snowyowl

@Vittorio "You can only prove me what's happening now. What's in your memories cannot be proved and thus it never happened (even if you remember so)." Yeah I come across this argument a lot in the nondual community. But what is proof? The usual idea of proof is some evidence, like photos, fingerprints, memories of witnesses, saved scientific data. All that is a record of an event which allegedly occurred previously. So proof of X is not X itself. By the time I've created a proof of anything, "now" has moved on to a different "now". Doesn't that also apply when proving something to myself - the proof is a layer of thought occurring after the fact. I think your requirement of proof is impossible in the relative sense ... me proving X to you now ... however ... "But actually there is no such thing as a time from a nondual perspective. Time can be only perceived only by a dual perspective (e. G.,as a human being). And yes, in the end they all are compressed in a single infinite present moment. Your mind space these events in past, present and future, but in the end your birth, life and future are all happening simultaneously in a single instant." If direct experience is the proof you're after, here it is! The snag is, you have to realise your divinity to see it, become omniscient and know everyone's past, present and future in the infinite singularity. "God knows" as they say and if we are God forgetting itself temporarily, then that sounds like the past is real, even though we can't prove it.

@Vittorio thanks for this, I need to contemplate it for a while, watch this space ...

I find it helps to leave the place where the problem is for a while, go somewhere else and contemplate my life from a distance. Go for a long walk in nature, travel, have a day out perhaps. Also if there are others you can open up to confidentially who may have a different, outsider's perspective it may help. We're not so unique as we like to think, many others have the same problems, you're not in this alone. Take care and very best wishes.

I'm looking at this terms of process diagrams, inputs -> process -> outputs. Inputs might be the racist thoughts and feelings people hold; criminalising those is like having censorship, cancel culture, taboos, thought police etc, which is the controversial aspect. My view is that stage is better, and more effectively tackled with education, although it's a long process. Racist outputs are already criminalised in many countries, this targets the impact of the racist behaviour. So an example might be an employer holding racist beliefs (inputs) conducts a recruitment that's biased racially (process), leading to someone being refused a job because of their race (output). The output and process can be prosecuted in law, rightly in my view, but not really the inputs.

Duality imo started as part of the evolutionary process ie the survival strategy. When I begin to see myself as in some way separate then there's something to defend from takeover by that which isn't me. Survival depends on eating some other organism also trying to survive, and avoid being eaten in turn. So this could well predate thought, as we understand it, by a long time, from when organisms first started to defend and attack, eat or be eaten. Competition for food and sex, felt subjectively as will.

@vander thank you. The present moment is perfect and complete, but prepare for the morrow, as God helps those who help themselves. I once heard an old Dutch proverb along the lines of, God helps the sailor but he must steer the boat himself

Karma is a belief within religions which don't believe in a separate self. So IMO, karma belongs to the whole not the illusory part. Action (the literal meaning of karma btw) has consequences, but they don't belong to an individual you. Depending on your language, God / the Buddha / Universe / Void is doing it all to itself and reaping what it sows.

I find it useful to look at this from the perspective of holons. A finger is a body, a holon, complete in itself but also part of the holon of the hand. Similarly with the hand & the arm. But the reason why they're all 'God' is because none of them can exist independently, there's no separation. Even a human body can't exist without a society, a planet, a whole universe. Vice-versa, the whole universe ('God') can't exist without the humblest worm being exactly how it is. No separation, no hierarchy.

@Vittorio this doesn't negate the mainstream view of 'now' being an instant in time moving from past -> present -> future. Seen from the present, 5 minutes ago, 'now' was in the past. Same for 5 minutes in the future. Change and events occur, not in time, but are time, how do we measure time apart from counting processes in physical existence. If there's no time apart from now, then everything happens at once. My life, birth, childhood, youth, adulthood, old age, death, do they happen: spread out in sequence; or all simultaneously; or not at all?

This s probably not a good answer to this thread, more like some random thoughts but here goes. Purpose leading to an endgame suggests a movement from a timebound to timeless state. But why can't this endgame be here already, what's the distinction between means and end? After all, whatever name you come up with for the "Ultimate End", some smart alec will just ask you, what's the meaning and purpose of that. If you say it's Love, for example, then what's the point of Love? Verbal reasoning is endless. So my sense is that the End is the realisation that THIS is the end already, the end of seeking and purpose because it's complete. But there is change, on the relative level it helps to prepare for the future, pay the bills, educate the children, plant the crops, save for your pension etc etc. On the emotional level, having meaning and purpose feels good, having none can feel bleak and depressing. So I dunno, maybe this is something hard wired into us by evolution for survival of the species.

@GreenLight Advising is tricky unless you want to share more about yourself, otherwise it's going to be pretty general. But I'd say it's good to focus on your job, home, relationships and health as a solid basis which can be underpinned by a spiritual / philosophical practice to give you that healthy compass bearing, so to speak. The thing to watch out for is not to get trapped in a materialistic lifestyle with expensive habits, debts to pay off, which make it into a treadmill of earning more and more money until you're old and grey!

