Kevster

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

@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!

Hey, First of all I do not want to name this topic a fancy name. I don't post this for you guys, I do not seek validation or any confirmation. It is more that I want to be perfectly clear in what I write and think and not from a hidden agenda. It scares me, because it might be the case that it reveals I am not advanced anyhow. But that is the mind-game I am playing many times. I have been reading some journals on this site and the courageous journeys people are taking. I have done the No-fap as well, the Pickup journey and currently I am 'doing' the meditation journey. I want to ask you guys, if you comment to just point me on any bullshit. Am I fooling myself? Do you see steps I might take, but I not yet see? I have come to the point where I have done countless 'journeys' in order to fool myself. How do you know you are bullshitting yourself? Like when you post a journal of No-Fap for instance and you point all the benefits. Do you proceed further? Like why you are involving yourself in this game in the first place? It is a very popular self-felp topic, the nofap. It is supposed to make you more confident, etc.." But why do you want to be more confident? What is confidence in the first place? For who do you want to be more confident? For women, for other men? Every wants to be it, but what is it. It is a term, we are 'chasing' 'it'. Is it something you feel? What are the conditions? I do not know. Only what is said about it. It sounds very attractive. I am involved in this business for years, yet I feel I haven't 'grown' a lot. I am using these terms, but I am no scientist in this. It might be dangerous. Cut the anlalysis, for me it became a 'must', an obession. If I dind't do it, I felt bad, wasted all my 'compounded' effects. And what about placebo? The placebo is supposed to be one of the most powerfull effects a human psychy can produce. Isn't it than just the belief which is enough. But then, a belief. Fuck.. I am mindfucking myself. I admit, I am just lost in this mindgame, and this scares me. it scared me I might have no control. If I look at other cultures, they do not live by the terms. I live by the terms, I brag about it to my friends. I brag about compound effect, I brag about NOFAP, I brag about actualized.org... Yet I see things through the different lenses. I do not see clear, I know it, but I yet do not see it, only when I meditate. But I must meditate for 40 minutes. I dont waNT TO ENslave anymore in these mindgames. Healthy food is Oke, meditation is Oke, but for the 'right' reasons. What are the right reasons. Yet I feel meditation brings me closer. Right or wrong. What is it. Isn't it just a label to some beneficial cause, which is claimed by some individuals. Ultimately we are to decide for ourselves what is wrong or right. And to do good for others, (well this is just something I write ).. Has anyone been in the same situation as me? You are questioning everything, you are lost.?

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.

So I had an interesting experience. I was sitting in the train, occupied with my daily mental noise and I was also experiencing the social fear I experience from time to time. I was sitting, other people were sitting as well, there was a sensation which I describe as an intense 'fear' which in my story I describe as linked to other people, thus social fear. Yet if this is a fiction, it can feel very real it is a fiction. So I tried to explore the whole perception, what I was seeing and who was aware. This perception wasn't reality. I saw the perception, I felt the sensation of the story (can't really put it into very understandeable terms) as if it was a screen where the dust of my perception coloured everything and yet I couldn't see everything for what it really was. I just looked at the perception and everything in it, including myself. I really saw how my story distorted the view and I was kinda zooming and focussing in on the perception, like a lens over a lens. It was short as I got locked into the fragments again. It feel slike the glue has been crippled a bit. The glue to the lens and now there is a possibility to an extra lens investigating the lens. The perception is a sensation. Yet I write it and it makes it seem so obvious but it isn't. I get sucked in it again and again and again. I woke up and saw that it was just a story, then becoming the story again. WHat I see is not what I see. What I see is projected on a wall, "My wall". I am in this world but the world is in me. Yet i can't touch or be in this world, but I can't be in me as well.. I do not know what the essence is. I was meditating yesterday and there was an object named a book. I looked at it. Really trying to get to the matter. I call it a book. I call it a book, because somehow someone stated this is a book. It is called in different languages different sounds but which refer to this. I really tried to grasp it in the perception. Again the lens on the lens. In the lens there was it and the voice calling it book and funny enough also mental images of a book, not this book but something which might be aliek this book. It all occured at the same moment. I tried to grasp the me in the perception and the book as it was occuring together in my imagination. Yet I couldn't grasp both of them. I was aware of the perception of the book, the thing which refereed to the book and the whole perception where it all occured in it. Yet I couldn't see.. Blurghh. This is hard. Can someone give me a pointer please.. I feel I am on to something but I cant grasp it. Thanks. Kev

@Leo Gura Did you do this at home or did you visit retraits for this for example? Thanks in advance, Kevin

Exactly, One wants to prove his 'vision' on enlightenment. The other 'feels' threatened' and states he isn't right, but his' is. The other should do his homework. The other feels threatened again and tries to pinpoint the others 'invalid' arguments. Either way it is of no help to the work. I think it is much more helpfull to give every person is own right to be at his own developmental stage. Whether he is at the stage of 'nihilism' or some other. If he is willing do the work, he will find out for him or herself eventually. Discussions about non-duality is fundamentally flawed, as it becomes a philosophy again. It is just as with RSD for instance, guys who have seen too many videos and are walking encyclopedia's citing everything they know just to sound like they know everything but when push comes to shove they don't have a clue what they are talking about. I do not know and perhaps I will never know.

