zazed

@Martin123 intersting insight. I noticed today, it's not really a problem to be bored. I suppose i was feeling guilty i was just doing nothing basically. checking these forums, taking a stroll outside, mowing my lawn, going to the store. When i felt i perhaps needed to do something of more value, like meditating or exercise outside. I also perhaps wanted to game, but that is so absorbing it would not be beneficial at this time. I've also just recently picked up my spirituality again. So i suppose everything is in the "spotlight" now, so to say. I'm not used to having nothing to do anymore.

@Martin123 Adding to my book list, much appreciated!

@Dodoster You made me smile

Good to hear, keep looking at your mental states! why is it a problem whether or not its loved or not? What is the real value of this love to you as a being? How does it pose an issue for you as consciousness? Sounds to me like natural desire and need for love. Run far away from this girl, or run to her, but don't think so much about it. Either do or do not. But do not spend to much mental energy on it, it's not really a problem that needs solving, its the effort in solving of the problem that seems to be the problem here. If it is giving you this much thought, that you need to talk about it here, perhaps it's better to do not, in this instance. Girls that are unstable will make you mentally unstable, and strip any shred of enlightenment you have, in my experience. A girl that needs to be constantly pursued is too much into the game, to be able to just settle down and love. But i don't know the details so can't be sure.

@Dodoster That's a good idea, i've entertained before. But how does one start? Also i'm poor at drawing. I've always wanted to play piano, but it's an expensive hobby and difficult to learn.

@Arkandeus I love that view, it's what i needed to hear about it today :

@Scholar I am trying my best here, not to answer everything with a non-duality insight. Otherwise we would have nothing left to talk about here, and everyone would repeat infinitely, "it is not happening now, truth is truth, you are pure perception itself." But alas, you are right at the core of it. But i also don't expect every mental disorder to be cured by enlightenment. Everyone would leave mental hospitals as buddha's, wouldn't that be great, imagine all the buddhas? Offcourse everyone already is the Buddha. As for truth, there is truth here, truth to the body. It's real, if it's hungry it's hungry, if it's in pain it's in pain, if it's thinking about something tomorrow that is what it's doing. @electroBeam So, going into the non-duality preaching anyway If you are pure perception, then stop thinking about truth or not and just perceive the thinking about truth. What @Scholar means I think, by truth is just thoughts, is because the concept of truth is a mental label. To perception, there is just reality as it is right now, perception doesn't label things. Perception doesn't really do anything, it just perceives, it's effortless. Why do we even need to label or judge everything? The mind is real, but it's not you. It's like your perceiving a loved puppy, stumbling in the grass, doing all sorts of funny shit. Don't give it weight, it doesn't need to be taken seriously. If you don't give it so much attention, it will relax, like a real puppy, otherwise it will keep playing with you. The only thing we need to do, is perceive. The body will judge and think and worry and hurt, but we are just the perception of those events. What is infinite is where all these perceptions arrive. You can feel it while meditating, being this enormous emptiness and stuff just enters into it. Perception is infinitely large and infinitely small. Imagine yourself on the earth, the earth in the solar system, the solar system in the galaxy, galaxies in the universe. Mentally, keep expanding it, there is not end to the size of its expansion. If you try you will see, you can keep going further, and then further still. Or imagine yourself sitting behind your desk, and imagine billions upon billions of electrons and protons spinning around, making your keyboard. Every key is bigger than the visible universe. This way the mind can narrow down infinitely. Keep going deeper and deeper, there is no limit really. These are just mental images, but it's a way to get a sense of the space there. It's like we have some strange formless infinite empty space, thoughts are displayed in it, vision is projected on it, hearing fills it, the body with its sensations hovers in its center seemingly. But we are actually the empty space, not the contents of it. The space is the essence of what we are, the size of our perception, which is without size. So i wonder, where does perception begin, and where does it end?

@Annetta That is some good electronic music my friend, i'm putting bassnectar in my playlists.

@electroBeam Had to look up pascal's wager now, I learn something new everyday here @Annetta I don't see how mental disease is not getting its rightful place here. For one, linking to wikipedia, and reading up on the facts, is important. Know and understand, I watched your video's and enjoyed the insight, thank you. People will notice it is mostly about the negative effects on the patient lives, that are the final deciding factor in diagnoses. What you will also notice, psychological disorders are NEVER black and white. They come in various shades of grey, and you can have it slightly with some of the symptoms, or you have it full blown and are incapable of functioning at all in life. On the other hand, its not because @electroBeam grandmother was diagnosed, that is was truly so, neither that it was fully negative, nor that is was full blown completely dysfunctional. Many Christians have pictures of saints and pray to god, claiming to hear him. They don't get diagnosed as anything. In the end, it matters most, what effect it has on life. When i was briefly a wiccan as a teen, i was fully into it and conversed with trees and animals with people hearing me. I had conversations with the moon and the sun. I went to the forest at night alone, to find a magical branch for my spells. I had imaginary sex with the goddess, whatever that means . But i was happy and at peace, and i was still functioning in life, going to school, doing social activities, getting good grades. I've long thought i had mental disorders. If i read about bipolar, i have many of those issues. Same with schizo. Same with borderline disorder. As such i read a lot about that stuff, because i worried if i had it, and i was too afraid to tell anyone, so i studied it. I also had a close friend who was getting a master in psychology, and talked to him about certain facets academically. I learned most of it can apply to anyone one way or the other, almost no one is 100% guaranteed normal, everyone is broken in some way. Read enough about psychology, and soon you realize that basically everyone has a disorder in some form and weight.

