Someone here

Harmless.

There is no separate self inside the body.. That's right. Because you can't find a centerpiece in charge of it all. But there is a body. You could say the body is you. Go look in the mirror.. Look at your face.. Your hands.. Your balls.. Your arm.. Your feet. Etc... That's YOU. Tada!

@Javfly33 No it's not. It's the only thing you were doing since you were born. Also.. You gotta stop this.

@Javfly33 there is absolutely nothing wrong about survival of your ego and your body.. That's how it meant to be.. Were you planning to die or somethin?

@How to be wise why are you such a dick?

@Gesundheit relax. "everything is unconditional love" is just a hippie style of saying "everything is inevitable".

@blackchair I bet you gonna die in a matter of week if you tried to be "unconditionally loving".. I mean you must hate being thirsty to live.. Right?

For you.. As a human being.. With survival agenda.. Likes and dislikes.. It's an impossible pipe dream to love unconditionally.. There is no such thing. Unconditional Love is not a trait that you can cultivate. It's a feature of reality itself (supposedly). Reality loves Hitler unconditionally simply by allowing him to exist.

This is really a tricky one. It really depends on what do you mean "exactly" by "consciousness". And the answer can vary depending on your definition. Consciousness can be defined as : 1 - a mental state of being awake and sentient (such as.. he lost his consciousness in the accident and became conscious after a while). 2-a mental state of being aware of something (such as..he is conscious of the girl’s presence and her scent.. or he is conscious of the pain in his body). 3-a mental state of being aware of and experiencing something with the awareness and experiences of what that something is like occurring (such as consciousness is the awareness and experience of the vision.. sound..emotion..and thought with the awareness and experiences of what the vision.. sound..emotion..and thought are like occurring). 4-a command center or workspace mental process that integrates other mental processes and enables them to function together (such as consciousness is the center or workspace that functions to direct attention to some signal.. keep concentration on that signal..amplify and integrate that signal..and make information of that signal available to other mental processes). Neurologists and general doctors usually use the terms conscious and consciousness in the first meaning. General people usually use the terms in the second meaning. Philosophers.. as well as some neuroscientists..usually discuss the terms in the third meaning...and the hard problem of consciousness is the problem about consciousness in this meaning. The terms in the last meaning are used mostly by neuroscientists.. and the Global Workspace theory. the Global Neuronal Workspace theory (look it up) and the extended theory of global workspace of consciousness are about consciousness in this meaning also. There are other.. less frequent usages of the word consciousness. For example.. some use consciousness interchangeably with the mind.. which is considered too broad a usage.. and some use consciousness to mean self-consciousness.. which is obviously too narrow a usage.. Therefore.. You should be careful what the terms consciousness and conscious mean when we discuss these terms. In this regard.. . the meaning of consciousness is similar to the third meaning above.. that is.. consciousness is the composite of all conscious awareness and conscious experiences – the composite that has the awareness and experiences of phenomenality (of what things are like) and that itself has phenomenality (manifests what it is like in the mind). This theory deals with consciousness in this meaning because consciousness in only this meaning is phenomenal consciousness.. which differentiates sentient beings from non-sentient beings and differentiates us from artificial intelligence. Without having the awareness and experiences of phenomenality (of what things are like) and without the consciousness itself having phenomenality (manifesting what it is like in the mind).. even the most highly integrated and very capable brain will function just like electronic processes in present-day computers/robots.

When a single neuron fires.. it is an isolated chemical blip. When many fire together. they form a thought. How the brain bridges the gap between these two tiers of neural activity remains a great mystery.. but a new kind of technology is edging us closer to solving it.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Honestly.. Not just tryanna smart ass it with ya. Ok good.. So now you are denying that you have a nervous system just because you can't see it? Why don't you go ahead and deny your digestive system.. And stop feeding that stomach that you can't see (internally)?. Man sorry I don't resonate with this. I don't know why you must deny the brain's more than obvious correlation with your consciousness activity to justify whatever nondual insights you have.. Why can't both be right? Stage turquoise btw is all about holistic big picture thinking and integrating science with spirituality with religion etc together.. Not to exclude clearly existing parts of reality. Which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And of course.. Everything I'm saying here are "thoughts" .. Duh? That doesn't mean it's flawed. It might be flawed.. But not Because it's thoughts. That's like saying the grocery store in my town does not exist when I'm holding it mentally as an idea. No one actually lives like that or takes such approach seriously. Take a brief look at neuroscience.. Scientists were able to Record the electrical activity of neurons directly from the surface of the brain.. the scientists found that for a simple task.. such as repeating a word presented visually or aurally.. the visual and auditory cortexes reacted first to perceive the word. The prefrontal cortex then kicked in to interpret the meaning.. followed by activation of the motor cortex in preparation for a response. During the half-second between stimulus and response... the prefrontal cortex remained active to organize all the other brain areas. It's fascinating how this system works. And how can we actually enrich our spiritual understanding when it's integrated with the science of it.

@Nahm neurons exist. And the brain activity is responsible for every aspect of your experience. It's a whole field now into itself "neuroscience". That has no contrast or contradiction with meditation and spirituality etc.. We should integrate science with spirituality rather then Dismissing it. You are using a gadget right now to type your comments thanks to scientific advancement. Also... You see I don't take these epistemic flaws for granted anymore "just because you aren't directly experiencing it.. Then it doesn't exist". If you apply that principle in your life you won't know who's shoe to put on in the morning.

