Tim R

@Loba Your pet is you. Not metaphorically, but actually.

That there is no "external to you". Perhaps this was funnier to me than to you. You're still right tho.

@Jakuchu It's just our Love

Non-Duality simply means that any description, any "what" or "how", any "this" or "that" does not exist as something in its own right, or separately, but always and only in relation to whatever it is against which you defined the first description. For example: what is up? Not down. What is down? Not up. So do you see how both descriptions go round in circles, defining each other and thus not defining anything at all? Up and down aren't really different from each other. They imply each other. There is neither up nor down, both are merely arbitrary categories that do not exist autonomously in reality. Non-Duality means that whatever you think you can point at and say "this", it will always implies "that". Because you wouldn't know "this", unless contrasted with whatever happens to be its background ("that"). This of course, is itself nothing but a description of Non-Duality. "Real Non-Duality" cannot be described. All descriptions must be understood as mere pointers ("the map is not the territory"). You have to see Non-Duality for yourself, no "explanation" will suffice. It's a "grasping" of reality as a whole, without any opposite.

External to what, is the question. To you???

@Someone here And how are we going to encapsulate the encapsulation? In-finity is non-encapsulation (not two). Science has a long way to go, the dream is infinite. Science has infinite potential, but within limits. Even if we included mysticism in science, it will make no difference, because the end, you will have to see it for yourself.

I want what I love and love what I want. What I want is what I think I am lacking. And so all I ever want is to be complete. To accept and love Being it is totality and to recognize myself as the entirety of Existence.

The question is, by your own definition, are misusing the forum? "Misuse" in this context can mean things like using it for procrastination "mental masturbation" Escape from other problems or tasks Hanging out on the forum instead of doing the work of Self-Actualization/Spirituality

Users don't get immediately banned. 20 warning points result in a ban and more than 5 will restrict you from posting for a while. @Gregory1 Please don't make threads about this sort of thing, just pm a mod.

The vaccines are still the most powerful weapons we have against COVID. Prevention is better than treatment. This is the key difference that must be understood. Pfizer is 95% effective in preventing infection, Moderna 94% and J&J 66%. And all all of the above are extremely effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death. Paxlovid (Nirmatrelvir) and Molnupiravir are what are called "antiviral drugs". They are of course extremely valuable as a further asset in our toolkit against COVID, but they are not a replacement for the vaccines (but of course, people will treat them as if they were). If people don't get vaccinated, the pandemic will go on. And they will very, very likely be infected at some point, if not multiple times. Yes, we can treat them with antiviral medication after they got infected, but that's not the goal. The goal is that they don't need any treatment in the first place, and that will only by achieved by getting vaccinated.

U trippin' bro?

I like Zen Master Hinnerk Polenski, check out his YouTube channel

@Someone here You don't need to stop all questioning, if you don't want to. But if you feel that your questioning has become a burden, you might wanna drop some of it. It is so freeing. Feel into your questioning, into your relation to it. Some questions (the ones about God n' stuff) you won't be able to answer with your mind. And you will have to let that go, if you want to further pursue them.

Hmm difficult to say because we don't know him. But the goal for you must be not to convince him, but to make sure that taking psychedelics is because of his motivation to do so, you know what I mean? I don't mean that you should manipulate him into taking psychedelics, if he doesn't want to, then that's his choice and must be perfectly okay. But if he is interested in religion, philosophy etc. then that's a good thing and you should start from there. You could go about it by asking him whether he has ever wondered how these profound religious ideas came about and how it can be that all kinds of cultures and people all seem to have a notion of a God or something equivalent. And then slowly introduce him to mysticism as the origin of all religion and spirituality. If he isn't already, make him familiar with nonduality. And if he's open-minded to all these things, you can tell him that it is possible to reliably induce states of consciousness which are the origin of all spirituality, religion, mysticism, etc. And that it isn't just talk, but grounded in profound experiences, which can be brought about by the use of substances like LSD or mushrooms (I wouldn't give him 5-Meo). The important thing is to be patient, don't push it on him.

@Motu Welcome to the forum!

@RMQualtrough What is timeless, is neither static nor moving.

As far as timelessness goes, there is an important aspect that must be considered here, which is that the present moment is not finite. Which is to say that there is no "slice", like "a frame" on a tape. There is no finite moment that could be seen as a limited, enclosed "piece" of a larger tape ("the rest of time"), so to speak. But it sure seems like that. We tend to think of "the present moment" as a frame of time, the duration of which we are not quite sure of, maybe 1 sec, maybe 100ms? Who knows. But this is an illusion. And we then think that within this frame of time ("the present moment"), the future flows in, turns into the present moment and then flows out again into the past. And that "the future" and "the past" are like a tape that, although it is now gone, is being stored somewhere, inaccessible to human beings - unless we invent "time travel", so that we can bring up whatever piece of tape we want. There is no "it" ("the present moment", as ordinarily conceived). To most people, it feels like they're inhabiting a static piece of time. It's rather like an immediate arising and passing away, "both" so "simultaneously", so utterly identical, that nothing is happening at all, and nothing is not happening. You are (the) Now. "Now" is not occurring within this world, the world is held within Now. And Now is Nothingness. Now is In-finity.

Is being a technique?

True, there's no one to get anywhere - but that's the point. The realization that there's nobody home is the goal, at least so long as you make it your goal, even though it doesn't liberate anybody. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't practice or that Buddhists are wasting their time. Come of think of it, what else would you do with time other than to waste it?

@johnlocke18 Lao Tsu says

No, but this isn't about learning.

@JuliusCaesar Then what's with your desire to shuffle asteroid belts? Lonely at the top? Probably, but I don't know about that.

@Nahm Then we've been "you people'd"!

@johnlocke18 It can be a good thing you know. And no, you don't want to "have it figured out as soon as you can". At least not in a way that makes the confusion "go away" in the same manner in which it came up, which is through the faculty of mind. You want to go beyond confusion and comprehension. But uhh.. I was actually just joking, because Nahm is known to sometimes confuse the members ( @Nahm nothing against you brother?)