snowyowl

There is a precedent for this, ie what was my awareness or aliveness like before I was born or even conceived? Mind you, my earliest memories only go back to 4 y/o so it's a hopeless quest. Do babies even feel alive until they develop a sense of me & other? People who believe in reincarnation usually follow up with an explanation that most of us forget our previous lives unless we have hypnosis or advanced spirituality. I do think however that the quality of consciousness is related to the physical form, humans are different physically to other animals, so our consciousness is different. If inanimate objects like crystals are also conscious, it will be different again. The question is, what if anything is the feeling of "me-ness" which endures changes in forms?

There may be a broader issue around why some people are so passionate about believing in paranoid conspiracy theories to do with global elites, evil govts, alien reptiles etc. It could be serving a psychological inferiority complex about why we are so exploited and downtrodden by the rich. Or maybe passing the buck of responsibility for why the world is in such a mess onto some invisible elite.

Yes keep going, you've made good progress already seeing it as belief not fact. Belief which originated outside you from someone else's negativity, you were an innocent kid at school after all. You're right, beliefs can be changed, unconditional self-love and acceptance is key.

Materialism and idealism may not be true, they seem to be unprovable after all (like most philosophy and religion lol) but they can be useful for survival purposes. Materialistic science and engineering assume matter is the primary stuff; maybe the reason psychiatry lags behind is because it doesn't use an idealist model. This discussion reminds of doing imaginary numbers in maths and electronics: you introduce a non-existent term into the equations, follow through with the algebra and the imaginary parts cancel out at the end, leaving you with an elegant solution to a real-world problem.

The logic of who is and isn't "allowed" to have nuclear weapons is rather baffling. It seems the main arbiters are the most heavily nuclear armed powers, hypocritically telling other countries not to get them. If you think proliferation is bad, then why not practice what you preach and disarm yourself? Err, because the nuclear deterrent works pretty well for them. As long as no-one actually uses them of course. It's a tense balancing act between geo-political manoevering and risk management.

@Milos Uzelac thanks for all this info, it's really interesting.

... and as if by magic, Leo's latest video on relative vs absolute truth was released on sunday, the same day as my last post

Your perceptual bubble (consciousness) = your brain. Of course your brain isn't all that exists, but it is all you can perceive, by definition. The thing is, what's out there beyond your consciousness, is a mystery only indirectly deduced by your thoughts, based on whatever evidence it can get. Including your brain conceived of as a physical object.

In which case, Deepak doesn't exist either, and everything is illusory without anything non-illusory behind it. Therefore nothing is true, by which to know the illusion is an illusion. Reductio ad absurdum? Surely I must be misunderstanding this? After all, Real and Imaginary are supposed to be opposites in meaning, and if you deny the use of opposites, distinctions, by saying that opposites are equal, then all language collapses and we can't say anything. My way out of this hole (and retain a shred of sanity), is to rely on the distinction of absolute and relative truth. In the absolute sense, real vs imaginary doesn't exist, "all is one"; yet relatively speaking, they do exist. That relative sense is of course, what can be spoken of. The absolute can only be described with relative language, that's the problem.

Cool question. Cos, what even is an appearance? There's the pure sense perception, followed by a mental process of cognition and interpretation: thought and imagination. The notion of real things existing or happening is part of this mental processing, like a logical deduction of a real tree out there, based on the appearance I'm having, although it would seem just as 'real' in a dream. A dream is only a dream in retrospect, after It's ended. I'm beginning to realise that words like 'real' and 'exist' only mean something within the mind-map, if I try to find the "real reality", it just keeps slipping through my fingers.

It's been a long time since I practiced TM but I found it an effective and easy to learn technique. I saw some downsides too. It was expensive for a basic mantra meditation which I could have learned from many other places. I guess I fell for the marketing (I was young and inexperienced then), when, for someone like me it's pretty much indistinguishable from other silent mantra methods. Also for the money I only got one technique, whereas other meditation schools I've explored since teach a variety to suit your needs. How long have you been doing TM? If it's working well for you then that's brilliant, I'm happy for you

They're already free to come here (UK) on holiday but may need a tourist visa. Covid restrictions excepted ofc. But maybe you mean come for any reason? Stay indefinitely? Get a job, start a business, pay tax, receive public services and benefits, vote, join the army, get a passport, etc? You see, if there's no restrictions at all then the whole system of public administration unwinds. It might make sense in a globalised world if we simply did away with countries altogether. Or, like in the EU or USA do it in a regional way. So in practice there's a middle ground, people can enter with varying degrees of restrictions depending on their reasons to travel and the needs of the local area, like skill shortages.

