caspex

A lot of people also get into spirituality due to needing a form of escape or other such low reasons, yet the ego ultimately ends up annihilating itself as the pursuit of escape turns into pursuit of spiritual ego which in turn converts into a pursuit of truth. The reasons for why someone typically begins the path doesn't devalue that path's ability to grant awakening. The community around it may be unconscious but so is the case for much of mainstream spirituality and even this forum as well. It doesn't mean that the practice of martial arts itself causes that unconsciousness. I do admit that those who find lasting success in martial arts are usually those who did it out of egoic reasons because for most only ego can provide the kind of obsession and persistence needed to get good. But maybe the goal is never to get good but to understand one's body in a way that produces a realization of self. I am not entirely sure as this is not my path but I won't dismiss its value. Sure, I think psychedelics is the best path because it directly addresses and removes that unconsciousness once you take it, but you can see how much devilry exists even in those communities, you can't blame martial arts.

I am not entirely sure. Bruce Lee seemed a bit spiritual to me and he connected it with this martial arts. Any thoughts on that?

@Carl-RichardNever thought about it like that. Have any idea about the same for other stages?

Makes sense although I am not so sure about tying this in with the current state of society so much. I don't think that it is an artificially perpetuated narrative but rather a natural outcome as we shift from villages to civilizations. Moreover, my focus regarding Faith is not about fixing "Do I deserve to live?" or "What do I have to achieve to be able to prove that I deserve to exist?", it's more so about developing confidence in your own way of doing and thinking things. I had been so full of doubt that I constantly looked for validation about my way of doing things just so I know I am not fucking something up. I looked at people with the confidence to dive head first into any situation and it made me scoff at their stupidity "You have no real plan, you can easily fall into traps, there is no basis for your confidence as to why your actions would work." But it still worked for them. In fact I was the stupid one, making plans but never having enough confidence to see it all the way through. Turns out, it's a feature that confidence doesn't have a true basis to it. It's not stupidity but a deep sense of trust in yourself and in the future. This is where bravery stems from as well. My mistake was to think everything needs to have a logical backing behind it. Dialectic is more like a formalized doubt. Instead of aiming that doubt internally you aim it outwards. So there is a difference but not in the way you say it. It's all still a formalized doubting process though. thesis → antithesis → synthesis This process is about creating tension between views and revising them. The moment you acknowledge an antithesis in the hopes of a synthesis, you already acknowledge that your current worldview is incomplete. If there is room for more integration (which there always is) your worldview is provisional and open to revision. That there is an implicit doubt in your worldview, that something could be wrong. You can't pair epistemic certainty "I am not doubting" with Epistemic Incompleteness "I have not integrated its antithesis yet".

This thread is pure comedy

It can't be this simple. For one, I can think of one other reason for it's emergence within someone. Powerlessness. If one has an irrational fear of losing control and being powerless, and cannot feel powerful within, they seek this by controlling and dominating others. Of course powerlessness can be tied in with abandonment but they are quite distinct as well. Maybe powerlessness is a broader term. This can manifest in many ways, and can be mild to very extreme. Ted Bundy likely felt this way considering how he described taking someone's life as the ultimate act of control. In my opinion Epstein didn't do it because he was scared of abandonment but because he felt powerless within. One indication may be that he had very low Testosterone and therefore took supplements. I wonder if he didn't feel like a 'man' because of this. Of course there are many other indications. The whole Epstein class of people seem to be such high in powerful positions precisely because they constantly chase power as they are scared of losing control. This is just one analysis of why it may happen. Of course, your post makes just as much sense too. But it goes to show, it cannot be that simple. With stuff like this unless you do actual science it's hard to figure out whether something like pedophilia is truly curable or not. Also the stuff about sensitivity regarding meaning seems too simplified a model too. This sensitivity varies a lot by age, experience and maturity.

