Kevster

@ajasatya Yeah, also what the book states. Makes very much sense. I realise that modern Western Culture has made some sort of 'drug' out of meditation again to achieve benefits equivalent to the hype around cold showers, no fap etcetera, but that is not the point of meditation at all, even though I must admit the benefits are most wellcome. So the modern western values and its era of self-improvement uses meditation not how it is in its most pure form. It only takes it for its fruits, what it can use from it, it doesn't really respect meditation as the organism it embodies. This is the only way I can express it at best now. Perhaps I can better call these extrinsic values of meditation, while the intrinsic values are found in the anthropological works. I do have a question: As I wrote before these nightmares are getting more intense and freakish, sometimes to the point that I am really upset even a couple hours after I woke up. I have a really hard time dealing with them (lots of anger and fear). Last night my neighbour knocked the door because I was screaming in my sleep. The same old dream as I had in my youth and which I have no clue what it means... Do you know ways to discover their meaning?? Or shouldnt I take it too seriously. Thanks in advance

Hey man. Thanks for your tip. It might be no coincidence that I just began to read that book allready. I do not know if I do it to inflate my ego. That is sometimes very hard to tell. I try to be aware of its manifestations or discover subtle forms of ego defenses. So in a way i think you are spot on. In another way, I think your comment is obvious. Almost everyone begins with certain expectations from meditation, only to discover what they are and that they are illusory. The whole meditation is to discover that and purify. So in a way it might, but it might also be dissolved in its course. So I think I grasp what you mean with 'challenge'. It is a challenge, because sometimes it is the hardest thing to do, especially when "negative" sensations or my monkey mind is in full gear. It creates resistance, because I still have the notion sometimes that there are 'good' and 'bad' meditation sessions. The bad meditation sessions makes it a challenge, because my ego/I/my mind has a certain notion about how it should go, thus my secret little practice. I should become calm, I should focus very clearly, my monkey mind should distract less and less in time, etc.. The resistance is created by mind and the resistance makes it a challenge, while there is nothing to obtain or arrive at in the end. It is simply being. But to be honestly, meditation is the hardest thing sometimes. Especially when was addicted to stimulation to escape from simply being. Thanks for your comment and keep em coming. if you got more tips i am very willing to hear them!

Well in that case we can make it a Zen Koan ;).. Thanks for the pointer

@Nahm my tip for you is stop the brah-ing. Made the whole of your comment pretty much not taken serious.

So, wanted to post some changes I experience on meditation. I hope they will expand or deepen over the course of time. - (More) caring for others, especially children. (No not in a wrong way :P) - A deepening of the relationship with my parents, especially my mother which has been very turmoiled the past years. I do not react emotionally and even start to facilitate the love she couldn't give me due to her own upbringing. Reverse parenting for some reason. I realize how much is true about the genetic upbringing. - No need to strengthen my ego in the relationship with my mother. Much lesser need for no more mr nice guy tactics to use to manipulate or get my way in order to win or not lose the battle of conflict. It is even fine sometimes to do nothing when being offended. It is actually not being offended, but feeling offended. Where I previously felt offended or done short, I see the bigger picture. When I haven't done meditation properly or sunk into overstimulation again, I can literally tell the huge difference. This is also due to doing intense therapy after a severe depression. Literally had to shed layers of masks. - When Meeting strangers or people who try to belittle me, staying calm and even be friendly. I must be conscious though about really speaking up when necessary, but people joking with me doesn't really bother me that much. - Increased state of intense joy, which can come bubbling up for no reason. Usually when I am very quiet and alone or sometimes when I am walking in the city. - Thinking is a very little aspect of reality, I begin to start it's presence in the whole phenomenological field. Doing enlightenment meditation, where it is there in the field but nowhere to find. - I have been the most happy during and post-meditation for nothing. Doing nothing is really the most pleasant thing to do. - Less need to prove myself. - Start appreciating nature and animals big time. Great need to watch planet earth and read about animal care and climate. "Negatives" - Increased nightmares. This is something which is really appearing after about month of intense meditation daily. Nightmares where others appear huge and I very small, where I am n the middle of a storm and losing someones hand. Also nightmares I used to have as a child start coming back :S. - Even though the joy appears pleasant, also days of utter meaninglessness. I can literally do nothing. It feels as if everything is designed, or almost everything, to distract. This bothers me very much. Like wtf. - Intense anxiety about my family dying. - for no reason intense sadness and a need to cry and identify the sadness which I can't pinpoint. Just this intense feeling. - Lethargy about reading books I used to read. I feel repelled by books about becoming the best and all this crap. An intense feeling of anger towards the authors as well. Like wt are you doing. Are u again sustaining the self-narcissism bullshit as almost everyone here. - An almost obsession with trump and the what the *& is going on with america. How can we so easily bring most of what we build, so easily down. People tell change is good, but this feels like regression. So that is it. Probably forgot a ew..