It's sad how society views such things, the entire world suffers from xenophobia. Does it even matter if what she saw was real or not? The only things that should matter are: 1. Was your grandmother unhappy ? 2. Were her beliefs endangering the lives of others ? 3. Were her beliefs endangering her own life ? If on each of the 3 the answer is no, then there is no reason for treatment or cure. Society strives to much for what it thinks is "normal", its just a perspective. Perhaps we are all deluding ourselves here, but if we can find peace of mind and a happy life through it. Does it matter? Truth is overrated... @jseSchizo is not split personality however. That is how it was presented by Hollywood and as such most people misunderstand schizo. Spiritual practice is about seperation of body, thinking, memory, perception for many. Enlightenment fits certain schizo definitions, if you become pure perception, you are "split" from body and memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia : The word schizophrenia—which translates roughly as "splitting of the mind" and comes from the Greek roots schizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-, "mind")[175]—was coined by Eugen Bleuler in 1908 and was intended to describe the separation of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to understand what is real.[2] Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, hearing voices that others do not hear, reduced social engagement and emotional expression, and a lack of motivation.[2][3] People with schizophrenia often have additional mental-health problems such as anxiety disorders, major depressive illness, or substance-use disorders.[7] Symptoms typically come on gradually, begin in young adulthood, and last a long time.[3][8] Its like a description of my life situation, don't tell anyone, i don't want to be hospitalized...

@Tibor Thanks, i'll watch it this evening. Also she's hot

@Heart of Space I've had similar feelings, but i't probably not very relevant. Love may be our most natural state. I've found such a love/fascination for life itself at times, as if i loved everything. People, but also everyday things, basically everything i gazed upon really filled me with deep love/satisfaction. I remember thinking, "i'm in love, but i don't know with who exactly, it's like i love everything". The fact that people can be mean doesn't matter, you are still watching/loving the miracle of these people's existence. I've also found compassion in the realization of the human condition. Everyone is the same, all these problems and idea's and mental issues i've experienced, everyone is experiencing them. So many people are struggling, mean people perhaps the most of all, it's natural to feel compassion for their suffering and how they are set in their broken ways. Especially if you have found a solution in spirituality and know they will never even consider it, stuck in the dream. Outside appearances may mislead, but most people are suffering in their mental world. Hope you are fine with your troubles, i wish you happiness and success in everything you do! A person who can love his enemies should not deserve trouble. You are wiser than you think.

@Toby You are right, it's why i said, easier said than done. In the end you can't fight trauma, you can't go in there and destroy it with a hammer. It's best to deeply realize it's in the past, and that it has no control anymore over life in the now. Just accept it as a story in the head of something that happened once. Meditation can help realizing this with proper technique. Learning to live in the now, and stop worrying about past/future can also help. Acceptance is the only solution really. You can't change the trauma, you can't forget the trauma, you can't make it a good thing, it just is what it is, a horrible thing that happened one time. The memory of it is here now, it will be here tomorrow, and it will be here in 50years, forever part of us. The only positive thing, is that it's gone, it's not happening now. The memory of the trauma is not the trauma, it is only a memory we tell ourselves repeatedly. Best to just drop the burden and carry on with life, it is the only solution really. But that takes a lot of work to realize. And until we do, the mind will keep revisiting it and placing unjust importance on the story about it, especially if it results in physical behavior without thoughts. I've had a trauma as a child, its nothing truly horrible like violence. I was a wide eyed intelligent child, always paying full attention in class. So i was looking intensely at the teacher, paying full attention as a good student. As she suddenly burst out "Why are you looking at me like that, are you in love with me or something!". The entire class started laughing at me, the teacher joined them, and i felt so ashamed, i could die. I thought i did something wrong, i was like 9, i didn't know. After it, whenever i noticed myself looking at someone, i forced my self to look away. It's a pure body reflex now, ingrained over years of practice. My parents were divorcing that year, so my mom probably never realized the sudden change in me, even today she doesn't know, probably thinks i'm just weird like that. I was like 17, when i realized it was abnormal, when i learned making eye contact is important during presentations. I was baffled at that time, at first i didn't believe it, it's actually required!? It's probably a big reason for all the bullying i underwent too, can you imagine a silent kid, always looking away from everyone in the playground? If i have to make prolonged eye contact today more than 20years later, i'll still flinch and look away most days because of the trauma. Emotionally, it means nothing to me anymore, but i sure wish i could make longer eye contact. It would help my social life and my career, eye contact is an important skill, but I'm getting better every day. Tho I've found nothing to help with the physical component, i have accepted it and am quite happy with life. Depending on how crippling it is, it may be best to search for a therapist. If it's not a life crippling trauma, some meditation and studies about enlightenment and the human mind, may be enough. Just sitting down, closing our eyes, and crossing our legs, does not guarantee anything. There is nothing inherently "healing" about sitting that way. We are then just sitting in a weird position doing nothing. So when people say, will meditating solve x, it's actually an incomplete question. We don't know what @Ryan_047 means with meditation, and it can mean so many things.

