Selfnaught

So I think I have discovered what is meant when one says to be innocent. I was contemplating today after I watched a video on another thread here with the guru talking about being both intelligent and innocent. I thought about intelligence for a while and then after reading the definition I thought about innocence. Intelligence is one’s ability to acquire and use knowledge. Innocence is not having knowledge. Thats when it hit me. when Jesus says “you must have the innocence of a child” my whole life I was thinking that this meant something like the mind of a child, to be innocent of certain things like sex, drugs and other examples that could be detrimental to oneself. But no, this statement means no fear! To be innocent is to have no fear in the unknown. Once one knows it is no longer unknown, which is knowledge. Therefore one can remain innocent and fearless of the unknown to gain knowledge and make the unknown known.

God = Truth and Truth = God.

Not sure if your question about the existence of God has been answered yet, but what about this: imagine that nothing exists. No space, no time, no history, no universe, no you. Nothing at all exists. Include your idea of God in this if you must. If nothing exists, the truth would be that nothing exists. So then the Truth still exists. Call it God, call it Truth, call it infinity. Existence cannot not exist as the Truth.

I am so sorry to hear this. Sending prayers for your son.

Last night at work an altercation broke out in my store and I was the cause. A doodasher came in and literally walked into our kitchen saying he was here for his order and wasn’t waiting. Obviously just looking for a fight, but we all matched his aggressive energy . Due to this a fight broke out between him and another manager once they got involved and the man was arrested. taking a step back and reflecting on the situation, I realize that could have easily been my fight. This exact scenario is why I usually am just chill and don’t say anything or just give in - to avoid altercations due to my disability, one hit could kill or paralyze me. As a manager of my store though I do need to have a backbone. The reason why I’m usually nice and respectful to people is not because it’s the right thing but out of fear. It’s selfish and egoic. The real me without the disability would just match anyone’s aggression but because of it I have to remember I can’t. how to stop living in this fear and to be more my real self?

1. Patience. And more patience. Kids are an amazing way to self reflect. Unless you’re not involved in your child’s life impossible to not improve as a person. 2. Having a routine is very important. Should’ve been obvious to me. Not only will it be easier for you, but the child will also be on board as well. 3. humans really are inherently selfish and learn how to manipulate on their own. 4. how to love deeper. A parent does a lot of things that they never thought they would do. 5. Going outside, especially in the spring, summer, fall is very healthy for parents and the child. Any day it’s nice enough out we go to the park where he goes wild on the playground and I just stand back and appreciate the scene. It’s a wonderful experience.

Congrats on the birth of your son. It’s truly an amazing experience watching the birth of one’s own child and watching them grow. You’ll learn so much. My four year old is my best friend.

Thank you for your reply, I put this in my notes to contemplate on.

I’m having trouble understanding exactly what self/ego is. I always thought the ego/self is ones identity and personality. However when watching multiple nde stories on YouTube, when the person that experienced the nde tells their story they’ll say that they had no ego. They’ll then have thoughts and even have a personality in the nde that is like their personality in this life. They’ll also say things like they were angry they had to come back here or they pleaded. it seems that one doesn’t lose the ego after death or I misunderstand what is meant by ego.

i can attest that I don’t know shit lol, but I keep hearing “death is the end of ego”. Doesn’t seem that way if an nde is any type of insight of what happens after one dies. From these nde stories I’ve listened too, there is still an “I” there.

But see that’s what I’m not understanding because during these Nde’s these people were having thoughts, thoughts about themselves even. “Am I dead?”, “I don’t want to go back”.

The other day a small awakening occurred, I was able to see how reality was literally all me. I didn’t go far enough to see how I was creating reality or enter a void or anything like that but here are some key takeaways from this experience. - If other kills this body, other dies too - Unconscious is imagined. pay close attention. Your eyes don’t close when you go to sleep (unless you already have them closed). Pay close attention to how reality can dissolve without closing your eyes, bringing you to unconsciousness, which I now understand to be imagined. You never “go” unconscious you imagine yourself to be unconscious or unaware. - There is a “flow” to life that I don’t quite understand how to enter completely, but in this moment, putting ego aside, there is was a flow to life, everything happening without my doing. My phone went off as I was in this state and there was a “flow” about it that I just can’t explain. I don’t understand this fully. Seeing how I’m creating reality will bring this all together, if I am truly creating a reality. I now must figure out the proper questioning to bring about the question of how I am creating. I’m finding that the question has to be genuine. Meaning, one can’t just ask “who am I” (from my experience). One has to get to that question in a genuine way. Also had to go back to square one recently. I used to take truth as a matter of fact. As in, the truth always exist. It does, but as soon as one starts speaking the truth, it becomes a falsehood, creating a duality. So the truth can never be unraveled (spoken) otherwise it becomes false. Example: if I say there is nothing that exist. Well that is true, except as soon as I say it, the truth exists. Therefore nothing is existing would be the truth, in this example, until it is spoken of.