@Inliytened1 @BipolarGrowth yeah I agree that the pantheist God is the only one I can use, otherwise I'm an atheist. My maths is a way of trying to show what happens if I assume I'm separate from God. Or anything else for that matter, like the devil or physical existence. God is no longer the greatest, undermining the traditional theology. Then you don't need to be a believer in God, these other words like Reality, Existence, Being, Everything, Nothing work just as well, which the mainstream religions obviously don't like.

@Javfly33 interesting ... if there's something existing which isn't God (Supreme Formless Godhead) then there's a split in reality between God and not-God. And that means, as far as I understand, that God isn't the greatest, or infinite. So: Reality = God + not-God :. Reality > God. And if both God and not-God (ie me and you) are both finite, then Reality is finite too. BTW this is also my answer to the ontological proof of God. Seems strange to put this into mathematical form, perhaps there's a flaw in my logic I can't see yet.

I don't know why but this subject fascinates me, I'm not a Christian or anything. I just did an internet search on 'died and resurrected after three days' and many references to pagan deities come up who fill this criteria, eg Dionysus. My favourite theory is that these are mostly archetypal Sun gods and as we all know, the Sun goes through its annual cycle higher and lower in the sky. The lowest point is the winter solstice on c. 21 December when the darkness is at the maximum and apparently victorious with the ritual death of the light, followed by the Sun's rebirth a few days later when the ancients would have been able to measure its first movement back up in the sky again. A few years ago I read Michael Baigent's book 'The Jesus Papers' which told me about the major Jewish community in Egypt at the time, together with Jesus's family fleeing to Egypt because of Herod. Then he builds a theory about Jesus being initiated into the mystery religions also prevalent in Egypt, including rituals such as symbolically dying and being buried in a cave underground for several days, then coming back up to the surface in a symbolic rebirth or awakening. He goes back to Israel for his ministry, but gets into trouble with the authorities and after a fake crucifixion is smuggled back to Egypt, then on to South France. Obviously none of this is proven to a good standard - eg another book I'm currently reading says that he went east to live in Kashmir afterwards. So there's many theories, I suppose it's the powerful history of Christianity which makes its origins so compelling.

I'd say building a strong habit is the important thing first, then you have a solid foundation to increase your meditation time and get into those deeper states, and it will be easier to integrate into your lifestyle.

We have some pretty good clues though. Germany was hammered with compensation by the allies after WW1. Added to the 1920s depression the economy completely tanked. Massive unemployment and hyper-inflation. Conspiracy theories that Germany only lost WW1 because of Jewish and left wing unpatriotic people. Fascism was already on the rise across Europe as a reaction against communism and the Russian revolution. Checkout Spain, Italy, Portugal also had fascist governments. And even here in England there was a fascist vs communist conflict. Germany hadn't been democratic very long, only really since the end of WW1 and the Weimar republic was not so strong.

Images appear, out of nothing (everything), the unreality is when the image called 'I' claims ownership as the imaginer. It's so very sticky, wanting to own and control, doing the visiting, or choosing not to visit. But you're right, nothing is doing or choosing, or everything is, without separation.

@Moksha thanks, nice answer What it feels like to me is, my experience flip-flops between dual and nondual, well mostly dual and time bound with nondual glimpses. I'm not sure why but could be down to my animal survival instinct. As long as I'm a human it'll be this way I guess, in and out. But my instinct is, there's deeper 'ins' waiting to be discovered.

@Moksha @Inliytened1 what you both seem to be implying is that my present experience is limited, finite, not everything, falling short of the full awakening. Ok, maybe it is, in which case direct experience isn't always everything but only for a fully enlightened person? I'm not just being argumentative for the sake of it, but contemplating out loud on whether this moment (dual or nondual) is already complete, or if I need to go on seeking nondual experiences. I'm not suffering either way.

@Inliytened1 but if direct experience is everything (I won't call it 'mine') then I'm already omniscient from the beginning, because I'm aware of my experience by definition. So why do I need "awakening"?

First thought. How do we know this? We have no evidence of what does or doesn't exist outside human experience (including using scientific instruments to aid us). Surely what we can say is we experience what we experience; what happens in the absence of observation is a mystery which we may choose to fill with logical deductions. Or not, just leave as a mystery. Second thought. On the principle that nothing = everything, how about if everything exists outside direct experience? Ie that experience isn't a thing.

@Preety_India that's a big generalisation, what's led you to this conclusion? I'm aware this is contextual to each country's situation: over here (UK), boomers grew up in a post-WW2 situation with rationing, shortages, increasing public services, lots of work rebuilding the country, the cold war, national service, lots of factors different from millenials. I'm aware too that many developing countries are going through a baby boomer era right now with high birth rates; I wonder what the generational groups look like for them?

"make me want to fix or change them," I don't know the context of your situation so I'll not judge, but imo people who push my buttons are often the best teachers, if only I would observe myself instead of blaming them.

Lol this topic reminds me of those religions which convince you you're a sinner going to hell unless you pay for their priests to do ceremonies to save you.

So there is only enlightenment, not a split between before and after, or enlightened and non-enlightened people. Except there is, because I'm not enlightened and those gurus over there are!