Andrea Marchetti

I would continue the sentence like this, in order to make it clearer. "Only insane people have a purpose... Sane people are their own purpose." In other words, when you have a purpose, your purpose is separated from you by definition. It's given to you externally, even if you built it from the bricks you took from the outside. It's all mental and it must be: it's constructed through and with ideas, taken from books, movies, religion, Youtube videos, or whatever. Since it's impossible for a mind to get to know what is a life purpose - because it's always unfolding new, ideas are tags of the past - and, assuming it gets to know it, how to pursue it - also because seeing in your future self might prevent you from getting there, since you know you have to die as you actually are. When we think we can only compare, but it's impossible to do it with ourselves and others, simply because we're brand new. A life purpose is therefore developed by being it, and feeling it more then thinking it. The only thing we can do to pursue it is through removing those things that prevents us from expressing it more intensely, but what is the life purpose, nobody knows. And since we can only try to reach what we know, the life purpose is unreachable. It's already here.

Aristotle and other philosophers would say that time is inseparable from movement. Not movement in the current sense of the term, but, as the ancient greeks intended it, movement as change, mutation. They would say you could experience time even without movement, since movement is intended as change, flowing, of even just internal cognitive states. And when I think about it, after have had experienced time very differently, I would say that it's almost true: not when there's no change of cognitive states, but when there's no change of consciousness, i.e. when consciousness is separated from the various ever changing cognitive states, then there's no time perception as well. As Leo said, there could be movement with no time. Time is an epiphenomena of pure consciousness identifying with its own imagination. In other words, time is epiphenomenal to us, through us.

@BadHippie I think I'm greenish as well and I'm not very in for the green-pass. It's all sold, as you said, as a green thing, but I'm not sure it really is. People here in Italy, those who protest in the streets against green-pass, as fas as I've seen in videos, are mostly red. Yet I find myself in accord with them in a few of their points, the few they manage to do. But they're mostly ignorant and I don't support their way of protesting nor their very simple thinking. It's strange that a green is in accord with a red, unless I'm red as well, but again, I'm not in the same boat as them and don't want to be. The whole pro-lockdown, pro-green pass movement looks blue/orange to me too, but I find it strange that they go together. Maybe because they're both against green, even if, formally, the whole lockdown and vaccination campaign looks green. So I'm really confused. To me it seems quite absurd: the vaccine doesn't stop the spreading of the virus, so the only benefit people have if other people get vaccinated is less taxes for hospitalisation (at least here in Italy) and a milder pressure on intensive therapies (that would get milder anyway, since most people are vaccinated). So, I'm 28, I'm sane and not very much afraid of the virus as far as I'm concerned (maybe I'll die, who knows); why should I be indirectly and dishonestly obliged to take a medicine I don't want, if there's no damage to others? This is what concerns me. An objection might be: you're not an integrous green, otherwise, as a previously sane orange, you would have recognised the benefits of a vaccine, which is scientifically developed and tested. Firstly, there's an ethical problem: doesn't matter the reason why one would refuse the vaccine, if my action doesn't hurt people, it's totally my choice (even if it may indirectly hurt people the question remains open). Secondly, I'm not against vaccines (but generally I'm not for synthetic medicines in general, I'm young and think and act as if the food and a proper cure for the body are the best medicine, even though I'm for taking them only if it's way beyond the actual capabilities of my mind-body) but I see the limits of science, I don't like how arrogant the majority of the scientific community is and I find it politically dangerous, fit for a technocracy. Nor I like how pharma companies are producing and selling their products, but this doesn't make me a conspiracy theorist as many would say. I don't like the centralisation of power which is happening now: I see how useful it could be on many issues, but also how dangerous it can turn if people in power are not interested in anything but themselves; the former is what easy to see, the utility of it, the latter is what is unconscious and "evil". And I see how the whole thing is levered on fear, the greatest fear there is, fear of death; so, usually, nothing very good come out of it, if it goes through ideology.

