jse

It's livermush gone wrong. Insightful yet logical response. I will direct @jse to dispatch some buttcoin as reward.

Try the field of observation.

Where did you last put it? Some? Ego is all blind spots.

Because if it was, I wouldn't be so lousy at trading the markets.

1) Lights go out. 2) Body gets processed into Soylent Green. 3) Gubmint takes all your accumulated stuff.

This Ibogaine death happened where I lived.

Q: How many dimensions in your universe? Entity: Four. There is no need for more. However, I often project myself down to two dimensions (sometimes one) in order to communicate at your lower level of understanding. Q: What is your view on non-duality? Entity: Time to face reality: everything is separate. If it wasn't, everything would all melt down into one giant black hole made of cheese. And we can't have that. To understand this would require you to imagine a world without hypothetical situations. Q: Tell me more about your universe? Entity: In our realm, we are able to create almost anything from nothing. For example, I've just created eleventy-kazillion buttcoins, which will allow me to purchase your entire universe. No need to be concerned, earthling: my intentions are entirely altruistic and benevolent. Entity: I have some fundamental questions for you earthlings. Please help me comprehend your reality: What is the difference between a wise guy and a wise man? Why do you kill earthlings for killing earthlings, to show that killing is wrong? If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons? If something "goes without saying", why do people still say it? Why is your word for "fear of long words", Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia? What happens when you get "scared half to death", twice? If you save time, when do you get it back? Why do you have "Do not use if seal is broken" labels? How are you supposed to open and use stuff? Why does sour cream have an expiry date? We all have souls. But what special name do earthlings give to the top of their feet? If one in five earthlings suffer from mental illness, does that mean that the other four enjoy it? I have onety-one billion other questions, but this will do for now.

Pain (physical or emotional) is like a horn blasting at you as you unintentionally walk into a car's path - it's there to help you become aware of a pending danger and do something about your situation. The problem is that we tend to ignore the warning, and instead become attached to the message. We carry a catalog of car horn events with us for life, and this takes its toll on our health. Wouldn't it be so much better to drop the attachments and identifications we tend to accumulate, and travel lighter through life?

When it comes to "I/me/mine", it's more like "never mind, doesn't matter".

For the same reason we are addicted to self.

I wonder... Is it possible to feel true love and depression at the same time? If not, why is this so?

"Feeling our pain" is identifying with pain. There is pain, and then there is my pain. No pain, no gain? No identification, plenty of gain.

Simply because they identify with those other people. I've never seen anyone shed tears for the film's villain when he gets his comeuppance. Why is this? No identification. Yet I've seen grown men cry over a scratch on their shiny new car - identification. People often confuse identification with compassion.

Don't worry - they always come back for more.

@Sahil Pandit take care not to lose your way, in more ways than one. Do you have a trip-sitter?

Welcome to the era of virtual online-only friendship.

Genuine answer: not Ok to celebrate suffering of dragons.

Tom Campbell first piked my attention and interest on non-duality, with his interpretation of the amazing delayed choice quantum eraser experiment and the implications with regards to fundamental reality.

I am neither drug-dependent nor an alcoholic, but I can see the value in AA's underlying message. And that is basically Paul Hedderman's message: stop TALKING and BELIEVING in a higher power, and just be. You *are* that higher power, pure consciousness. Ask not what you are, but what you are not: you are not your body, your brain, your mind. We are not separate and distinct souls. We only dream this in our everyday "awake" life. As opposed to 20 years of working on yourself, which will do nothing but actually reinforce the belief that we are long-lasting separate entities, trying to get out of ourselves *as ourselves*? This is typical egoical delusion, and encourages people on a lifetime journey of frustration. There. Perhaps without realizing it, you are give the game away @Leo Gura . You are talking about a separate entity's peak potential, which is not what non-duality is about. While working your ass off on yourself for 20 years may result in benefits such as physical fitness and mind development, it will actually work against you in "spiritual" development. The more work and investment the self puts into "enlightenment", the further the belief in the non-existing "ego" is strengthened. There is no need to attend AA meetings - just contemplate the basic but powerful underlying message: Self can't get out of self, as a self. No amount of work or time can help you get this epiphany - you either get it immediately or you don't, time is not involved. Any "work" towards self trying to get out of self just reinforces the ego, and leads to the typical spiritual egoic condition and suffering.

Life experience. Poverty. Malnutrition. Mosquitoes.

@tatsumaru I've been thinking about your plight these past few days, ever since first reading your painful story here on New Year's Eve. People say that thoughts can drive anyone crazy, but my experience and understanding nowadays is that this is not entirely correct. Why is it that other people's thoughts and experiences don't drive me crazy, yet my own do? You see, this is because it's not thoughts, experiences or memories which do the harm, but *our identification with them *. The pain starts the moment the words "I/me/my" are attached to the story. We then identify with the story to the point that we forget our fundamental existence, which is pure consciousness. Please allow me to illustrate this sticky problem of identification, by distilling all the points in your story which you identify with: Now, replace the word "I" with "Jose", and see if this story affects you the same way. We are not a body, we are not our thoughts, not our memories. Once you begin to see this reality, suffering will cease.

Indeed - a sudden intense cardiac attack will do it.

This. Should be the forum's mantra.