Meditation is Not stopping thinking. That's a huge mistake. Thinking cannot be stopped. Give it a try. Meditation is about reducing the frequency and identification of and with thoughts. Alright I'm peacing out and leaving some space for OP.

@James123 dude it's not possible to stop thinking "completely". The neurons in your brain are constantly firing away and they don't shut down unless you go unconscious (like sleeping or coma).

@mandyjw do NOT think of a pink elephant You go into schizophrenic mode where you can hear that asshole inside your head rambling but becoming the like a second you listening detached.

And "who" or "what" exactly "knows" or "verifying" that you are not thinking? A thought ofcourse. If you think you are not thinking.. That's still you thinking that you are not thinking. Otherwise you wouldn't know it ?

Beautiful ? @EternalForest You can't love unconditionally and exist as a self. The tax for unconditional love is death. I mean You must hate hunger if you wish to continue to survive, no?

Not sure how this works. If you experience zero thoughts (which is impossible) .. Just recognizing this fact within yourself internally is considered an internal monitoring. You know what I mean? Just thinking that you are not thinking is still thinking.

Illusions are illusions.. So they don't exist. Truth Is inescapable. It doesn't get any "truer" than this. Obviously? "illusion" and "doubt" arise only on the conceptual level. If you don't think and just experience without conceptualizing your experience.. There is no room for "illusion" or "doubt". Because these are just thoughts. Which ironically are directly experienced as well.

After 100 days of regular practice.. I can assure you 13-year-old me dream has come true!!! My concentration levels have drastically improved from what they were 100 days ago. I finally experienced what Swami Vivekananda said about paying such great attention to what you’re doing that you’ve lost track of time for hours. The other day I was reading.. I checked the time it was 8 pm.. the next time I looked up with a cramped neck it was 1 am. Similarly.. another time.. I was working on some code and I was able to work on it for 3 hours without breaking away and getting tired. usually.. my mind would wander every 15–20 minutes to check facebook but now I have better control on it. I really can concentrate for much longer chunks of time and its reduced the amount of hours I have to study for my projects. WOHOOOOO! Meditation is the most life transforming habit you can ever do. (at least if you are interested in this work we are doing here seriously).

@Nahm you are responsible for this.

@Harry2 The same and different. Of course. Oh really? Because in my experience dreams (sleep dreams) are perfectly identical phenomenologically to the waking world. And that's why you can't tell that you're dreaming while you are dreaming. Because there is no difference. The boundary between "real" and "illusion" is not as solid and clear as one might think. That's where most people don't want to go.

@Harry2 A classical one. See the trick is what is "awareness "? If you define awareness as sight.. sound.. touch.. smell.. Taste etc.. That's definitely will be absent. Just like in deep sleep. But the problem is we identify ourselves with these temporary appearances when we are actually the ever-present emptiness that contains everything inside of it. So you wake up in the morning.. Sight sound touch smell.. A body and a world appear.. They appear inside of what ??? Inside of awareness.. For if there wasn't An awareness that is prior to these appearances.. Where else can they appear "within"??? .. Ok so in deep sleep there isnt even awareness.. That's right.. Deep sleep is the sate of nothingness.. That's your real nature.. That's who you really are.. That's the only thing that doesn't come and go.. Ever-present.. Therefore the most real state of being is the state of nothing.. The most fundamental state of being is the state of nothing .... And" within" this nothing appears awareness.. And within this awareness appears all sorts of dreams... The waking dream and the sleeping dreams. Are just temporary appearances within the ever - present nothingness. Again this is not mere philosophy.. Check your experience and see if what I'm saying is true.

All these questions regarding analogous life similarities ontologically to a "dream" have no answer. You can read Rene descartes ' meditations where he asked the simple question "how do you know you are not dreaming right fucking now?.... Given that every time you dream you don't know it". And ofcourse the answer is you don't know and can't know. I would drop this whole inquiry and go grap a snack. But cool discussions you start! Keep em going ?

@Gesundheit well it's really a choice between the bad and the worst. There is a new movement in sustainable agriculture to embrace ideas like the Lean Farm.. or small intensive acreage of high value crops. I do not think these new models are popping up and so attractive because they make farming easy (because almost nothing does).. and I’m not sure they are possible until you have considerable access to capital and are established but… they all bring up the idea of creating farms where we try to do less of everything and get really good and specific things and systems. Using an approach where we look seriously at time management.. at work flow.. at profit margins for individual crops means thinking about limits as part of farming. The problem is many of people who get into farming have issues with limits. On the other side.. Usual societal work is not as exhausting if you have enough self-care. I do think there is a point when lack of self care and trying to do it all drains you so you do nothing well.. or most problematic for me drains me to the point that I can do only one thing well… keep working and moving. And even more problematically I was always rewarded for this work by everyone. I was practically high fived by everyone I knew for doing it all. Only twice in the past 10 years has someone actually asked with concern about if I was doing too much. Otherwise everyone was happy to help me celebrate being super efficient.