Hello people. It's been two years since the last time I came to this forum (it's the only forum I subscribed to anyways, beside the ones for practical stuff, so I'm unaware of the problems that may occur in a forum). I'm surprised to see the increased level of control that this forum is now under. I see in my profile a "warning counter", I've seen moderator blocking and closing threads for talking about forbidden matters (not for people insulting each other). And I'm astonished. Can someone explain me why it happened to be the case? Where is the danger? Why certain topics are forbidden? PS: I don't know where to point this out, so I say it here, maybe Leo or another administrator if there is any might see it. The website keep logging me out every time I click on "Home".

Hello fellows, I've came across Castaneda's books, this is my first approach into shamanism and I've found out that I have, for years now, an ally: Marijuana. I've been using it at first often, then rarely, then I rejected it and then I tried it again, realising that it's, in itself, neutral and just an instrument. My whole research into spirituality started with the experiences I had with marijuana, which is quite different from the common effect. Basically it's a marijuana experience focused inwards, beyond the first panicky effect of ego dissolution, where peace and the laws of reality starts to express themselves in the form of love and intuitions. In my case (I guess it's a peculiarity) it's really fast-paced mentally, or maybe I should say low-paced... I don't know, it's strangely both... Anyway, this brought me to use it as an escape from my miserable ordinary life and also as a way to boost my ego with spiritual shit, which you can see it's quite dangerous, that's why I rejected it. Nonetheless, it also brought me to search for a better way to live my life and a desire to find the same thing on my own. So both good and bad sides got amplified. Now I'm looking for an healthy way to approach it, I'm pondering whether it's right for me to use it at all or not, how can I not abuse it, if it's dangerous for my mental health (meant as the level of awareness, not in the common psychological "not-normality" sense). Techniques to gain power over the bad sides of the experience. I wanna have control over, not the negative emotions, but over the effects of what I feel have on me. While I write I realise that, somewhere in the back of my mind I know, more or less, what's right or wrong. Yet, I'm doubting it. Is marijuana your "ally"? Can you share you experience? How do you use it? How often? Do you have any advice? Do you know any good bibliography on the subject?

@seeking_brilliance true! using it regularly does nothing can you give me a link or something about that energy depletion you're talking about?

I hope this is a joke

David Icke is charismatic and schizophrenic. He got some truths and most of them are not elaborated properly, thus the crazy ideas about conspiracies and reptiles and stuff. It's purely his imagination. One could see which truths he got which then have been deformed into those ideas. I would stay away from him.

The mind. Consciousness becomes aware of itself through the mind, it works as a mirror. No mind, no existence, no self-awareness... Otherwise, it would be awareness of what? The mind awakes, it drops gradually the ego, it refines and attune itself, throughout cycles of destructions and creations, to the point where its understanding is in tune with the Truth. A polygon with an infinite number of sides is a circle.

A nice green to yellow movie.

The effort to self-actualize is ego. Self-actualization is absence of ego... Why do you look for what you cannot have while you are still searching?

@Psychonaut you don't get the point.

@Orange I think nations will disappear, as soon as the majority of us will loose their drive for power over others, when the will to live together and feeling part of the same family will be common. the troubles nations are creating, even at the economic level, are huge. but that's only because people still identify with a piece of ground... there will be always a system... it's not true that it's always a compromise. Now it is a compromise (bad), and I think a lot of time it'll be. But when there will be nothing to compromise with, nor avarice or lust for power; democracy is born as a way to avoid few people to govern badly. It will be just a system, like a structure through which, in accord with our very nature, will help us to organise our society and to thrive always better, it must allow grow and change to happen, and that's difficult for a singular social system to achieve...

