The observer

That's the one question that would keep you stuck forever. Let it go. Because by staying, you're hurting the both of you more than you realise. If you don't, soon you're going to be depressed. Mark my words. And by the way, it sounds like you don't even contact her directly in real life. If that's the case, then I'd like to tell you that she's not vulnerable at all. She's taking good care of herself, and you're just imagining things and worrying like an idiot (sorry, that might be necessary to wake you up).

I'm guessing here, but calling God an asshole doesn't sound like forgiveness. It sounds more like submission by force.

Is he really a sadist? Or does the ego simply not want to submit? And no. God does not care about evolution either because there's no such thing as evolution.

@Carl-Richard then perhaps I misinterpreted what you said. I'm sorry.

Dude, you have no idea. Seriously. I've lived in a complete non-dual state for a couple of months last year. It was all about surrendering. The depth of pleasure that I've experienced is beyond description. I'd given up all my desires and merged with God. There was only love. I'd never really tasted food before! I'd never really watched a sunset before! Dude, I'm telling ya. There was nothing but pleasure. It was pure paradise. Every day I would go for a walk and melt from the love and beauty that I'd experience. But you're right that spirituality exists for this reason. It's not that I decided to become hedonistic. But rather that I'd given up everything, literally. I'd given up life, and I got paradise in return. Now I'm far from there. It took me a huge amount of suffering to get me to surrender to that level. My ego had to be broken and humiliated until annihilation. If I could have my life figured out right now, I would try to attempt another enlightenment experience.

To your imagination, duh! ?

There was a great thread here: But it does not work anymore. Here's its individual link: Secrets Of Concentration - Part 1 I wonder if @Leo Gura can do something about it to make it work. It was a really juicy thread.

It does not matter at all. The question is whether or not you desire to fly. This is completely up to you.

My result; https://www.truity.com/personality-test/17372/test-results/20149459 Type 9 sounds accurate.

Don't be afraid of death. Fear of death keeps you a caterpillar. If you want to become something beautiful like a butterfly, you gotta let go of your fears.

@Mert That's called "the hard problem of science". There's no other way around it than to ground yourself in your own truth. Except that you can ground yourself in someone else's truth too. It works both ways. It's all up to you (said me ?) ☯️

Use your body as a compass. Learn how to interpret the signals that your body sends out to you. If you feel tired, go to sleep. If you feel hungry, go and eat until the feeling is gone. If you feel energetic, do some exercise. Sometimes if you feel low on energy, an exercise could spark you up. This is a delicate work that you should pay close attention to. You don't want to become a lazy bum and you don't want to burn yourself out. How do you know what your balance is? Your body is always talking to you, but are you listening? Also, for you to enjoy life, you don't have to choose playing all the time over working. That's not what happiness is. You may desire playing all the time at the moment because you've never done it before, but the moment you have the ability, you will find out that it's empty and not what you actually want. It's a mechanism of the mind for procrastination. Kinda like if I was a kid and you told me to say anything but "dam ba dam", I would likely desire saying it for no reason (just to be free). So, the point is, don't expect that the lifestyle that you want must be free from work. A limited amount of work is healthy, and a limited amount of playing is healthy too, but you won't know how much you need via thinking, because your body knows better. You should also develop healthy habits, like meditation, stretching, exercise, etc... until they become part of your life and psyche. It will be difficult at first, but it's worth it.

It definitely could, but it depends on the person. If I was hedonistic and enlightened, then yes, it would. If I was ignorant like most people, then no, it would lead to hell. I have tested it personally. I lived like that for a few months in the last year, and I would have never asked for more. I could have lived like that forever. Right now, I'm not enlightened like I was last year, so it would take some effort to get there. But the key is enlightenment, not hedonism. Even though enlightenment has a lot to do with your lifestyle. You know, it's much easier to be enlightened when you don't have to worry about your business and other things.

@freeman194673 I apologise I assumed you were coming merely from a scientific place; It's just the theme of materialistic people that I know of. But you're still equating cocaine with porn like that's been proven. And you're definitely misinterpreting the scientific evidence you've presented. Correlation does not equal causation. That's a basic trap that lots of materialists fall into (partly why I assumed you were a materialist). You can draw whatever conclusions you want from the correlations, but they won't be anywhere near accurate. The reason I don't buy into this is because my experience says otherwise. Call it my bias or whatever, but everyone is responsible for themselves. And like Leo said, if you can't handle porn, that's your problem.

@VeganAwake You get it, sir! ???

But you're scientific, and you'd listen to science over your own body. You'd shut your eyes to your own truth and take what science is telling you. I understand what you mean and I use that language rather loosely. That's rather a long article. It could take a lot of time to read and check out the resources and their validity, but nevertheless I've skimmed through the headlines and found this one interesting: “I believe it is wrong but I still do it”: A comparison of religious young men who do versus do not use pornography (2010) I could only think of this as a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of thing. If you believe porn is bad for your health, then it will become so. This is not exclusive to religious people. It could very well apply to scientific people like yourself who believe that science gives you the truth. And by the way, correlation does not mean causality. Just because there appears to be correlations between consuming porn and some negative things doesn't mean that porn is causing them neither directly nor indirectly. In fact, that also dismisses a lot of other factors, including psychological, like deep unconscious beliefs. Also, similarly, we could say the same things about the internet, phones, computers, TVs, video games, etc... These are all new technologies that I think there is a calibration process happening. At all times, people find things to attach to in order to fill out their spare time with. Before the invention of these modern technologies, people used to be addicted to story-telling. I remember my grandmother used to memorise lots of stories (she lived in early radio days), a skill I don't find necessary in our time. I'm sure there were other things to be addicted to before that. I guess that's just the nature of human beings. There's always a void that we try to fill. But you can't blame the filler. You should instead blame the human. I don't rarely consume porn. I watch some every other day, like for 30 to 60 minutes every couple of days. It has its place in my sketchy schedule, but I don't consider myself addicted to it. I just use it as a tool when I feel my body needs it. Everything has its pros and cons. If the cons outweigh the pros, then that's a problem. For me, porn is the best alternative to having to be stuck in a relationship or in chasing one just to fulfil a basic need. I need that time and focus to be directed towards other important things for me. Although, I admit, maybe this easy access is somewhat of a problem for our rewarding psychological systems. Then again, that could be the case with sex in long-term relationships/marriages. Besides, I am still able to work effectively, so that's a non-issue. In fact, I can be more focused than if I was deprived all the time.

