Gesundheit

@electroBeam Hey, oh, hey! I literally just asked one question. I don't know where you got all that from.

You know what I'm referring to. Why would I turn it into a concept?

I am the exact opposite. My handwriting is not artistic at all, but it's easy to comprehend.

I'm not really sure what to tell you. I wanna say something mean, but you're gonna reply with love, so it will be null. Anyway; No can do, baby doll.

@Tanz Of course, corruption exists within everything, be it business or anything else. According to my experience in the medical field, it's getting worse by the day. Profit is taking over the whole pharmaceutical industry a little bit more each day. I had worked for a whole year in pharmaceutical marketing and saw how it all works from the inside, and it wasn't pleasant at all. Ironically, in a sense, capitalism is the most malignant disease in our era.

Yes, lack of self-esteem is a self-image issue. Usually these issues are inseparable. Once your self-image is made self-conscious about itself, defective behaviour starts to appear. And this will happen every time a trigger occurs because there are judgements that the subconscious mind is making, which are creating the discomfort. It's a defence mechanism that you as a child had developed unconsciously in order for you to protect yourself by avoiding pain and faking behaviours in order to be loved and accepted and validated by your caregivers who were harsh and critical with you. It's not an uncommon issue, and it's not black or white. No one virtually has had a perfect childhood, but certainly some people had it harder than others. There are various degrees and forms in which these issues manifest. Some of them can be life-threatening, such as a woman developing anorexia due to her excessive fear of obesity, which is ultimately a self-image issue. But even those are curable with awareness. So just keep increasing your awareness and be gentle with yourself during the process. Be the caregiver you wanted to have.

Can reality be any other way than this? And if yes, why isn't it?

@Keyhole That is great! You deserve the best.

It's called people-pleasing. A classic self-image problem. At the heart of this problem, there is lack of self-love created by giving too much attention to the thoughts, both of yours and of others'. The ultimate solution is raising your awareness. And there are plenty of techniques for that. Personally, I have found meditation, journaling, and shadow work to be the most effective, as well as learning about relationships and boundaries both from reading and from life.

@Keyhole I've read the comments, and jeez! People here are so misunderstanding your tenderness and giving you the wrong kind of energy.

In Abrahamic religions, there's not much emphasis on Karma as in this realm. Everything will be settled in the afterlife by Allah, the Just. People always used to object to prophets about Karma, I suppose that's because it was the popular belief back in Purple societies before Abraham. At some point, people started waking up to the fact that Karma is impossible to prove and that it goes against direct experience. People saw criminals who actually got away with their crimes and lived in materialistic bliss, and they also saw poor people who were oppressed and tortured with no one and nothing to consolidate them. Karma - that popular Purple belief - stopped making sense. And they had to come up with Allah and the afterlife.

You can close your eyes (you've finally learned that), but you can't hide the sun (obviously).

Trust me when I tell you that physical suffering is peanuts compared to psychological suffering. I've experienced both and I would always choose physical suffering anytime. And maybe it's just me, but I would always choose physical labor instead of an intellectual job. I would rather work in labor for 8 hours a day than to force myself to memorize 5 pages. As well, I currently live in very poor physical conditions, and I rarely suffer from that. The psyche is very flexible and highly adaptive to environment/the physical world. Whatever physical challenges you may encounter (except illnesses), you'll suffer at first, but then you'll make your peace with it. Even torture works in the same way. As long as it is still in the physical realm, everything is still fine, although not necessarily ideal or perfect. Hell is only possible in the psychological realm. Now to your question: I don't know. But if life was a movie, God would certainly win a Nobel prize for the worst director and story writer. Maybe he's after that prize. Just give it to him and be done with it.

@Tanz Dude, I honestly don't understand the way you're approaching this whole thing. It just sounds naive. If what you're saying is true, i.e. Law of Attraction, then we should never get ill unless we think about diseases. You'll say that it's not just thinking about diseases exclusively, but it's actually the negative thoughts in general that cause us all these diseases. But then what about the congenital diseases that initiate early in life during pregnancy? You may say that it's because of the parents and their negative thinking that they caused disease to their fetus. But then after the baby is born, how come it doesn't heal automatically? Since babies don't have negative thoughts, they should be able to heal automatically right after birth and separation from their mothers. Why do they remain physically ill? They aren't doing anything "wrong" or "unspiritual". Furthermore, why do babies still get ill when they do no negative thinking, no devilry, no abuse, nothing. My take here is that you're still practicing materialism in a different form, but that's about it. You're just believing more in the importance of the placebo effect. And yes, technically, what you added regarding scientific research is correct.

Eat chocolate and anything rich of carbohydrates. Exercise mildly. Accept the cold instead of resisting it. Do body awareness scans. Detect if there are any muscle contractions and relax them. Obviously, wear more clothes; two layers of thick socks, something to cover your ears, and wool or leather gloves if required. Check for hypothyroidism.