I am not interested in politics for the simple reason that the problems that politics create are a consequence of people ignorance about themselves, if people would be more aware they would not permit fake theatres to run their material life. But the majority today is chasing useless informations and perpetuating ways of thinking which are proposed as beneficial, often with the best intentions, but indeed it's just shit and obsolete stuff. However I have an idea of how a group of people could live harmoniously together, and that's differentiation. For example the right to vote on a particular subject should not be done by everybody. Only people with a competence in the particular subject at that time can vote. Everybody can vote though internet, there is no need for parliament or similar stuff. This way of proceeding was introduced as a tool for people to be at least represented, because we, millions of people, couldn't enter in one room and talk all together. That was not going to resolve anything. But now we can, we can use the web. Only this can be a true democracy. Furthermore only people with a competence in that field can vote. Most people are ignorant, we don't know what the problems in government are, we don't know what issues international economics has, unless we studied it. So in my opinion, colleges should be the center of the government. Philosophy government could give incredible new ways or methods in shaping a better social structure. Economy colleges can manage economical issues. And everybody has the right to study even without money, so there will be not differentiation in classes, any social class can partecipate in saying their will. And all of this is done through web, in a true democratic way. We would need to differentiate who can vote a particular law, there will be of course laws where everybody can and must vote. In this way every place on Earth own what people of that place deserve and wants. Provinces should be divided by universities. Universities must become the new government. And also, fundamentally, there must be an open minded view on new science or what can be defined as university. If in a place people are generally more intelligent they will attract intelligent people and that place will thrive better. In this way only the best thrive, the truly best. However there is the need, even in this case, to assure safety to everybody through an international neutral control, which must be without a central government, and with the only purpose to assure safety between nations, until nations will disappear. Any other law or act must be decide together, through the web and without any representation because there is no more the need, we have the proper technology now. There is the need to make those laws to be factual, so there can be an effective part of this structure where there will be functionaries like police that act, but always in the respect of people decisions. Of course different groups of people will have different preferences and personal will, so it will just happens that the majority win, because the majority of the entire population is always the one who has not tools to understand political mechanisms and get personal benefit from it, and if they say that particular law is damaging them they must be right... Yeah, there a lot of problems too in the best system, because most people do not have the feeling of being part of the world... If everybody would have the feeling of being part of existence on this planet together problems would end instantly, whatever the system is used... The system is used as a compromise to limit power to people... So I think that systems are not going to help us. That's not solution. That's a compromise.

@Capethaz I think meditation contributed to this.

@Capethaz .. I have this too for one month now. And I am fucking anxious and afraid all day long, I perceive existence as creepy and out of my control, like that a giant can come and crash me right now. I am afraid of going mad almost every second, almost every thought or feeling make me think I am mad. Now I am consulting a psychotherapist. I do understand that's a neurotic problem but it seems it's becoming the normal state for me, from morning to evening. In the evening anxiety kicks up quite strong and I have no idea what to do, sometimes it's so strong that senses are overwhelming and I am afraid to loose control and kill someone if a similar impulse wants to and I have no control over myself anymore. What can I do then? How did you get out?

Why do you search for enlightenment? Please be honest. Question what is driving you in this search. Tell also how much you think you are sure of it, imagine that if you lie you are gonna die. Be fucking honest with yourself. Do you do it for power? For personal complacency? For truth? For different reasons? For suffering? For vanity? What did you sacrifice for this search? Did you sacrifice anything for this search? Girlfriend, friends, job, video games, sex, whatever. PS: I am not suggesting anything in particular, not the search nor the sacrifice. I am just asking, nothing important; so don't preach whether the search is important or absurd or sacrifice is something to do or not to do. I am looking for personal experiences, thoughts and feelings about the search and how much of it has possessed you. I would like to receive answers that come from a pure emotive source, not philosophies. And I would like, for you and for me, these answers to be genuine and not lies.

We are not one single indivisible unity. We are many me. Imagine many different impulses, what we call me is the current order of groups of impulses: the ones that are submitting, the ones that dictate, the ones that help the dictator, the ones that help the submissive... It may be a kingdom, a dictatorship, a democracy.. It all depends on the level and the character of the person. In schizophrenic people there is a remarkable anarchy within... We continually change order many times during the day, according to situations or the strength of the impulses. A group of impulses working together is a personality. And we have many. When we say I stopped myself it's just the personality that has the power in that moment that blocks a rebellion from other impulses. But only consciousness can say I. It usually does through the current order in that moment... And this is what we call ego. Higher consciousness is simply consciousness that recognise the internal movements and detach itself from these movements, it is simply observing the continuos exchange between and metamorphosis of various personalities and impulses. It can still say I but there is not a delimited and fixed I anymore. Of course, a person who is detached from his impulses has a very flexible order in himself, so he can flow every moment.

