Saarah

This kind of miserable is different though, regular misery is like average levels of rainfall every day, all year round, but this is like making it through phases of storms every so often to reach beautiful skies on the other side till one day the sky is all that's left This weeks video was some good weather forecasting

@Prabhaker Ah, I was being too logical when I wrote that, not recognising it goes beyond! Thanks

Preferences and tastes of that sort come from impressions formed on us from experience and whatever other factors as an ego So an enlightened person might notice that preference for what it is rather than judging it inherently as a more valuable preference than any other but still express the preference because it is a reality for the ego self which is still there but they see through it

Watch and observe everything including the garbage of yourself and others and everything else Recognise it as already determined content called reality See then that 'shoulding' it or judging it is a pointless task you don't need to put effort into, you don't need to control or manipulate something already being what it is Then fall in love

@LifeLife personally I've come across a brief description of it in the book 'Flow' by Mihalyi Czsick... I can't spell it lol he didn't use the name Spiral Dyanmics but I recognised that's what he was talking about you can also google it

@Mikey religious books were how people during those times attempted to communicate Truth, a lot of it is metaphors e.g. Devil can be likened to ego, and God to awareness my personal 'epiphany' came when i asked myself what if the devil is just a concept for all the egoic actions and thoughts of humans, not an actual entity or being as that actually seems to make less sense so of course, religion can teach you many useful things, I like to think of it has having a bunch of golden threads running through it but the surrounding cloth, is all dogma and so it keeps you trapped in this closed mindedness where you entrench yourself in unnecessary beliefs and customs pick out those golden threads, run away with them over the hills and dump that cotton lol!

@Frogfucius i suppose they would be living their purpose as a hedonist, just using a really shit method as there are better forms of pleasure Although there are negative consequences and addiction to cause suffering instead of pleasure, everything about pleasure seeking has a form of suffering attached to it anyway so that's besides the point

identify all your beliefs and the justifications you make then doubt them to the death lol normally you have a religious doubt, you engage in confirmation bias, you look to the religion to remove your doubt and keep your belief there This time use your doubts to doubt even further sometimes the voice in your head will retaliate with "what are you saying, of course your belief is correct", recognise that as a response being the result of years of conditioning and let it go if you come up with evidence for your belief, question the evidence, is it really evidence?

@Feeble Dave

@DoubleYou ive been thinking along similar lines, like how the body is a bunch of physical impressions, the mind is made of psychological impressions, these impressions are from the environment, experience, conditioning, they're constructed and they can change, and the 'I' thought is part of the psychological impressions, the nature of an impression is to impress, so the 'I' thought is asserting itself, acting out itself, when I'm unconscious in everyday life it plays out itself, that's how you know it's just an automatic impression like every other, awareness doesn't need to be there but when thinking about awareness, this 'I' impression will not sit down and accept that it's being watched, it seems to think it's watching the awareness watch it do you find yourself stopping yourself to try to stop yourself being the witness of yourself and just letting awareness witness the experience of 'yourself'? Lol! Your post was helpful thanks!

And the fact that they got what they think they want, not what they actually want, will leave them feeling empty at some point, constantly searching for more

Sarcasm is just humour on the surface, essentially it's used by a person to keep their ideas or self image held up, boosting the ego as you say, someone who takes themselves seriously feels the need to do this (it's also cowardice, doing it in a non-direct and somewhat jokey way keeps tensions low and avoids possible conflict with another) lack of seriousness comes about better when all this need for defensiveness and ulterior motives is let go of i guess you're talking more about just any humour at all, but if it's humour in a vindictive way, that's not really humour is it, it's more about a persons seriousness

@Sick Boy if someone was demonising others, judging, being non-accepting, dogmatic and defensive, these are also about seriousness, taking yourself too seriously maybe spiritual growth is more about a quiet form of seriousness, still lighthearted and playful but serious about life in the respectful, appreciative way