@jse Thanks! Yeah it is sort of bubbling up in my mind for a long time.

@ArabiaNytes Hey, Thanks so much or your eedback. I decided to do a daily meditation o at least 20 minutes and reduce internet, television to a zero minimum after 6 O clock PM. I talked to my girlfriend about it and I remained at my own apartment or a while just to contemplate and be more in silence. Don't know why, but it really felt like the necessary thing to do. I finally created some space and a lot of shit came up. A lot of stuff which I thought I had overcome which I didn't. During the periods of meditation (still doing it daily) I start to get nightmares which I am very grateful or. They creep me out, but they tell something I assume. I came to the realization that I have been fucking selfish and unloving to others simply by being to over involved with my own dramatic life story. As a child I always cared about others, animals and even nature. Another realization is I have been being too nice, started to become no-more mr nice guy, but it still didn't solve anything. Now I ended up being nice again, but more of an understanding nice guy which still errs too much to the nice side. I do feel this is a little improvement, because the no more mr nice guy was some sort of rebel, still reactive to other people, but the same level of ' I do not really care about others". At least now it is more honest. I am now honestly nice, but I still feel I screw myself over a little bit too much. Like I care about others, but I can still assert myself more. It really is about respecting myself and also earning the respect of others. I know this is not the end point, but it feels like the next stepping stone on the road. So I decided to do something counterintuitive which is completely go against my view of what succes and my life is supposed to be. To teach children at kindergarten. I really felt a need to do this. To teach them their schoolwork and aspects of life. The so-called self improvement nowadays which many of my friends and acquaintances are doing feels so hollow, neurotic and self-deceiving. It is all about business, glorying narcissism, money, self-improvement, pickup, really to blow up themselves, it does' t really feel like they are doing it for themselves but more to prove something to themselves and others how great they are which in the end doesn't serves anything meaningfull. for me it really feels more courageous and valuable to not manipulate anymore, because being honest and integer is the hardest thing to do, and it really feels like the right and best thing. Moreover because I actually care about people. I always felt bad when I tricked somebody into my manipulation. Like, What the hell are you doing, they have feelings to. Really new-agey, but fuck it. It is like another era higher and harder compared to the manipulation and self-improvement you see at books like ' how to win friends' etc.. etc.. One friend however, is in this as well, but for him it is really about self-improvement. He is doing it intrinsically, like for the skills. He has always been the most integer, honest and good guy I know. The funny thing is, he is not interested in money at all, but in getting the best out of his work, himself and his employees. His values are so pure and honest, he is really a guy who I admire. I will always value this relationship with this guy. I am actually curious to learn about other cultures as well. As if my story is just a fabricated as any other. There is no suppose to be, the suppose to be, is highly cultural and social conditioning. So if this is the case, will my exact story not change according to my social and cultural upbringings. Like caring about money etc.. was and still is in other cultures caring about the family!