I was just willing to write a new topic about some problems I think I might have and that I would need some clarity about... And I found this topic. I would like anyway to receive some different views on this... I have been smoking marijuana for few years now, the last two years or so I smoked rarely. And now it's quite a long time, but I always have my weed in case I want to smoke. The reason I smoke is that when I do I feel very panicky and after a while, more the panic has been intense and more I could see better myself and others, and these insights cause my ego to inflate. Since I was younger, 18 years old, my ego was still developing and now, because of this, my ego has taken a very different path. I am afraid I might be grown up not properly. Since what actually happens when I panic on weed and inflate is that my ego weakens and then grows on a different way. I am afraid I might have gone off the rails. Now, I am a bit worried about the consequences of this, since lately after an LSD trip things get kind of worst and I feel I am not in control of myself and I am often afraid to be mad, after that psychotic episode I feel more unstable. Maybe these problems have always been there but now they are stronger and often I cannot subconsciously choose to be unaware and distract myself. I am also completely socially inefficient: before I had friends and after the weed use I have no friends, I have a girlfriend but we never understand each other even if we often try our best but we deeply both know it's not enough, I stay with her because I am afraid of being left completely alone, I don't know why she stays with me, probably it's a habit and it's hard to be intimate again with someone else from the beginning. I haven't a job, and this one doesn't really bother me even if family and girlfriend and friends (when I sometimes see them) say it is, but to me it's just financially unstable so I help my parents as a farmer. Yet I want to express myself, but all I can think of is to say to other people what I think or see about human existence and when I do I go around like a pleased cockerel, and a thought says: Such an idiot. And another: it's a good thing to help others. And other: you know it's bullshit, you are doing it for your pleasure.... These are not voices I feel external, I feel I think them, yet... I have been depressed for few years, now I may be often depressed but before it was more stable... And all this would never been the same without weed and LSD (which I used just once because I am afraid to go mad). So I am wondering whether I should give up on this shit of enlightenment and come back to build my ego as normal, which it can never be again, within society and in a sense come back... Since the only external feedback I have for my ego are books some people then I may be quite out of touch with reality. But also other ordinary people are out of reality I think, so from which stable reality can I have feedbacks? My mind is continually contradicting itself and my ego is wanting stuff that it, by its nature, can't get. In essence, I think that using drugs may open views which are too early and it could bring instability, this in addition to isolation are the perfect recipe to get mad. I also think that without instability one cannot evolve. The reason why I go on with drugs (rarely now) is because they inflate my ego and a 10% because they helped me in some things. I can't understand if I am going in healthy direction or the other way. I have many unhealthy stuff in my head, not extreme relatively to some other people (yet?), but I can't understand whether they are driving me or I am kind of out from them. I think that, for example, if my girlfriend leaves I may be really depressed and unstable this time. Maybe these are just suppositions driven by fear, I don't know. I know I have desires I deny to myself for various reasons. I am just afraid to go mad, that's all. And if I think about it now that I am exorcising this, a far thought is asking Who is going mad? But since I, as ego, know that it's a thought to follow my fear stops me, of course... Another thought asks Does it matter? Fuck my life. Another says: Life is important. Another follows: How do you know it? Another replies: I don't and can't know. And there it stops, but the feeling remains. What in essence I am trying to do is to jump, grab the power that comes with truth, and taking it back with me to the ground where I can be safe. In a nutshell since I, as ego, know what makes me afraid of 'dying' so I repel it. This repulsion is what I think is, in depth, going to drive me mad. I know where truth is and I escape it, yet I desire it from both personal will and emotional needs. But when I get near my personal will ignore it and I step back and my emotional needs remains unsatisfied. And this would never happened without drugs use. It is not something I would normally be able to see and so I might not be able to integrate it, since I am isolated and afraid of being alone and many other stuff too... I don't know. I feel like with drugs I have seen too far from where I was and am. A way too far to integrate properly, maybe. I want new sex and recognition but these are never satisfied. I feel so split in many me. I am envious of normal people, I call them normal people because they function better than me and yet I often find myself to feel superior to their shitty lives. In essence, fear is driving me mad and I am a coward on so many different and contradictory levels that to be courageous in one you have to be fearful in the other. And yet I think everything I say is, indeed, bullshits. What do you think? Since this post has became in the end (it has probably always been) a little escape for me, a kind of exorcism, I am gonna follow this and share a nice in-tune song. And sorry for egoism, but I do it in such a way that's gonna maybe be useful...

