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Yeah so that's why we feel terrified of losing our sanity .we know it's just a house of cards and a little incident in our lives can turn our existence into a blazing hell . It actually seems impossible to me to seek the ultimate nature of reality without losing my mind a little bit . If reality is infinite then it has the power to turn the entire universe upside-down and downsid-up. After watching your solipsism video it got stuck in my mind for few weeks .I thought I had brain cancer. I thought my mind was doing extra thinking because it knew it was about to die and the truth will annihilate all my flimsy attachments to realiy being real vs imaginary.

@Leo Gura is reality insane because its infinite? I guess because its a negative word . In-finite=NOT finite =in-sane. If reality was just sane it would be limited .

I read in a book called "silence of the heart " by Robert Adams that enlightenment will cure all your suffering completely and nothing can ever bother you again. Once you awaken you wouldn't care what happens because you will know that your true self can't be harmed in any away. The author uses the analogy of a TV screen..does the screen get affected by what's being displayed on it ? Would it matter for the screen If what is being displayed on it is a porn movie or the holocaust? The TV screen remains untouched. And it is indifferent as to what is going on within it. The TV screen being awareness or consciousness which is supposed to be your true self. And what's being shown in the TV screen is the world of phenomenon. So if you identify with the appearances of the world ..you will suffer accordingly because you identify with pain and pleasure. Whereas if you identify as consciousness you can't suffer and nothing can harm you.. Because you recognise yourself to be the screen. Not the movie . Is this view correct?

..so, the title pretty much sums it up.. I started seeing a girl a few months ago and we had a lot of chemistry from day one. Once we started sleeping together things got wild quickly. I’ve always had a strong drive but I tried to explain to her that there something called refractory period when the guy just loses all interest in his dick after orgasming so often. But this girl is just ON 24/7. I thought that it was the newness of it at first, but after having sex pretty much every week, I just want to take a damn nap... I tried certain subtle tactics such as giving her more orgasms in a single “session”, and other things that had the goal of making her feel satisfied... but if anything, her drive increased. Now, as a man with above average drive, in spite of never having ‘demanded’ sex, I have experienced the frustration of being super horny and being turned down... so I never wanted to make her feel that way. I also feel relationships should be about reciprocity and she does a million other things for me just because she knows they’re important to me, so I feel a small moral ‘obligation’ to reciprocate and suck it up even if I’m tired because it’s important to her. So long story short, I’m looking for some advice here... should i even bring it up at this point or give it a bit more time? If I decide to approach it, how? I certainly wouldn’t want her to think I think there’s something wrong with her or that I don’t enjoy intimacy with her... I’m a pretty eloquent guy, but this is a problem I never thought I would have, so I’m at a bit of a loss.

Enlightenment does not hinder the normal operation of the nerves of the body. In fact, it is quite a disadvantage and dangerous to cease feeling pain…as leprosy, diabetes, or another neurological disease in which body parts can become unfeeling will tell you. The difference is that enlightened beings do not resist or deny pain…they don’t have a problem with pain…and so do not suffer because of physical pain. The key here is distinguishing between pain and suffering. They say "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional ". So pain can still be experienced. It's just that it need not be a big deal. Definitely enlightened people suffer less .because they supposedly recognised that existence =Unconditional Love . so whatever is happening..even if the sky is falling apart and the universe is being sucked into a black hole ..they can still keep their cool .that's true fucking enlightenment for me .

The enlightenment of Neo is one of increasing awareness and is not a Buddhist enlightenment. Which is focused more on no self ,emptiness and Nothingness. Neo's enlightenment is similar to what Leo teach about being God dreaming up the world and getting lost in our dream .which is from our own making . Do you agree with this view ? I know this will inevitably lead us to the question of solipsism but I don't get it just yet. So Neo eventually realises that he is the machine and the machine is him .. after all they are both part of the matrix of yet another reality. Whilst that doesn't seem like Buddhist enlightenment. Neo's enlightenment was about getting of the keys to the universe so you can change the weather at whim. So is that the version of enlightenment you lean towards ?can 5MeO makes you able to manipulate reality just using your mind ?

Well.. Since God/Love is all inclusive then suffering is God and love. Examples?

I agree with him that you are not going to turn into super man all the sudden with miraculous cool superpowers.. But at the very least there must be a shift In how you relate to the world and to suffering. Because if enlightenment promises you nothing at all.. Then why pursue this?