Hi Guys, I haven' t posted on this forum for a while. I am in need for your advice for I am at a point I am too desperate to let my pride serve me any longer. I just do not know how to deal with it any longer and I am afraid I will slip in a depression again. I talk to nobody about this, but everybody does advice me to get a job, be happy with my girlfriend. I feel everything I have been told is one big lie: Growing up, going to school, getting a girlfriend, get married and children, get a steady job where you will work 40 hours a week and feel yourself slowly but certainly becoming more lifeless to the point where quiet desperation even can' t be felt anymore. I am in the position I have a girlfriend (i am 27yrs old), she wants to get married and children, which is something I want for her the most. I have a job, but at home, I just sit on the couch, watch tv with her, and i just feel like ' is this all there is?". Is this the life I should live, I feel so frustrated, sad and guilty at the same time. Guilty to my girlfriend, because I feel I fade away and postpone her wish and expectation to get children and move on to the next step on the conventional ladder. I feel numbed and I numb myself, feel the adventure and life being obscured by the blur of numbness created by distractions like internet, porno and going out with my friends, I am sick of it. I am avoiding like hell. Avoiding with internet, perhaps also this forum (at least her I throw my heart out). I feel so scared. When I do a meditation, I feel all the tears and all the chillings run through my spine and the voice in my head screaming " What the hell are you doing, Wake up, what are you doing." But as an answer, the immediate answer is almost always " Like what!?, I just don' t know what to do". I have been trying self-improvement though. I have done meditation challenges, read a book a day challenges, done pick-up, but it all felt as a chore. it felt if as I did' it and did not improve at all. It felt as something I had to do, to keep up with my friends and peer-group. So I dove into each one of them, as a temporary obsession, flaming out after a while and being at rock bottom again. What should I do, What have your experiences been and what did you feel had real value. I am really ready in going through pain periods, please give me a sign. Your truly, Kevster

Tha@Pinocchio Thanks! Sometimes being biased is supporting for evolutionary purposes I suppose. I am drifting off like a seagull. What is reality blah blah blah. Models can' t be truthful only more accurate when precautions increase... It is a map not the territory. It is pure rationalism. Rationalism depends on logic. If this, than that. Based on that predictions. Like a computer, where you only have 1 and 0. If yes, than.. If not, than. If mostly yes, in what cases not. If in these cases no, how comes?

So, basically the many realities are everyone' s own story and it is funny now that I am reading Marcus Aurelius Meditations* that is what is called impressions and there is something aside that is truth from this. All I can conclude is that there has been conjured up and been messed up with terms and making it very difficult to bring order in it. I have already seen that an intersubjective reality is just an agrement of two or more views OF the world, about impressions on commonality which seems to be most correct on mutual agreement. But the word "REALITY" has been attached to it. It is derived from NAIVE Reality. So basically an agreement of ' Impressions' . (i need to educate myself more on this). I know, I know, I am investigating the scientific field about reality etc. Yet Leo stated this will only sidetrack my process. I field-test this with direct experience. It is biased, I know, yet I try to unbiased myself more and more. That must be what seeing is reality. Therefore my initial response is to investigate how to recognize bias and what a bias is in the first place. If I am to seek in ' models' about reality there must be in 99,99999% biases, because a bias is a diversion of reality? So it is inherently subjective and therefore biased. Like now, when " I AM LOOKING AT A CUSHION", I can investigate the whole field of experience. The mental voice, visualization, and the actual thing where I am looking at. Then going a level further, Who is looking and who is aware. Is there someone looking and is there something to be looked at? Am I just looking at my conceptualizations and not looking at all. When I look at my brother, do I not only see my conceptualization of mine, and not truth. Who is he after that? I have attached words to my brother and evaluated everything he does or doesn't according to this concept and it had to be congruent. Why? If it is plain bullshit. I just take it for granted, but what if it is all false. What is everything " I think about me" is not real. Yet there are many, manyyyy ' THINGS" ABOUT ME which seem to FEEL RIGHT. Just as with any belief I guess. It just feels right, when I " RETHINK" or I am in a situation negatively evaluating Phenomena, including myself, others etc. The same situations, many perception, walking perception screens again from different people, the agreement between them making it intersubjective realities, but what is true, apart from agreement on perception? It is still a perception... I am going to state what "my perception screen seems to story out of the moments", deriving sideline scenario's which seem to be a continuous sense of self, apart from what is really going on. I am not yet at the level to discern this. Yet I am drifting yes, It feels like I am on a lost ocean, without any guidance no pointers. Pfff. But what is it to die with having lived with a fiction, all in vanity. Sigh. Feeling right.. What is feeling right. it must be more an underlying fear of perhaps be wrong, and just comfort seeking in righteousness. No-one likes to be challenged right, when they seek comfort. Things feel right for me to. My beliefs feel right. Body I have a body.. There is an I which is located behind my eyes, which is owning a body. That body stops at the skin. It is a body, not my body, I already arrived at that conclusion. So the I dies when all the thinking stops. Is there any truth in I? is there any truth in all the thoughts? Everything I think ' Feels right' . Feeling right, is not being right. Everything that feels right needs to be investigated in the first place. That is all I see for now. I have a body is a thought as well. And the thinking that it is a thought is a thought about that thought as well, a meta-level above.... I can go meta all the way, but yet there might be no single truth in it... Yet I am lost again, now in circles... A belief needs to be right all the time, in every occasion. Why do some people, including me, hold on to beliefs in spite of this. Perhaps, as Alan Watts has stated, that what is to gain if one is to lose his heart. Scientific evidence is far on the process to fully discern a God as being described in the bible (literally). Yet people hold on. Yet they are not more delusional than I am on other levels. If you ask me something I am deluded about it is probably a whole elfin lot. Funny. Yet for the scientific the religious are deluded, but for the Yogi' s the scientific are at equally deluded as the religious. On content they differ not the fundamentally axis where religion and science are the same. Enough, enough, Time to point it at me. This is all time waisting. I must show my own ignorance to myself and also to every reader here. Because I am deluded ad infinitum (lol) as well.