Just watched the enlightenment series of Leo, very interesting. He talks about conceptualizations and the different levels to it. It might be essential to dive into that. I have so many objections right now against Leo' s arguments, but there must be something in it, because I have already concluded that I am not so much in control that I think I am, or that I think that I is. Although I do not ' own' my body, therefore it is a body. I still feel that it is somewhat bound to me. I can feel it, nobody else can feel my body (I assume). I can sense it's sensations. There is a whole area of scientific research stating that, for example, my fingers are connected to my brain with neurons, inserting ultimately in the brain, the are called the homunculus. That is where proprioception comes from. It is a concept. If people can' t sense it anymore because in one of the links (according to the theory) there is a defect, they can t sense their fingers anymore, for example an amputation. Yet I am arriving now at the same problem as in my first post and it begins to look a lot like the theory about existence. It does' t say anything. And there are cases in scientific literature where people feel as if their amputated limb or body part was still there. So there goes this theory. So it is only the sensation they put their conclusion on whether it is still there. So it really doesn' t need to depend on if the ' finger' was still there attached to the body. But yet, I guess you do not even need to know this ' theory' there is no mine in to the question. I am now logically on a rational level trying to arrive at a conclusion that it either is or isn't mine. So it doesn' t really matter if the body part is still there, any sensation I feel can be interpreted as mine, because only I can feel it and nobody else. But I guess I have to look more closely. Can I feel everything? I cannot feel ' consciously' my liver, my kidney, etc. only though referred pain for example, which is another theory. Right now, I do not think I feel them. If I concentrate and focus, I can feel my thumb. I assume it is my thumb. If I cut of my thumb, there is a different quality of sensation near the area where the thumb has been cut off. Yet only I have that sensation, therefore I exists? Yet If i do not feel it, doesn' t exist, because I still have fascia around the liver which I can' t really feel. Whether I can feel it or not, where is the I feel in it. There are feelings, but what makes it my feelings. So the question is, are these my fingers, are the sensations I feel my sensations. Because I assume I can' t feel a car, can't feel a bird, only look AT them. I am separate from the other objects. I can' t see it any other way at this point.

So, been meditating again or contemplating. And actually when I do this I see how mistaken I might be, how we all might be. I had been meditating for a while now, but I really did' t do much self contemplation about experience itself, but even experiencing the experience which is something that confuses me on a rational level, but where in my ordinary conscious must be deeper truths. The locking in in the fragments, I have been trying to zoom in on that. It is like a lens, I sense the thought and the content is what I 'See. As I stated before, there is no really a control in it, no me what I thought was controlling this. I really think I am the beginner or the initiator of thought and that I can put a direction to this thought at will, but this is not the case at all. Close observation. But how can there be observation and control at the same time, isn' t that a meta-level above the thinking itself?!

hahaha lol. Some love is in the air. Hope you guys watch mine as well!!! Just watch out it doesn't become a competition where you battle against yourself. I remember I did all these challenges myself, they looked good on paper, but I felt miserable when I failed to do them. Meanwhile, the guilt made me feel worse than I initially before the challenges felt. It just became a battle against myself. I just bought into the illusion that I was special and better than others because I was doing all these challenges, but in fact it was just a distraction for the real problems I didnt dare to face. I don't disagree with some of the habits, I think they might be very beneficial. My tip from my experience is to be aware why you are doing these challenges r habits and keep compassionate to yourself when you forget a day for instance.

Nice Daphne, Seems like you are a perfectionist lol. I can relate to that. I am one of the worst habit builders of this planet, but I managed to do it now for 6 months daily. I started out with just 8 minutes a day for the first 2 weeks (even days I knew I could do more). If you really want to stick to it, consider perhaps the FOGG-model of habits. I just started out really small. I think 30 minutes is possible, but I also think you set the standard enormously high in the first place. And also if you skip a day, or to many days in a row, let it be a learning point, perhaps the 30 minutes was to high and it is easier to START if you know you need to meditate for only 5-10 minutes ;). If you want to make it a long lasting habit, it is allways efficient to set the right basis. This works for me at, I don't know for you, perhaps you can experiment. I wish you good luck on it! Kev