Has it ever happened to you that constant failure hammered you down every time you mustered the courage to gather hope and stand up again? This cycle will eventually lead you to a point where you lose all hope. Hope and purpose are the fuel to your actions. Here stands a choice, either you give up or somehow try again by finding more hope. Many give up, but those who choose to try again usually do not do so because they consciously chose it, but rather because they don't have the option in their psyche to let that go. They have to try again, there's no other choice. It is at this point you realize that up until now your hope was based on external objects. For example: The fruits of your actions, the end goal, inner peace, inner satisfaction, some elaborate worldview on how your actions are meaningful. No matter what it is, as long as your hope is derived from external objects, it'll always give out after X amount of failures. For some it may take 5 failures, for another 10, maybe for someone else it takes 50 failures, and for another a 100. The bigger the task the more failures you'll encounter, and at that point, after 1000s of failures, you'll eventually run out of things to find hope in. If you're lucky you succeed before that happens. If you're not so lucky, you end up feeling hopeless. And because your attachment is deep, you can't let that desire go either. Here a person reaches a very dark place, where they find themselves incapable of both action towards their goals and letting that goal go. So what's the solution? Faith. It is hope turned onto itself. Faith is that state of mind where the source of your hope has no basis. Faith is by design a strange loop. When you have some hope for better times, you would have reasons to explain to another person as to why you believe that. But when you have faith in better times, there's absolutely no basis at all for why you think that. That is a feature. If you're looking for a base, a logic behind it, then it is not faith, you're still searching for hope and purpose. Life is a balancing game between Faith and Doubt. Those who have no Doubt are blind, constantly stumbling into countless traps that life has laid out. Those who have no Faith are too slow to get anywhere and perish. Those who strike the right balance achieve stuff really fast. You simply have faith in yourself, for no reason at all. There was never any need for a reason to believe you can achieve your goals. Many intelligent folk take pride in being able to question and doubt conditions. But that is precisely what holds them back from truly achieving their goals. You cannot achieve self-mastery until you master the mechanics of belief and faith. One needs to be able to embrace uncertainty and the unknown head on, Faith is just that.

Okay, so my hot witch girlfriend is genuinely real while I am in my dream, and she was 'never' real after I wake up. The way the term relative is used in context of all the other stuff implies that God is not a bigger circle encompassing a smaller 'dream' circle but that it is the same size, and in fact the same circle as the dream circle. The term 'relative' defines not the location of being within that dream circle within a larger God circle but the state of that one circle. This is consistent with solipsism. However, 'never' implies that there's an 'explanation' which changes the state of this circle from dream to real. This is because 'explanations' or 'realizations' tell you that the previous state was never real or the way it was. It creates a deeper more basal reality. When you enter the dream again the 'explanation' ceases to exist and therefore the dream becomes real once again. You could say god lowers its consciousness by ceasing 'explanations'. Now, unless I am completely wrong about the way I have been going about this, how can we know that these 'explanations' take us to truth beyond 'making sense'? All they do is change the state of that one circle. Explanations create basal realities which didn't exist (because there's nothing beyond one's experience) prior to the explanation's being. How would you know that after you wake up from the dream, you are in the same reality you went to sleep in, because the explanation for the new reality (because reality implies there being an explanation explaining away the dream, therefore causing you to wake up.) would create a basal reality telling you how this reality was always real and never not real. Unless there exists only one explanation to your dream there can't be any guarantee that you're waking up in the same reality. This is seriously concerning because there can only be one Truth. Unless you explain away each truth as being a different aspect of the ultimate Truth, such as Love, Light, Suffering, etc. terming them as different 'awakenings'. How could you ever know these different aspects are taking you to the ultimate truth? Knowing depends on explanations after all, and I wonder if explanations can be trusted at all, because they always will make sense and create a basal reality.

Doesn't this imply that the earth is actually, truly, flat unless you fly beyond it and take a look? I mean the very idea of an 'illusion' assumes something beyond it. But there's nothing beyond your own experience. The illusion has to be it, the truth. So the 'others' when you are in low consciousness cannot be an illusion but the real truth. And as you gain consciousness, you basically kill the whole world by 'realizing' there's no one else. How does using the concept of 'illusions' make sense when you're talking about solipsism the way you describe it? Genuinely confused.

Looking good can make social interactions much smoother and many times helps you get stuff done quicker. I think we all know the gist of the benefits. My question is, why? Is it all the health and fertility indicators that tricks are monkey brains into favoring this person or is there more of a psychological role? I get that a good physique, at least for men, shows that this person, despite all his personality traits, has some sort of consistency and ability to put in the work. One example I think about is Simmons in Whiplash. Think about it, as you watch the movie, you sort of hate the guy but there's also an understanding of why he does it that way. People who watch that movie typically don't tend to describe Simmon's character as hypocritical upon first watch. But I believe that the story would change if he was fat and unfit. Suddenly, for most people, the emotions would flip. At least I would have seen all his demands and precision as hypocritical. I'd feel this subconsciously, but it'd be there. The presence of a bad physique would show to me the absolute lack of discipline and self-control this person has, and the fact that he demands such precision from others would be very hypocritical. If he was neither fit nor unfit, but average, this feeling wouldn't be quite strong, but it'd be somewhere in the middle, and being fit definitely helped his case. But that's a very easy example. What about good facial structure, a good frame, being tall and other genetic lotteries? We understand that those features do not require any inner work to achieve, it's handed to you from birth. But people still get 'tricked' by it, if you know what I mean. I understand that evolutionary speaking being taller and having a bigger frame gets you more reach in fighting situations and it also indicates that the person was well-fed and under good conditions, but what does a person, subjectively, feel and really think that attracts them? I think it's also important to note that I am asking these from the context of your everyday normal and social life and person. For a spiritual guru, attractiveness stops mattering as much and I actually think an attractive spiritual guru can be quite the hindrance. Spirituality is really working against all the survival programming so that checks out.