@Rahra do you have friends or buddies to hang out with? Ya know, to smoke some weed or to hit on girls l..etc

While reading this.. imagine you have two halves... one is your social half and the other is a more mental,philosophical half. Your social self is basicall.how you interact with others.. While your mental/philosophical self is how you interact with your self and your internal thoughts. In a social environment.. such as a high school..or university ..what should be more important, the expanding your social self or your mental/philosophical self? Keep in mind the long term affects of these decisions. My thoughts/experience in a university setting the survival of your social half is a high priority to a university student (Or to most people in high social settings), because this allows you to be happy and interact with others in a peaceful manner.. which in turn can have a positive effect on your mental half. However if you do not focus on your social half and are rejected by social norms it can have negative consequences on your mental half in the future. But if you flip things around and focus only your mental/philosophical self..you grow internally your view of the world changes and you are filled with knowledge and you can answer a lot of questions you might have about the world. These thoughts can drag you away from social growing which can possibly damage you mentally(You could be sad, anti social, depressed and such, and in my limited experience this has been the case, the more your question the world and think about things more, the more distant you become with social norms). Should one risk their social self for the growing of their mental self? What is more worthwhile, In the end having knowledge about the world or about values etc.. means nothing, and being undamaged socially means nothing as well(adhering to a view that when you die nothing happens for the most part.)

Hmm. Intersting Could you elaborate a bit? I think enlightenment isn't difficult. It requires a lot of work, no doubt about that. But essentially you are deconstructing your false concepts and you accept not knowing and you go through the dark night of the soul. It can be tough like how it happened with Tolle. But you can also be born with the right genetics that makes you awake. All it did for Ramana was to face the fact that he Is gonna die someday.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I think Self-Realized people don’t experience life reactively. They don’t mistake their personal preferences for how “life should be,” nor do they get upset when they are inconvenienced. They experience non-reactivity, or bliss. Bliss is what you experience when every other sensation dissolves.

Why does that sound like a bedtime kid's story or a cute religious fairy tale?

God = infinite love. That's the teaching of Actualized.org. Is permanent awakening possible? You seem to imply that awakening is a limited state of consciousness. What difference then between being awake and being high on Cocaine?

Again you can be so awake to such a degree that you absolutely don't give a crap about your external physical condition. Ramana Maharshi was dying from cancer and yet he didn't freak out .he was peaceful like a sleeping baby . I agree though that that's pretty rare .but you definitely CAN get there .

There’s no easy answer to this question. Are we our bodies, or something else? It’s a complex question that doesn’t have a simple answer. For me, I think we are both our bodies and something else. Our bodies are a part of who we are, but they are not the only thing that makes us who we are. There is also our mind, our soul, and our spirit. All of these things combined make us who we are.

There is differences between pain and suffering. I'm meaning mostly psychological suffering not physical stuff like hunger and pain . Enlightenment is the end of suffering. Do you see the difference?Enlightenment isn’t the bucket of water that extinguishes the fire of suffering.This is very important to understand. Enlightenment is the choice to stop and the insight that we have the power.The power to put out the fire is ours we only have to stop feeding it. We think we’re waiting for a blinding insight, after which we’ll stop suffering. But the insight is that we don’t have to suffer.

So you basically agree with the thesis that awakening eliminates all psychological suffering at least ? Because obviously even if you are Lord Krishna himself, you would still feel pain if you stepped your toe ...but there is just no doubling down on the suffering from the mind.

But you are not living by yourself in a cave somewhere aren't you? You live within a society. And as long as that is the case you are forced by social obligations. Welcome to survival 101. So how can you engage in survival and remain uncorrupted spiritually?

Disagree I think It’s axiomatic that enlightened people do not suffer. Things can hurt, but there is no suffering. Explaining how this can happen is explaining enlightenment. There is body, there is mind, and there is pure awareness. Normal people identify with one or more of these things. The enlightened do not identify as any of them. You can strip an enlightened person of any of them and there would be little to no distress. Suffering is when you identify with pain or loss. So if you have body identification, and you lose your hand, you are suffering because you felt a sense of loss. An enlightened person would simply carry on life learning how to get by without one of his hands. His brain might still generate feelings of pain from the act of losing the hand and such, but because he’s not identifying with his mind either, he doesn’t perceive the pain as anything more than just pain.

Then enlightenment is not worth the hustle? The Buddha's main teaching was how to eliminate suffering. The Hindus say you are Sat-Chit-Ananda..meaning existence, awareness, bliss. Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven. What are you basing your claim on that enlightened people suffer? You misunderstood me. I mean you care more about eliminating suffering than merely understanding it.

Aren't awakening supposed to be the most desirable thing in the world? What do you really care about? Isn't it the cessation of suffering and gaining lasting happiness? If awakening does not make you happy and turns your life into pure joy, then, really, what's the point?

I think there are two levels.. For the ego there is always suffering. Even when you sit perfectly alone in silence you feel bored. The ego is always dissatisfied with whatever is going on. On the other side your "true self" is pure indifferent awareness. It doesn't give a Dam about your health or who annoyed you in the world today. It just exists. It just is. Unattached. What do you think?

Go put your hands on hot stove for just a few seconds and see whether you care more about understanding suffering or getting rid of it.

Lol what do you mean? No !