Asking this is usually because you're thinking about what you can get from life and your wants & desires and when you don't get what you want, then you think, "well what's the point?" even if you don't know what you want anymore, you feel unfulfilled in some way, so again it's like "what's the point, there's nothing here and I'm not getting fulfilled in any way" Useful advice may be to try to connect to pure consciousness, then life stops being about your needs and wants, it's just beautiful by itself, whatever is for example, practice... non-judgement throughout your day mindfulness, meditation and silent being cultivating love and acceptance

@LifeLife theres no point identifying with one particular, religion in this case, for self actualisation use whatever practice from whatever place that helps you actualise and dump the surrounding fluff and noise

@Christian its like the map vs the territory, while the map isn't reality itself, it has its uses

@philosogi to embody a state of non-judgement more consistently will probably take time with mindfulness and meditation, it's just about stilling the mind of analysing and labelling in general judgements seem like conditioned reflexes, if someone does something you don't like, you might get an automatic feeling of dislike, it will take mindfulness of that over time to rest yourself and become simply observant when it happens again instead of reactive even though we know intellectually our judgements are biased and opinionated without having to do anything with reality, it takes time to work on the actual response that is judgement

@Voltman University because firstly there's no need to compare yourself to the other fish, and second your fear of higher expectations or working more needs to be addressed

@Clayman I recently had a phase of nostalgia too, while we have the ego i don't think it can die, it just stops entering your mind because you're focused more on the present, but really what you mentioned you do is something I find helpful myself, to recognise it as a story and an accessory of this ego, and using awareness particularly of emotions that may arise, just basically not becoming invested in the feeling accepting it is better, even if it's uncomfortable, trying to fight it will tend to create a big ball of frustration and whatnot

@Tancrede Pouyat 1. Stay out of his way as much as possible and keep contact minimum 2. When he comes to you and yells and is asking a question just keep communication and your responses very simple, don't get into complicated talks and don't get personal 3. If he threatens you in whatever way don't be reactive to it, just be silent and uninterested but not in a rude way I do these with my father and while his feelings and behaviour haven't changed, which is fine, he doesn't ever try to confront me or initiate an interaction these days, in doing these you basically stop acting as fodder for angry dramatic people you just have to be a highly sensitive person and then you can work your way around but it does feel frustrating living with a person like this, of course you'd rather not have to be manipulative in this way and just be yourself, but you can save that for when you're independent ?

@Blaze35 as long as the issue is only that you are financially dependent on them, then all it takes is building towards independence and then living your life the way you want. I can understand the smothering feeling though that you'll have to endure meanwhile, all you have to remind yourself of is wisdom. That you are being wise at the expense of fuller authenticity for now, there is a time and a place for your expression, unless you don't mind dealing with the very ill reception you speak of, I don't really know your situation and what that would entail, it's for you to decide but after that, if you are still in contact with them once you have financial independence, just be sure their interaction with you won't be an issue, that you don't start feeling guilty etc from their pressures patience and slowing down is needed, try not to get lost in ideas about how you want your life one way and you can't have it that way for a while, just focus on making life work right now in whatever capacity

@isabel this is all manipulation tactics, just remember you've identified why you stopped talking to your mum and don't give in to any pressure people hardly change and so if you ever do get in contact again you'd once again be hit with the same sort of behaviour if you feel any sort of empathy for your mum having cut her off then that's fine, and you may still care about her, but it doesn't mean you have to put up with all this for her sake

@Spiritjunkie well taking the stairs implies small steps, one at a time, and a bit of a hump to get over at each step as opposed to zooming up in one smooth move as with an elevator So success is about consistent daily small habits in this quote

Makes me realise I'm surrounded by a bunch of nerds

@Uncover all this thinking can get you wrapped up in your life where you start feeling more attached and so more anxious or worrisome etc maybe some kind of exercise would be helpful where you just bring yourself into the present, you might be too tired for meditation but you can just imagine being bigger than your life, whatever is happening, whatever thoughts you have about the day and the future, just notice that it's a drama you're identifying with but you can detach from it