AtmanIsBrahman

@LastThursday@Breakingthewall You say it’s arbitrary or just a possibility of existence, but do you know that for sure? You may be right, but somehow it feels important to keep questioning deeper, even if there might be no real answer.

In contemplating, I find that one of the most fundamental questions— and one largely ignored by actualized.org— is the relationship between the human and the absolute. Now I know what you’re going to say: “They’re the same. You are God!” But I think that’s missing the mark. First of all, are you directly conscious of that? If not, then don’t parrot it. If you are, still hear me out on this. Basically, you are a human and will be for the entirety of this life. You may realize God, but at the end of the day you still have to deal with survival and all kinds of human limitations. Isn’t it strange that God decided to have two arms, two legs, and a human face? I think this fact isn’t addressed by the realization that you are God. Sure, you are God, but why is God— at least for now— incarnated as a human? I’m interested if anyone has an answer to this problem. Until it’s resolved, God-realization isn’t complete omniscience, isn’t a complete understanding of everything. @Leo Gura

A Koan for everyone: Why does God have two arms, two legs, and a head?

But why are you playing the mini game?

I do care to know. But I’m not sure how possible taking off layers is (besides physical death). Psychedelics only do it for a time. Mostly you’re living as a human.

Some of you guys misinterpreted what I was saying a little bit. I wasn’t saying to go do self-help and forget about spirituality. I don’t have anything against self-help, but I’m talking about serious spirituality here. I was making a point about a metaphysical gap in actualized.org teachings. God exists, sure, but for now we’re stuck in the human realm. So the question becomes, why are we stuck in being a human? Also, how can we best navigate the human to be as god-like as possible?

On the blog post about songs and love, aren’t most songs just about shallow forms of love? Love for a romantic partner is a shallow form of love compared to love for existence. Or is the point that any good song will be about love even without knowing it, because it’s source of inspiration is ultimately love?

@UnbornTao I’m curious why you think Ralston is so much more deeply awakened than Leo or other teachers. I’ve found that he has great insights on ending suffering and being effective, but his teachings on the ultimate nature of reality are few and far between and not that radical. I understand he wants to avoid students believing in concepts, but without having heard him make any radical metaphysical claims it’s hard to know whether he has a basic level of awakening like a no-self realization or something truly profound that others don’t have. It requires a lot of faith (a form of belief) to think that someone who has never explained his deepest awakenings indeed is so deeply awakened. And maybe he is, but I wouldn’t assume it.

I thought you considered yourself more conscious than Ralston? Or do you have different strengths?

This would be huge if it could happen. Alex O’Connor has been becoming more and more idealist lately, flat out stating that materialism is false recently. He’s also interested in Bernardo Kastrup’s ideas. Speaking of which, an interview with the Essential Foundation (which disseminates Kastrup’s analytical idealism) would also be a great opportunity.

Absolute Beauty has been mentioned many times on the blog/forum, but there's no video about it. Maybe it could be connected with Love, Truth, Consciousness. Practically, you could give advice on how to see more beauty and even create it yourself. As a bonus the video could cover how art works as an expression of beauty, and how beauty can be found outside of art in everyday things too. For example, even a car crash is Absolute Beauty (according to my understanding). @Leo Gura

This channel is good for a highly intellectual understanding of spirituality and esoteriscism. The creator has a vast knowledge of mystical/esoteric traditons and makes interesting connections between them and other concepts (such as the two brain hemispheres in this video). Warning: The videos are highly conceptual and may be a distraction from direct consciousness

This channel has interesting spiritual/esoteric perspectives on reality. The visuals are also often trippy and enhance the videos

@Leo Gura In the psychiatry corruption post you said that we should try to find new ways to survive based on our personality. If I want to do serious truth-seeking as a life purpose, how do you recommend making it possible to survive off of it? Or is it necessary to do some “devil’s work” first for financial stability?

God has no gender. That means you have no gender either if you introspect deeply enough. Conservative bashing of trans people is attachment to the gender roles that are taken for granted, whereas trans people are a little bit more creative.

I agree with the post too. I'm one of those people who has watched every video multiple times (except for the earlier ones). The sad part is that most people won't believe you if you tell them some random youtube channel has life-transforming information. They need to see a PhD or some other credentials to take something seriously, and even then they'll take what the person says at face value rather than doing the truth-seeking work for themselves.

You won’t get a single definition here because there are different ways of understanding spirituality. There is being conscious, which refers to being aware (they’re synonyms), and consciousness can increase or decrease. A human is more conscious than a dog, which is more conscious than an ant. In spirituality, you try to become more conscious so that your experience of life goes beyond that of most humans. The word Consciousness is more than just a creature’s perception, it is the fundamental nature of reality. It is called Consciousness because reality is not a physical system but an infinite, ever changing singularity.

Tricky puzzle. The main line I calculated is e4 f3 Qg5 g4 Qd2 (Qe3+ might also work, couldn’t find a difference) Qxe4+ Kh6 g6. White is out of checks and back will get mated

True, this is a more resilient line for black. I think white wins with Qa6 (threatening Qc8) Ne7 Ba3. White loses at least a piece.

D7 Qa8 Qa3, black has to move the queen. Qb8 is probably best because Qa7 is a threat, but Qa7 anyway and white wins.

What do you mean by red being absolutely red for everyone? Obviously people experience colors differently, not to mention other species entirely. I’m sure you’ve anticipated that objection, so are you hinting at some kind of absolute noumena that exist outside of perception (at least of an individual organism)? Also, isn’t everything a quality? So everything is absolutely itself. But I don’t see how this makes qualities timeless. I would say that absolute reality is timeless, but individual qualities like the color red can come and go.

How does that not contradict solipsism?

The point of this puzzle is recognizing your opponent's resources. You have to see that after black takes the bishop, white has bishop to c2, creating a checkmate threat while unveiling an attack on the queen from the rook. Here you have to see that Qg5+ is possible, saving the queen and forcing white to respond to the check. After that, black has many ways to stop white's checkmate threat. Without seeing bishop to c2 and Qg5+, you could easily be making a blunder by taking the bishop.

I solved it but I'm not going to spoil it

They didn’t bother to learn the patterns and played on autopilot.