So "my reality" and "Your Reality" and "A reality besides your and my reality", Many different realities, or perhaps no reality at all. My reality must be in some fundamental way the same as your reality, as it is relatively your and mine. But perhaps because I got a "My reality", there must be a "Your reality" just as black implies white. My reality is the way I interpret the world, my looking at the perception. But what makes it my reality. Only because I have the 'unique thoughts' you are not having at the moment I experience them. But the thing is I do not know If they are real just because only I can have them. How do I even know that? Because I do not have your thoughts, feelings and sensations. We are all living perception screens than. Let me be just trying to be as objective as possible. My reality can't be possibly your reality. e.g. Every person is having a different reality of the world. - I have unique thoughts that only I can experience at this moment of time. In the same sense as that you have different thoughts, feelings and sensations. What do I actually mean with reality of the world. I read it in a book. IF it is a reality of the world. Perhaps I am jumping too soon behind these words. Reality of the world how can that actually be true. If there is a reality OF the world. That is dualistic. How do I know that what I see is reality in the first place? A reality of the world implies a reality apart from the world that is about that world. Is there a reality in the world itself. If that is true than We can both have our realities OF the world, but than we still have it about the world. And we might be equally have our realites, which makes it fundamentally the same, but yet we are both looking at the world. But what we see, is our perception which I equal with reality of the world, but can there be a reality of a 'reality'. Or perhaps different kinds of reality. Realities of realities. But a reality is what is real. Allways and everywhere. If that is true and If my 'reality' differs from yours than I just contradicted myself.. :S. Then there can not POSSIBLY be your reality and my reality. But where am I talking about then. How can it be that there are so much 'models' about reality. That is weird. If there is only one reality which I now assume. How can it be that there are so many models of it or better descriptions. But 'improved' models over 'improved' models. In a way the previous one was not as accurate as the next one. But if one is not accurate or in the slightest way not ccurate does it not mean it isn't reality. And what reality is there in a model anyhow. A scientific model of the world is in that sense not different from 'yours' or 'mine'. If that is also true than a scientific model OF the world can at most approach reality at the same way as your or mine. Does it make any difference in which way they are accurate. I would like to think YES at first but I am also doubtfull now. IF it is a approach of reality it is also fundamentally the same at the level of 'your reality' and 'my reality'. Yet some we 'consider' more 'truthfull'. But that word must be mistaken as well. How can it be truthfull if it is about reality. Why are we creating models anyhow. What is a model anyway. What are we looking at when we are 'modelling' ourselves. I guess we are looking at models of the world so the world becomes the model of the world. Proceeding.. I was at the point that I experienced my perception in this whole field of awareness.

