Gesundheit

@Inliytened1 If Nahm said it you'd say he's wise, but okay.

I don't see it that way. I can't recognize any rules at all. To me, it all seems illusory.

Exactly! But keep in mind that sometimes it will be excruciatingly painful, and so you just need to sit with it no matter what. The mind will play all sorts of tricks on you. Try to stay aware and non-judgemental. And try not to break. But if you do, it's okay, you can try again later right from where you left. Also, keep in mind that the more time you've invested in a certain habit, the deeper it will be within your psyche. So that will mean more pain and more time required to completely let go. The more pain you can absorb without breaking, the better/faster.

Try to not give in to the cravings as much as you can. And if you fail, try to be aware of those emotions instead of becoming them/getting sucked into them. Try to be aware of the guilt emotion. Sit down with it, and follow the same steps above. Step 3 is more advanced/long-term. It's fully employed after the cravings are gone. Although, technically, it should be already employed, at least to a certain extent. Not-wanting is not the same as wanting not to want. Not-wanting is your original state of being; desire-less. A state of being is not a thought. Thoughts can be paradoxical. Paradox arises due to the self-referential nature of language, which is thoughts. But you won't find paradox in a state of being because it's always one state. Your goal with the exercise is to reach the state of not-wanting, not to settle for wanting not to want, because that would be just faking it, and really a neurotic way to live life. Think about it this way: Your original state is unconditioned. You learned things and they've become your conditioning. When you're experiencing the cravings, that's the conditioning reinforcing itself so that it can survive. When you don't give in to it, you kill it slowly. But it is a part of you, so you're basically killing yourself. So that's why you experience pain. After going through the pain, you will be free from the conditioning. The next step is step 3 where you don't allow yourself to be conditioned once again, and you do that by avoiding the things you don't want in your life anymore.

Nobody realizes God, but some people think that they do.

How do you reconcile delusion and laws together?

A comment demonstrating self-bias/blindness/paradigm-lock/emotional attachment.

Step 1: You sit down with the thought. Step 2: You endure the pain until it's gone. Step 3: You don't go back to the old habits ever again.

Where can we find our hidden posts?

LMFAO! Is this even real?! ????? Credit to this video for featuring the song: Modern Egyptian Muslims reacting to homosexuality.

I am devoid of all humanness, and I don't even care. New features: Acute awareness of paradigms. All new information are now filtered and put in a category on the fly. Acute awareness of the deceptive and evil nature of humans. What has been seen cannot be unseen.

If the mind is a maze; psychedelics, then, must be trampolines inside the maze. You can jump and take a brief look at the maze from above, but you're still inside of it. The only way out is by hacking your way through the hedgerows or breaking down the walls with a hammer. Contemplation.

Could be a self-esteem problem.

Let's just accept the fact that there are good people and bad people in this world.

Nice circular logic and infinite regress.

Mind and soul are one. You are creating an imaginary distinction for certain thoughts and label all the thoughts within that distinction "mind/ego/I". And then you contrast that thought complex with another thought complex, which you label "soul/God/whatever".

"There is no path, but only a fool cannot walk it."

Actually, it is a lie. The reason why someone would even try to communicate truth is because they're lying to themselves about the fact that it doesn't really matter. It matters to them for whatever reasons, so they talk about it. Plus, truth cannot be recognized through logic. It is realized through intuition, such as metaphor and analogy. So the content is almost always a red herring. The context carries the message. And people always focus on the content. This makes language an extremely poor medium for transferring truth. And so here we are.

Cause and effect = materialism Grace = the opposite of materialism (and not even idealism)

This may seem like a strong point at first, but look at it closely. Most of what we have is literally bla bla bla without THIS. Take mathematics for example, it's all bla bla bla without any THIS to it. Completely abstract. How do you explain that through your paradigm? Now you will say that the THIS you're referring to is consciousness/direct experience/being/God or whatever, not the silly things I'm talking about. But what do you know before your birth and after your death? Was consciousness there and will it still be there? And how do you know? I thought I didn't exist and choice was illusory.

@Keyhole Yup, that would be better

Since the map is not the territory, anything said about the territory is technically practically a lie. So the moment anyone opens their mouths, they're already committing falsehood, because the mind confuses the map and the territory all the time. From that, I have concluded for myself that silence is the only way to be truly truthful, and that thinking is the only way to be deluded. If you stop talking and thinking, all dualities will vanish. And by definition, lies are nothing but a duality. Truth is one, a lie is two. Also, keep in mind that making judgements about lies is also a lie because judgement is duality. So demonizing lies won't work.

@Leo Gura I mean you make it sound like awakening is somehow a materialistic possession that we can acquire through certain methods. But I've heard it a couple of times from different teachers that there are no real methods for awakening. You either get it by grace, or you don't. What do you think about that? Doesn't creation require a certain amount of talent?

That was an unusual response from you, so, ummm, I guess, LMAO?

The problem with abstract concepts is that they can be argued upon for eternity even by the same one person. The mind is a maze, and language are its walls. If you want to break out of the maze, break down the walls