No. I think it's the suffering that played the biggest role. I never knew such states exist and I wasn't trying to get there, and when I was experiencing it, I didn't know that it was a high state until it was gone.

The question is how do you know that the illnesses were cured by the spiritual practices and not by something else entirely unrelated? See, you're creating this association without having any evidence for it. Evidence here being double-blinded studies that show how people practicing these things have very high percentage of improvement (like above 90% of the participants) while others who did not practice anything have very low percentage. A low to moderate percentage of healing does not count as evidence, it counts as placebo. And placebo is within the physical limitations, with effects such as slightly improved immune system. Good luck curing ischaemic heart disease or stroke with positive thinking and meditation. It doesn't work like that.

Good for children.

You lose the identification as the perceiver behind the eyes. I've experienced that. I can't describe it. Everything was still the same in a sense, but the visual field somehow became full HD. And the peripheral vision was enhanced at least by a factor of 10. I could see more than I ever did or do right now, like a wide-angle camera. But anyway, that experience was temporary. It lasted for a couple of months and then I went back to normal. I am working on returning back to it, but I still can't reach a similar point. It took me a huge deal of suffering to make me surrender to that degree.

This belief won't work no matter how much you believe in it. It's like believing that fire won't burn your hand. There are beliefs that can create physical limitations. And there are physical limitations that no belief can break.

LMAO. Why is it so obvious when someone is experiencing a psychedelic comedown? I have noticed several people on here who were brilliant at certain times, and then they started sucking at another times. Especially now, I see three people who are clearly losing it.

More like Freak Yanks lol. I can't take this guy seriously. Too immature for my taste.

Most people don't have the concept of existential truth in their minds, so they're basically in total delusion. They're in a state of oneness/non-duality with delusion, which is ultimately absolute truth to them. Deep sleep. I think it takes certain amounts of skepticism and disbelief to start entertaining metaphysical concepts such as absolute existential truth, let alone trying to actually find them in direct experience, which is another rude awakening, but not the end of the line.

@MrWolf I don't consider horniness or hunger desires. Food and sex are biological needs for the body, similar to air/breathing. Your original state is not a state of lack. Rather, it's a state of fulfillment. Note that you cannot keep feeling hungry after you eat, but you can still be greedy regardless (desire/ego-mind). The same thing for sex. You cannot force yourself to feel horny after sex, but you can still scheme and plan for your next intercourse (desire/ego-mind). The reason why lack exists in the first place is because of the ego-mind. But I don't want to go into that here or now because it's not the proper place for it and because it's too complex.

Depressing dark nihilism, I experienced earlier today. Similar to the dark night of the soul that I had experienced 5 years ago. When I look back at my life, all the physical troubles that I went through pale in comparison to the psychological troubles. I've had my share of both kinds but believe it or not, physical suffering is nothing compared to the psychological. Even though it may seem like quite the opposite. When you talk about it; words don't do justice to either of them. When I talk about physical suffering, people think it's terrible, catastrophic, and unbearable, when that would actually be an exaggeration. It isn't really horrible as it sounds. On the other hand, psychological suffering is really, really, really terrible. I can't stress that enough. It's always underestimated, and sometimes it's literal hell, no kidding. Because most people don't experience the most extreme levels of psychological suffering, such as the dark night of the soul, people tend to assume that physical suffering is the worst thing that can happen. Physical suffering is much easier because it's affected by your beliefs about it. You can endure hardships if you have certain beliefs about reality. You can make physical sacrifices. You can even enjoy the pain sometimes. Think about ISIS soldiers and how they live in the worst physical conditions there is as a form of Jihad. They don't feel bad about it. They actually believe that they will be rewarded in the afterlife, and that makes all the suffering disappear. I've been a Muslim and I know how beliefs work. However, psychological suffering is very different. When your beliefs about reality break apart. When your whole world comes crashing down. When your mind becomes your worst enemy. Even if you have everything and all the money and power in the world, you will not be able to buy your way out of it. The mind won't take bribes. The slave becomes the master. It will torture you. It will humiliate you. It will make you submit against your will. You won't even know what's happening, and you cannot avoid it. For me, it was brutal. On top of all my physical suffering and several years of depression, a hearbreak, a realization of no free will, and an internal conflict between theism and atheism, an existential crisis took place. That was the worst thing I have ever experienced. I don't remember how long it was, but I do remember that I wouldn't wish it to my worst enemies. Endless suffering with no one there to help me out. I would wake up at night and cry sometimes with a terrifying fear of death (there were no lights most of the times due to the electrical damage caused by the war). I would wander in the streets, and look at the moon and the stars and wonder in pain: Why the fuck?! What do you want from me?! Why did you create me if you're gonna torture me?! I was never suicidal, but I wished that I never existed, and sometimes that I would die to get rid of the suffering. Until I discovered meditation. (I'm out of words now; when you taste bliss you forget all the suffering, and vice-versa).