I did read it, really like it but never ended up applying any of it. I think I just learn the hard way.

Hopefully this post isn't too old for me to post an update. - I have it sorted now. For the past 5 days, I have been studying for 8 hours. Today's the 6th day, already done with 4 hours. I have never studied this consistently and this is what I have been trying for so hard since the start of this year. I am so glad to have made it to the other side. I am pretty sure I just applied the BEDSM method as posted above(@Ninja_pig ), but I wasn't thinking of it while doing so. I just put my phone away, set fixed times for studying and gave myself enough leisure time to not have the day feel overwhelming. I study 6-10 (AM & PM) to get those 8 hours. I have free time from 10am - 5pm which is great for hanging out with friends, going out, following hobbies, working out or simply catching up on sleep. I think the one big thing I fixed was my mind's tendency to achieve perfection. Now, I don't care if I messed up the timings, nor do I care that I messed up the efficiency of my study, I still sit the rest of the way through. Better than not doing anything and wasting months (learnt it the hard way). Another thing that helped was reducing my expectations about how much needs to be done in a certain amount of time. I expected to cover 80-90 pages of my study material every single day (Total's about 2500 pages, i.e. 5 Books for my first subject). The truth is, I am not a machine and the study material is sometimes hard to comprehend. I lowered my expectations and that helped me get done more than if I hadn't. Now I cover about 40 - 64 pages a day and make notes alongside it. -- I do think discipline as a whole is something I haven't even touched upon yet. I can steadily sit for 8 hours a day to learn about a subject, great, but I cannot yet be disciplined enough in other domains such as fitness and dieting. I will consider it mastered the day I am able to be consistent regarding any action upon which I set my mind to. That is non-negotiable for me. That is a degree of freedom not many achieve before death. It really hits you during the 'embodiment' phase of your spiritual journey, because you really need to be healthy mentally and physically in whatever context your nature and awakening has taken place to truly embody those things and then progress further beyond. --- I read the other posts here about not going for discipline at all, being a 'passion-oriented' person (@Cred , @Riccurdo ). Maybe I am not ND enough to have that work as fast for me. If you want to call it being 'Mike Tyson' at doing boring shit then that's alright; however I view my concept of self-mastery as being so free and have such control over one's senses and mind that one is able to do anything that simply requires time and effort. For me, this notion of self-mastery stems from my need to be truly authentic. While one can define being authentic as letting your mind and personality run free and do whatever it wants, I think that idea is flawed. You are not your impulses, nor are you your emotions. You're not even your logical mind and nor are you your imagination. You are not your personality and therefore you are not your passions and interests either. While there's nothing that needs to be done to be pure consciousness and to be one with God, there is indeed a lot to be done to embody that highest love and let it run through you as if you are its vessel. I define true authenticity as embodiment of the Truth, embodiment of God. That's because that's truly what you are. I don't plan to achieve this by rejecting my personality, body, interests or passion, because that would be the same trap The Buddha fell into initially, but I do understand that one at least needs a mind that is not controlled by the senses and impulses. This is how I define achieving true self-mastery and discipline. I read the tagged post about NTs and NDs and it does seem a bit too simplified for how it really works. Discipline always has suffering in store, I don't think I have ever met somebody who could read a book and simply apply those teachings and move on the way you describe NTs. But there is definitely some truth to that post, but I will refrain from labeling myself as either ND or NT.

Yeah if you mean it correctly

I see Vishnu in everything and everything in Vishnu. The contradiction I felt initially between non-duality and bhakti has been resolved. I can verify that Bhakti leads to non-dual states regardless of what you might think. It does so primarily through the heart with no logic involved, just faith. The way it is done by Leo is through Gyana, primarily through the mind. Both work. Both lead to the same place. Bhakti probably has an edge over Gyana too in the sense that Gyana is at a greater risk of feeling dry. However, no way is superior in the sense that one is faster or if one is more dangerous, all depends on who you are. I am going to take time out and go to a few 7 day retreats this year. I must deepen this state. I don't think posting highly organized posts detailing each experience in this thread is a good idea for Bhakti. I find every prior post on this thread to be something I wouldn't have posted as I am today. I love the me who posted them still. I'll post in this thread any new things I do like what happened on a retreat or something. I am going to take a more heart centric approach. Rama

Pretty much. This is why I say 'self-mastery' specifically. I think the one thing I want to master in life is myself. Yeah you're right. But neither positive nor negative motivation worked for me. I had strong positive motivation of going on a trip with friends once a subject was complete. Didn't make it. I also let many people down by procrastinating too. That negative motivation didn't work either. I am so confused man.