Reading your post makes me afraid, I have a girlfriend and I know I would be devastated like you if we would break up. Since I knew this I tried like one year ago to leave her, to go into a voluntary suffering. Because staying with her and knowing that I am kind of dependent on her was really scaring me... That night I felt like I could loose my mind so I came back to her, thinking I was not ready and probably that was not the right way out... But I know the fear that lies behind having a girlfriend and it scares me... So the other way out I am trying is to be independent whether I am with her or not. Trying to know myself, removing other deficiencies first so if it happens then I can be more stable. What I can say you is to stay with suffering and accept it strong and sharp... I am com-passionating you. It's painful for me too... Wait for a week or two and if you'd like tell me how it's going on I would be interested... @Naviy Stay strong, stay sensible.

I would advise you, before giving yourself to doctors, to try to get out and speak to people... Try to find a group of people through work, school or various activities like courses or anonymous groups, where you talk to other people. I know it can be hard and scary but I think that's the cure for many problems. In facts, many problems are just escapes from staying with other people. You don't have to like them if you can't, but just talking about bullshits or your interests or thoughts, or also your addiction, or even quarrel with them. I have kind of the same problem, kind of social anxiety which has been often phobia, and lately I recognised that if you face voluntarily what you fear it looses grip on you. I stay alone most of my time anyway but now things are getting better, since I know that I want people to love me and not refuse me, which is what was causing me anxiety. But by knowing it I lost many fictitious problems... Because if now people don't love me I just suffer, my mind doesn't escape into shit. So in your case, fetichism (I also had many thoughts and behaviour like this in the past) is caused by the fictitious impossibility of getting a real woman and fuck her: your sexual energy is trying another way out. But it's just your mind creating this problems. If you want to, just go and try. You have to force the part of yourself who is afraid and letting the part of yourself who wants sex to act more freely. If you escape loneliness in websites it will never satisfy you as real people, so try with real people. Just do it. Let them see you afraid too if you are, don't hide it. Of course, research (not much) people, don't go to young idiots who think they rule the world. Speak to older people at first, to people in shops. When you see a beautiful girl you will think of her sexually for sure, don't just stay there thinking that she will refuse you and it's better to release sexual energy with porn. Go there and try to say even just Hello. Try to fuck her. Drive your sexual energies towards sex with women. Bring your energies, whether sexual or social, back to what they want in the raw form. So, for fetichism try to approach a girl you want to fuck, for web socialising try instead to speak to people in streets, in shops or whatever, old friends, family and speak to them, also listen to them. Also don't think of you as: I have Asperger, OCD, anxiety, etc.. These are just mere psychological consequences. These are not you. I know they can be debilitating, but if you understand that you are not these things, that you are behind psychological issues then things get better. You can see where the real cause of these issues is and then you can act. By fixing one single unsatisfied desire you will fix all the psychological problems. You just have to be honest with yourself... Come back to your raw pure nature. Fetichism or masturbation is not raw, it is just 'wrongly' sublimed. In facts, it is a regression. Seek sex, seek people. Because when you fuck a woman you like all your previous ways to satisfy sexual needs will be converged into this latter, because it is more satisfying... Same things apply to people who already fuck a lot of women, it can happen that a woman is not just sex but he is in love with her, so when he'll have sex with her satisfaction will be so great compared to before that fucking women just for sex will loose any attraction. It is something that just happens, you don't have to force it. If you want to have a particular meditation to help your energy to get back to the raw pure form then try Osho's Dynamic Meditation. Try in groups, where there are sexual energies meditations too.