@ivankiss thanks underlying all this sense of doing / not doing stuff, and even 'being on a spiritual path' is a belief in having free will too. If that's illusory, then any attempt at doing something like differentiating, accepting, resisting, is also illusory. But I don't want to derail this thread into yet another discussion on free will

In short, no, I don't think the US economy will collapse completely tho there could be a recession or two. Recessions seem to happen every 10 years or so in capitalist systems anyway. There's plenty of other countries following an unsustainable greed-based capitalist system, China's model even more so perhaps, as it's a one party state. Are you predicting they will collapse too? But I do expect to see a gradual move to greener technology in this timespan, still within basically the same capitalist paradigm.

@ivankiss so presumably, resistance to actuality is likewise illusory? But why does acceptance feel a relief, and resistance feel stressful? Is there anything we can do to move from stress to relief, even in the relative sense?

The thought of 'I perceive that' or internal subjective vs external objective world is already to assume this dual split exists. After all, I over here exist within your external world, so which am I, internal or external? If I drop the assumed model of perceiver and perceived, it's not the end of the world, reality remains as it always was, nothing is lost except the thought of separation.

@Blackhawk The notion I'm contemplating at the moment is more like 'form is consciousness and consciousness is form'. The human form seems to be the most far-out in the sense of pretending to be separate and your experience of life is that it's tough so ofc your perspective is valid that you don't want to perpetuate suffering. Interesting isn't it that it's generally poorer people and countries which have higher birth rates; when they develop economically, women get decent careers etc, that the birth rate drops.

I don't get your logic sorry, maybe my ignorance. If we don't die, then where else can we go? There's only life as a singularity. Not someone who lives lives, inside the body so to speak, who can move around inside different forms.

So it's not an immortal soul, but the illusion of being a separate person living my life, which reincarnates ((apparently) not only across lifetimes but moment-to-moment within a single life. So, what then perpetuates the illusion? Why doesn't it just fade away? Something must be feeding it. It's like a social creation, a social survival mechanism. From early life we're taught to be an individual within the family, a nuclear family within the extended family, within 'my' community, 'my' nation, 'my' religion etc. Holons within holons. The immortal soul is the totality, the whole of This.

Best wishes for your healing journey, it sounds like psychiatry has a long way to go. Love and hugs

@Globalcollective Advising people what to do means you need to know them well first, eg listening before speaking. You work in a wellbeing centre, so for many people isn't basic wellbeing and self-care the most fitting type of spirituality anyway? Relaxation, de-stressing, healthy eating, exercise, financial security, relationship advice, just basic life skills essential as a foundation before exploring deeper aspects of spirituality. Otherwise we can run the risk of spiritual bypassing. Another thing is to be knowledgeable enough to give a broad range of advice, otherwise you may come across as an annoying evangelist for your particular spiritual beliefs which is more likely to put people off (no offense intended ).

For me an early childhood awakening of a primordial spirituality was noticing the difference being in nature, vs in the urban environment. A feeling of opening up, connection, trust, simple but profound delight. I had no language for this feeling, being brought up in protestant Christianity, until I learned about paganism.

Have you been deeply in love? You can be that special, main character to your partner, your parents, your children, even your pets (i don't know which stage of life you're at). Be the best child, parent, partner you can be, that's pretty special.

well, to save ourselves from the suffering and lack of connection caused by the illusion of being a separate ego, we need to disabuse ourselves of the illusion. Losing myself also means finding a greater truth; it's like the parable of the mustard seed perhaps?

@VeganAwake awesome So, coming back to Buddhism, are you (in) Nirvana? If so, is Buddhism a useful vehicle to get there? Did you gain anything from its beliefs and practices, or from somewhere else?