. Arguably there was a time when Green did not exist but Turquoise still existed. If we were to invent spiral dynamics at the time Jesus was around, we would have a hard time noticing the existence of Green but there definitely was Turquoise people even at that time.

I think the whole concept of "challenge" or "problem" is deconstructed in stage yellow. I don't think Turquoise has any problems, nor do I believe in the "higher stages".

Lots of men are insecure about their value as a person and men are being taught by society that "your value as a person = what you can do". So for some people who are deeply stuck in this insecurity, they can look at the hoops like an opportunity to prove themselves. Dysfunctional and unnecessary struggle? Yes

I think the most selfish person doesn't listen to other people's opinion unless they need to know what they are thinking for the sake of manipulation. Building a solid echo chamber should be a must. Getting forum members to delete their answers if they don't align with your opinion is a start, but there's still a risk for a pesky forum member to come in and expose you to statements to which you have nothing to say against. This is a serious threat to the selfishness mentality as it may lead to exposure to options that feels better than the imagined need for selfishness. For instance the option of understanding may be provided as an alternative to selfishness. If one fully understands a situation, no selfishness is required to attain the result that feels the best. Thus understanding is very dangerous to selfishness and should be avoided at all costs.

If I'm good at being selfish, then why would I give you good advice? After all I'm selfish, so you benefiting from my advice doesn't do anything to me. How do you know the advice you are receiving here is good? If they are giving you advice, it's because they aren't selfish. But then that advice is not coming out of selfish people, because they aren't doing it out of selfishness. Thus they may not know at all what they are even talking about. This is quite dangerous, as you may actually receive advice that makes you less selfish. What if that accidentally leads you to happiness? Scary.

I am in your bubble right now. I appear as a forum user replying to you. But there's nothing to me outside what you see in your bubble. Because there is no outside that bubble. I am you just like everything else in your bubble. You are the bubble.