I was thinking about meaning lately as I do on and off for the past four years of doing contemplations. A very helpful and obvious insight came to me this morning. Thought I’d share just in case anyone thinks life has no meaning. So let’s take something smaller like sports. Your team is in the superbowl. For you it means excitement and entertainment and if they end up winning you also get happiness and a sense of being superior somehow to fans of other teams. In the end it means nothing really, but for a short amount of time it has meaning to you. Now let’s take a much bigger (in a relative way). Let’s use war. War can give a huge amount of meaning to both the winning and losing side. In the end even whoever wins will cease to be and be conquered by another eventually. So on the end war does not matter. Now here was the insight. Life has meaning because just like how your human life has a start, so does meaning. So of course at some point the meaning will end. Meaning is required to make another meaning. All meaning has a start, so therefore it has an end. At the same time meaning always exists to the conceptual mind it just changed form to another meaning.

*I am not here to argue. I am here to see where I went wrong in this contemplation* If reality is infinite then all possibilities exist. It must be possible, then, to comprehend the absolute with intellect. If one cannot comprehend Absolute Truth within their intellect then all possibilities do not exist. Unless of course, one were to say that infinity is the possibility of infinite possibilities. But if everything is within the same absolute reality then there is no such thing as impossibilities in any “limited” reality other than the believed limitations. So within this current reality that I am experiencing i as a human can fly. But a limitation is that in this reality humans cannot fly. That would be a believed limitation. So likewise, in this current reality it is a believed limitation that one cannot intellectually comprehend the Absolute. Infinite possibilities suggest that it can be done.

ESV as mentioned is nice but if you want a more literal translation look into NASB. The NET is also another lesser known translation with commentary to the translation. no translation is perfect so it’s best to use multiple when doing studies.

How does one have the caring aspect with unbiased love? seems from my experience one cannot love absolutely without having an uncaring about them. Caring requires a bias. not arguing just genuinely trying to understand how absolute love could have a caring to it without it being biased (finite love). It stumps me

It does. Faith = fides, which is Latin root. The meaning of the two words do not change however. When studying words one has to go deep. The Bible is the example here, any bible you pick up just scroll the New Testament and you’ll find the word “faith”. The NT however was written mostly in Greek so one must use the Greek word for faith here. Most people when they talk of faith especially when they use it in the context of the OP they mean it in the form of a Christian understanding - which is usually wrong. “Oh you just gotta have faith, just gotta believe”. People use these two words as if they mean the same thing and they don’t. Belief comes before faith, that is the point I’m trying to make here.

I often read what you write when I see you post in threads or create your own. They are usually above me at this point. This resonates with me, however, and has me contemplating about it. Never thought about it like that.

@Jenkins Not sure if this will be helpful to you: Faith is not the same as belief. faith = pistis (Greek) = trust, have confidence. believe = peitho (Greek) = to be persuaded. Faith comes once you are persuaded.

I’m not sure this is the forum for this so this will probably get locked. I will say this though, after being very analytical with the Bible for 12 years and looking for some kind of solid evidence that would lead towards proving it is true it eventually lead me to Truth. Christianity is not true, but Jesus tells you how to find Truth.

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If God is no-thing then what would it have to destroy? Destruction is for the finite.

From what I’ve heard it’s just confirmations from people who haven’t actually seen them so far. Even this guy didn’t specifically say he saw them, only interviewed with people who did. I think this will be bigger when the public actually sees one.

What is actual is Absolute Truth and nothing more. What I’m experiencing right now is Absolute Truth. Anything else is imaginary. If I believe someone is having a different experience (which they are) that is imaginary. If someone tells me they experience differently then the Absolute Truth is them telling me they are experiencing differently. Everything I experience right now is Absolute Truth, so I can say that my experience is fully me - Truth. Awakening is imaginary and there is only this here, whatever I am experiencing. The entire experience of every sense, felt emotion, and thought is Absolute Truth. Can there be something more? No that is imaginary. Even if I experience a state that is more or less, that would be Absolute Truth only then. Becoming nothing to become everything, if I ever experience that, is imaginary now and is only Absolute Truth when that is experienced. I guess the question I want most answered is how Truth developed imagination. How do I even contemplate that without imagining?

Does using a word like ground or task 1 imply a starting point? I’m not arguing at all just trying to get a better understanding of words and what words I can use to help all of this resonate better for myself. I appreciate the helpful responses I’ve been getting. Even words like “void” or when someone says become nothing to become everything seems to imply a starting point, which there cannot be if Truth is eternal.