So I proceeded on the mental screen. You could say I was struck at the level of all I see, is perception. How much do I really see? Everywhere I look, I look at concepts, which makes the I a concept as well. I doubted the direct experience as possible. But only as far as there must be an I to directly experience it. It is not impossible. It was 11P.M. and I was walking in nature across a big lake where there was little noise except the sound of the water and some ducks fighting against each other. There were many trees, a lake, the air, some other people walking their dog or cat (which is always the most funny: A cat on a leash). If something is antithetical, it is a cat on a leash being walked. So, I was wondering, Here is this thing we call a tree. Can I really see the tree for it' s full reality? And after that: Who Is looking at the tree. And " Who is aware of looking at the tree?" So there I was, looking at a big giant tree (it is winter here, pre spring). What I was looking at was really a screen or the perception of a tree. I could' t ' grasp' the essence, because I did' t even know what the essence is. The moment I tried to ' see' the reality, I tried my best to capture it (in words), or I really tried to feel the tree, but I have/had no clue what the meaning of reality is. Again, I tried to figure out some mental standards of reality, but again that made the perception turn into another orchestra of sounds and words. Which is a mental conceptualization of the ' thing' I was looking at. Who was looking at the tree. Obviously me at first conclusion. But the tree is just there. Perhaps the tree is looking at me. In either case, there is this thing which the meaning of words refer to. After that the meaning of words and the whole web of mental associations as the voice. But where is the I. I cannot experience directly an I. Tan there is this awareness, the whole of experience where these phenomena occur simultaneously, the thought processes and the meaning of words which together make up this whole lens. Colloquialism is this form of ' reality' where there is ' my reality' and your reality. This is where obviously the fictional I with all it' s perceptions and beliefs are included. Your versus mine. Intersubjective reality etc.. But this must be false as when the I disappears this whole notion of your reality and mine cannot be possible when this is true. Yet, I am not at the point to REALLY grasp it, instead I can just grasp it logically. I need some more meditation and contemplation on this. I was recommended a book by Thomas Kuhn: Structure of scientific revolutions. I am stuck at the level of terms: - Duality - Direct Reality - naive realism -etc.

So I was stuck at this level. I am really trying to figure out what the perception is. I am amazed about how much in what I see is perception and being affected by perception. Almost simultaneously when I see an object there is a mental voice and a picture of it. When I meditate I can separate the two, even though I can get locked in the mental picture easily. In the whole experience, there is perception of perception and perception itself, but the perception of the perception seems to be in the same field of awareness, which makes me doubt at this level which is more real or less real. The objects are just as less " ME" as I suppose I am me. I have the same sort of experience of objects as of me. The objects appear on the same mental screen as is the whole line of thought. So I feel somewhat dissociated. The sensations, which we also call emotions, are just there too. In the same mental screen. Which makes me wonder if not everything I see is a mental simulation. Is there even reality. This is where there has been written about if we are not just a dream lol It also makes me wonder how less I really looked and took everything for granted or just the way things were. Now it is obvious what a silly saying that is : "Just the way things are." I think 99,9% of population are delusional when they say this. Just the way things are, makes me prone to describe how things are which misses the point entirely. Again, I am drifting off. So direct experience is nearly impossible. How can i Directly experience anything if there is no I to experience it. If the I is part of the experience, which is experiencing it. This makes sense but there are many questions. Let' s make it more practical. For instance, I am writing this. I believe that. This proves I didn' t proceed anything. My fingers, and I am initiating this. What proves the reality of I in this? I can doubt the existence of I and the Initiating of the I in this. My fingers are not essentially me.

Hey man, I like the posts you write. Read all of them. Your writing style is very honest. I guess you are at the point of questioning the dynamics of social hierarchy? Perhaps it is usefull to see where this whole questioning is coming from in the first place. Perhaps if you got bullied and ridiculed in your younger years, it is a main goal to restore it in order to feel part of the group again. That is why the thoughts you experience are manily this content. Perhaps that is why you are analyzing subjects as 'normal', "cultural and social conditiong" in the hope of neutralizing these experiences. Even though I think it is very healthy to really try to understand how things are. So you still feel very hurt, the hurt tries to Unhurt itself and be invisible to the see-er. So you create layers upon layers, like an union. Your questions about on a pedestal, being better are legitimate questions. I hope you will find a truthfull answer to them. But try to see your own story in relation to the answer. At least that is helpfull to me. Perhaps not to you. Good luck my friend!!!

@WelcometoReality Doesn't seem harsh at all. I actually really hope this is THE PLACE where we are free to point on eachothers bullshit. Perhaps even with some truth-based arguments and without Blaming or discussion about right or wrong, but at least bring some clarity to it. That's how we proceed. I have enough of my own bullshit. Yet I say this and it must be a lie, cause I bullshit myself as well. But it will be much much and much appreciated if someone just blows right through it. I hope it will hurt. But if we can give a truthfull meaning to the arguments it will be a 'good'thing.