Self-help, at some point, becomes only a matter of fine-tuning. When you've consumed too much that your cup is full, you don't need anymore learning. Only minor bug fixes here and there every now and then. Or like a little plate of dessert. Be wary of making a religion out of self-help. A lot of people do that. Instead go on with your life. Pick it up back right from where you left. Any further information is unnecessary, and even worse, is mental masturbation that will keep you stuck in the mind without making results in the real world. Everything has its breaking point. You've reached yours with spirituality and self-help, both in theory and in practice. It has been a dojo for you over the last few years, but now you don't need it anymore. You're strong enough to be on your own. The greatest lesson is that you don't exist, so there's nothing to worry about. Now, move on. You will adapt.

I've let go of something similar three months ago. It hurt me like hell, but I expect a return in the summer and I would definitely take my chances again. Things like this don't last forever, because if they do, they become the norm, and the norm by nature is mundane and ordinary. The beauty of this experience is in the shift between mundane and sacred. Your life suddenly becomes magical, meaningful, and divine. But also the downside is the fall, when you fall from the sacred back into the mundane. It can be devastating. But, yeah, if you ever stumble upon it, go for it and don't hesitate. It's the most beautiful and incredible experience there is between humans. Live by the hopes of making it last forever. I can only assume that this might be possible.

Exactly! When I first started discovering my body, I used to jerk off once a week max. But at that time, I was religious and I used to blame and shame myself all the time. I hated myself. Now, after ridding myself of those dogmas, I can jerk off multiple times a day (rarely though) without feeling bad about it. In fact, I rather feel recharged. The difference is that I started listening to my body instead of my ideas. And that was when the shift occurred. The same thing with porn. I could very well jerk off with or without it. It's a technology, and everything has its pros and cons. Everything has its limitations and advancements. It's ridiculous to demonise anything, including demonisation hahaha. The only difference is that demonisation gives rise to more ego whereas acceptance kills it.

You're imagining an end goal called "self-realisation". That's the work of the devil, and that mental image alone is enough for it to come into existence as a real possibility. Because of the infinite potential, everything is possible. Yet, without distinctions, you could stumble upon awakening and not realise it. Notice that without knowledge of the end goal, you were fine and comfortable living in ignorance. Once you realise that there's more, what used to be satisfying once, becomes limiting now. Another way to phrase it; We need to kill the devil in order to realise God. But for us to kill the devil, it has to exist first. So ultimately, we need the devil. It's a requirement for God-realisation.

You don't need science to realise duality. You already know that appearances are different. All the theories and mathematical equations are irrelevant to you realising that a human being is not an apple. You just know it without a shadow of a doubt and they're just unnecessary stories for that specific realisation. The point of making the theories and equations is to be able to view things differently so that a new set of values can emerge. Imagine if our brains worked via those specific theories and equations only. We would be like computers without intelligence. We would only have one way for understanding reality and there won't be any technology or evolution anymore. Just dumb robots. No matter how sophisticated our theories and equations were. You can think of that factor of intelligence as the source of creation. It is what makes all kinds of theories and equations possible. It comes prior to science and logic. That's God. That creative essence doesn't have to be limited by what it creates, because it can create an infinite amount of things. It's in fact the other way around. It takes what it's created so far, and it makes something completely new out of it. Like for example, the shift in understanding between the neotonian newtonian physics and relativity. Both are true on different dimensions. Who knows what kinds of new dimensions of understanding we might discover in the future? It would be ridiculous to assume that we've reached the end with physics because we've got to relativity. New theories are always emerging after realising the limitations of the ones before. That's how science evolves. If you want to become an Einstein, find that creative source, and stay with it. Interesting things may show up.

When you love something or someone, you will only perceive the beauty in them. When something or someone is beautiful, you will most likely love them. Of course, this right here is a relative, limited form of love. And it isn't exclusively related to looks. Beauty is an appreciation of otherness/duality. A dismissal of the self, and a seeking to merge into The Self. A new expression and a fine tuning of a of what once was 'good'. A correlation between good history, safe present, and promising future. An opening to love. Beauty is the dance between Love and Goodness. Absolute.

@wordsforliving I'm sorry. I'm not going to click on the links until at least you provide a brief of what they say. Nothing you said intrigued me into looking any further. It just sounds like hogwash for people who originally bought into anti-porn narratives. And my experience of over 5 years of moderate consumption has been satisfying. I don't know what the big deal is.

@Consept Exactly! Loved how you conveyed it all.

I've posted the pic below on my Facebook wall almost exactly two years ago. I left it there with the caption (?) Here's a screenshot: