Mellowmarsh

God's greatest asset was to take the shape of a dinosaur for nearly 165 million years before humans evolved.

You have a very rare pure understanding of the human condition. It’s breathtakingly beautiful to behold. Thanks for being here. And for expressing your deepest truth to the forum.

@Eterno It's a deep human confrontation with impermanence, where the mind creates an ego to shield itself from the terrifying idea of ceasing to exist. Most people suppress their existential anxiety that comes with being a conscious entity aware of it’s own nothingness. Most people distract themselves in the futile attempt to mask the truth. The truth that cannot be covered with a bandaid. most people refuse to accept the real truth , and thus seek out God to assuage their existential pain. My God, why have you forsaken me. And God remained forever silent on the matter.

Hell Yes !!! 👏 Enjoy your garden. 🪴 I love you. Please don’t faint. LOVE.

James, what do you think about this Ayn Rand idea, quote, or whatever this knowledge is….? “ To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence...": This asserts that existence isn't abstract; it's concrete. To be is to be a thing, not nothing. "...it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes.": This explains what that "something" is. An existing thing (an entity) has defining characteristics (attributes) that make it what it is. "Existence is identity.": This is the core principle, often summarized as "A is A" (the Law of Identity). It means everything that exists has a unique, unchanging nature; a thing cannot be itself and something else simultaneously. "A thing is—what it is; its characteristics constitute its identity.": This reinforces the idea that an existent without its attributes would be non-existent, as attributes are what define it. In essence, Rand argues that reality is a matter of specific, identifiable things, and denying this identity is a form of self-contradiction, leading to a rejection of reality itself.

Okay. I get that. There’s nothing else to say after that realisation is there. You just remain as the silent witness for eternity, right?

Okay thanks, I think I understand what you’re saying here.

@James123 okay James, I’m listening and digesting everything that I am listening to. Thanks for helping. I will keep listening. I don’t mean to put you in the spotlight, okay, so sorry if that’s what I’ve been doing, it’s nothing personal really. I’m just trying to make sense of what I’m listening to, that’s all. When I ask the sky “ who am I” , the sky doesn’t answer. Same with the universe, it doesn’t answer either. So maybe Silence is the language of God. I understand attachment to knowledge is a heavy burden to carry around, and that I can just let go of this attachment to knowledge anytime, and then only when I don’t make attachment my burden, am I releasing the unecessary burden leaving nothing but ultimate freedom to be without owning anything, by that very act of surrender. After all, the universe doesn’t care, so why should I care about anything, why should I carry the burden of caring all by myself. I could just drop it all.

But why would you ask who knows when knowing is already the case, knowing is already known to be happening. And that you are aware of this knowing happening. You already are the knowing. You know you exist , even if you don’t know how or why or who knows. You know that fire burns and you know you can’t breathe under water. You know not to stab your eyes with a red hot poker. There’s something fundamentally wrong with that question that demands an answer of who? Don’t you think?

Yeah, I’ve come back to this way of thinking also. For me, it’s like I can’t not exist and exist at the same time. That’s what nonduality seems to want to posit.

James, when I was 6 years old I suddenly was overwhelmed by the realisation that I once didn’t exist, and that I am now existing. It was almost like I was remembering being dead and that I’d somehow popped alive. I can’t really understand this realisation. It’s just too weird to comprehend. That’s why I like talking to you about these things, because I think you know more about this stuff than me.

Can you know that you’re not even dead because you’ve never been born? There’s something that is able to say not even dead, you’re never even born… so this is known, right?

How though, how can dead body be imagined. How can the death of the body be known in an imaginary sense? That’s all I’m trying to understand here. Surely, all you’ve ever known is the sensation of being consciousness, that sense of something existing? Something you call ( I ) your own experience of identity. Surely, you tell yourself you exist, you tell yourself I am I ? Same goes for objects and things, you tell yourself an apple is an apple, or that knowledge is knowledge? Where else do labels come from, they can only come from you ?

If you say so James, but I'm not understanding what you mean, when you say you don't need to see them, because they are just there. My question to you is, if you don't need to see them, then do you need to know them? Like, who told you that a body is a body, an apple is an apple, and that knowledge is knowledge? Where has this ''Knowing'' come from? This is what I am trying to understand as I'm reading your posts. Thanks for answering.

The most important thing to realise is that you cannot deny your own existence as a thinking being, you are literally aware and know every thought because they are also you. So nondual teaching is pointless to be honest, because it's a teaching that implies the very thing that nonduality denies, which is the duality of a something here pointing to a something there, it's a division that denies it's a division. It's bonkers to try and teach nonduality. You can know you exist instinctively, it's not something that is learnt, or taught, it's just a feeling. And you cannot put that feeling into words, no more than you can put the feeling of what the taste of an apple is, apple can only taste like apple, and nothing else. that's why words are crap when attempting to use them as a means to getting a glimpse up your own skirt, it's not necessary, as to know how or why you know, you just are knowing without knowing why or how.