So thoughts and thoughts appearing. What is it. It is filled with a dialogue in some form and a movie. Sometimes other sensations. Dialogue in the form of sound and light. And usually there is some form of 'feeling' to it. IF the feeling is 'bad' there is 'bad' thoughts and vice versa. Bad is something "I" wants to avoid, Good is something "I" wants more of. But What is a thought. I am now trying to conceptualise it. Again.. And a concept is putting a concept in other concepts. A Noun into other nouns. A thought has a begin and an end? Now the thought is vague and fast, "About" a birthday party I "Sense". I "see" the situation of this girl where I am supposed to be going but I forgot, because of this ahahahah. funny. Shit. This is apparently the content. I have no idea how it started, so the thinker I thought I was is apparently not in control of 'its' presupposed ownership of the body but also not his own mind. I have no clue how this content started. It started itself and it ended on itself. This must be the wave where some folks spoke of. And I am supposed to be the ocean. I do not see it. Sensing. WHat is this sensing. What is sensing. Immediatley the answer "ME". If a baby, unattached by social conditioning, wouldnt even answer Me, he doesn know. WHy a baby. He has no concept of Me. Thus there is nothing to be me about it. Where does it start, there is only something noticing it, call it awareness. But the content itself of the story,.. But that makes perfect sense. It is continuous...Pff, i am making this shit up. I just want to proceed. Where is the beginning.. again.. Why is there even a beginning in the first place. The story is the labeling itself.. hm.. I do it in hindsight. It's no story it's fragments. Content Fragments appearing continuously. And there is indulgence in these thoughts. Like I can see the shift where I lock into them and lock out of them. But if the i is thinking them, how can I think them at the same time as locking into them. Hm. now I starting to lose it. makes sense but I cant grasp it. Been meditating for 6 months consistently but this inquiry is by far the hardest thing. It is confusing at least and I feel I am running in circles. Giving different definitions, sharpening everything. I feel that I am looking for this AHA-erlebnis. Perhaps another game. Must proceed. How do I even test a thought is true or not. I am now writing the thoughts which I call content fragments appearing continuously (for now). But that is again a definition. It is all rational. Truth in ratio. Famous cogito ergo sum. Third person truth. perhaps a contradiction. I don't know how to test it.

You make a solid point. It keeps me accountable. Allthough, it is a thing to see where others are so I might get a little taste of that and see things from a different 'perspective'. Anyhow, I am writing a lot. It appears pretty funny to me, that I can logically see the story of enlightenment but not yet see it for instance. That is funny. I am apparently trapped by myself who is blocking from seeing clearly. But I sense it is damn hard work. I am writing. I really believe I am ME, no bulshit. Me versus not me is a function. If there is a me there must be a not me, right, logical mind analysis. If there is black, there must be white. If there is this there must be that. In fact the formula is a distinction. I have a body. I believe that. There is this meaty something that "I' am carriying with me all the time, which belongs to me. I believe that for now. I am in my head, I hear myself, my thoughts. I am not aware of your thoughts, so they are my thoughts. I look at this glass of water, that must be separate from who I am. I can touch it, look at it, yet I can not influence it, it is distinct from me. Yet my body, if I cut of my hand, it is the same as a glass of water. It WAS me, or still IS me? Because I carried it all the time. I was owning it. But if I was owning it, it belonged to something else than itself. Therefore it cannot be entirely me. If I cut of my hand, placed it amongst 1000 other hands I probably wouldn't recognize it as MY HAND, but just A hand. But what is the ownership. To own. Is to have. It belongs to someone. But I own this glass of water? An I separate from this glass of water. I am now just fucking with terms. This body is bound to me with a thinker inside MY skull, which is that I and thinks he is real. I have my thoughts and they appear very real. I belief them to be real. But if I cut of my hand, my toes all in the process of not dying and remaining exatly the same this implicitly means I am apart from my body. It means it must be the same as the glass of water. But I move my fingers. I can not move the glass the same as I do with my fingers. Wait, these fingers would be more correct, yet I actually really believe to be My fingers lol. I am controlling my fingers, thats why. I have direct ownership of them. Nobody else has. Specially me. Me me and me. Who is moving the fingers, I am. But apparently not in so direct control. They move by themselves. I think i am moving them because they belong to me, and therefore I must moving them. But they are not all the time. This pretty damn confusing. They are mine, but I am not in direct control. Just as with my heart, everything else. They moving themselves. Shit, this is free will dilemma hahaha. Yet I do not see it. Because I cannot see it, I hear you say. Yes Who is speaking. dur dur dur.... I must conclude that this body is in a great control in itself. It is just doing something. So the I is apart. I must have full control I guess, initiating my own thoughts. I have certainly Ideas as well, which appear to be very real. I am done for now, this is mindbuggling. confusing,..