It's because yourself esteem is low that you escape into fantasy land. It's low esteem that causes the fantasy, not the other way round. I escape often too, but we have to recognise that the escaping is weakness. Even looking for enlightenment is caused by a weakness. You have to recognise that most of your behaviour are caused by weaknesses... But you'll be surprised that accepting that very weakness is strength, and by accepting it you have started to transcend it, to transform it. You have to face the fact that you are weak on many points, you have to if you want to be strong... And you can only be strong by accepting the weak, that's the way strength starts to overcome weakness. If we escape into fantasies or excuses it is not going to help us. We must accept the weaknesses, which is the pain behind fantasies and excuses, that very acceptance is strength itself. Fantasies and excuses are the weak acting to be strong.

Humans are more aware than animals. That's why we have mental problems and animals don't. They live more in the senses because they cannot do otherwise, they have not a conscious mind. There is nobody inside them who can stay present, they have no self, they live subconsciously all their lives, like a dream. Their being present has no value. But yes, their existence is more vivid, time doesn't exist for them; but only because they are subconscious. Children are like animals, we usually don't really remember our early childhood, we were living subconsciously. Human senses have increased: we can sense our thoughts, this is why we are sucked in our ego and that's what we call being conscious. It's one step more... External senses in humans are pushed apart because they lost a bit of significance for us since thoughts came in. We are more aware than animals. We are conscious of ourselves being alive, not only living as like animals do. Of course animals' consciousness has different degrees depending on the animal.

It is true, entertainment is for our chimp brains. However there is a bridge between our chimp brain and our higher self, which is our heart. The heart is the crossroad: it can search for lower and higher satisfactions both. From our heart we express art, so there is also higher arts, medium arts and lower arts... An example of lower arts, which is the great majority of arts, are love songs; entertainment is lower art. An example of medium art are Van Gogh's paintings, which allow you to meet the person who created them. An example of higher arts are Jesus' words, which are existential... But there are many degrees, not just three. It all depends on the level of the feeling that's being expressed. Apart from what one has been trying to express and communicate, which can be low or high, there is also the ability of technically and creatively do art, which is the extent of how much and how well the feeling has been expressed. This is independent from what level of art is being done. It is good to know that higher arts are more precious but not more important than lower arts. Good art is art done good, whether is high or low. I have to say that the art to which society is, as mainstream, attracted nowadays is low and bad art both... I think, not very much the level, but the goodness of art in previous times was better. I think that it's due to the fact that now everybody can do art while before only rich and cultured people could. But I have nothing against this situation anyway. The power of art is that it can inspire you, lower as well higher arts can. It depends on what you get inspired with. Being inspired doesn't mean to be awake.

Science is an effort of the intellect to understand reality. So, in order to understand the power and the limits of science, one must ponder about the powers and limits of the intellect. The intellect works by dividing reality into separate things, so it can understand how things relate to each other. Since reality is an indivisible continuum the intellect creates concepts, which are virtual wrappings of reality, to divide it. If the intellect works with concepts then science must be made of concepts. The intellect can work in mainly two ways: one is associative and the other is ruled based. Philosophy, for example, is an associative effort of the intellect to understand reality. Math instead is the tool the intellect created to understand reality based on rule thinking; modern science is based upon math. Association without rule is more powerful than rule without association because with rule the intellect submit to results, in association the intellect creates. Both ways can go astray: associations can shortcut and rules can be many based on a single previous wrong rule. Intellect is a powerful tool, which gave us all the technologies we have and also all the philosophies we have. Basically everything that is man made is born as a concept first, on any level. The main problem with intellect lies in the nature of concepts. As analogy, you can think about the intellect like a painter, each painting is a concept. If you paint an apple then the painting of the apple is not the apple, but it's an accurate virtual representation of the apple. But the painter can also paint things that don't represent anything in reality... But even if the intellect can create abstract concepts, it can use them anyway, to relate with other concepts as if they have a correlation. To me, modern science, especially physics, is sucked into this loop of ghost-concepts; seeing reality through this layer of totally abstract concepts and loosing the touch with experience. The intellect is powerful, it can make us see far, it created language... But it is also true that there is no substance in intellectual concepts, whether they are abstract or experiential derived. The solution for this is to use the intellect as a tool which can be taken on and off when necessary, understanding it as a tool and understanding also that experiencing reality is more important and powerful than seeing reality. Trying to see reality without experiencing it is just fantasy.