I'm not exactly sticking to the format i realize Mine would be getting drunk on various cocktails all evening, forgetting the exact flavors the next morning as i wake up, still a bit drunk. I've long considered myself a buddhist for my beginning years, read many many books on the free http://www.buddhanet.net/ebooks.htm and many books i bought and have long forgotten about. I was mainly a zen buddhist, but i read about all schools. I've dabbed in the occult and called my self a Wiccan, praying to the earth-mother and the moon. Later I read about the occult kabbalah and did complex magical rituals, invoking eh-he-yeh, and calling god my abba. Then for years i thought i was a Taoist, reading everything on it here on the public domain : http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/index.htm, and buying books on amazon. added: read all the wei wu wei books multiple times. Then i was a student of "the real world" and thought there was nothing at all, but always kept a Buddha statue around tho. Focused entirely on my relationship and my job. This was also my darkest time. Now i suppose i'm into more essential concepts, devoid of "the bullshit", what Leo was saying resonated with me. It is essentially explaining many concepts of Taoism in a western context and to a lesser extent zen. As with Paul, he is amazing. I'm also reading the Power of now. I've noted down some names in this thread, which i'll look up: Alan wats, headles way, Mooji, Osho and especially turds.

There is no childhood trauma now. you are now. the only thing that is real is what you are experiencing now. Reading these words on your screen is all that exists. You are just perception, it's not your trauma. Easier said than done, childhood trauma is truly horrible. I hope you feel well and wish you happiness in life. Mediation is just a tool, in itself it doesn't really guarantee a cure for trauma, it will help you realize what i said and that may be the cure. Meditation on just perception, just being, just what is going on right now, there is already nothing missing now reading this, can be deeply releasing. Watch if you want to learn more about what i said. Leo has a good video. Paul takes it a step deeper, linked in another post here by @jse

one is still identifying with the story of the self becoming enlightened. The most powerful story that can become what defines the self fully.

@Gopackgo Exactly. But circular thought processes can also be about enlightenment. That is what Paul means by putting a warning stamp on all spiritual books. There is danger of deluding oneself so much, that the mind is filled with idea's about enlightenment. This may even bring peace, it doesn't seem like a bad thought process to have. But in the end, the magnifying glass is still burning away, it's still burning down on you as the body, as a self. The pressure is still on.

Thanks. I love you too!

It's already in the past. If you'r worrying it's about the future. In the end, there is nothing at all we can do, there is nothing we regular people should do even. We can hope the police forces can manage to work together globally to detect these attacks in advance. We can hope in the future, the people in the middle east can enjoy better education. Then they may be open minded and intelligent enough to see that their actions mean nothing. That they learn proper history about world wars, that they learn about philosophy and the human situation. We can hope these countries can install stable governments, so that the people are not living in constant fear. So that children can just grow up happy and don't have to become terrorists out of hatred for their life situation. Imagine living in constant hunger and fear of death, while the rest of the world becomes fat on mc donalds, and you've known this since you were a small boy? Becoming a terrorist leader is the best thing a child can do in those regions, you get security, relative stability, and you become a king in your region. It would be easy to convince people there, the west is evil and stealing everything from them. We can hope that these stable governments become an alternative. That people can get and keep decent jobs. Perhaps in the future these children that would become terrorist leaders could grow up, and just use their charisma to become douche-bag CEO's, to satisfy their desire for power over people. Like they do in our countries. We can turn the other cheek, realize these people are so due to circumstances since their youth. That they live in terrible countries with little education and where spiritual leaders abuse their power for terrorism. That will take years, in the mean time this problem has no immediate solution.

@Gopackgo It may all be fascinating what we're doing here. I too am very rational and scientific due to my job. Also, i didn't want to disprove your idea about free will, it might well be true, who knows. If we are just an observer, just perception itself, then we as perception surely have no free will. We can always agree to disagree and remain friends, that is ok, i don't need everyone in the world to agree with me. I enjoy the sport of discussion perhaps a bit too much sometimes, and you have been a fine player. I watched the video a second time yesterday evening, and it's starting to dawn on me. In the end, enlightenment is having no effort at all, its just being. If we want enlightenment, we're working to hard, we've missed it, we've passed it, we're lost to it completely. The mind can be rational all day long, it's just stories in our heads anyway. Identifying with and putting importance on something that will happen tomorrow, or has happened yesterday is the real problem. You gotta travel light, don't carry around all those potential problems that may or may not appear tomorrow. Don't carry around all that baggage from the past, it's only an inaccurate memory inside your head. Really, i'm just typing on a keyboard here, nothing else is happening, there are no groceries here. There is me, the keyboard, the screen, a mental projection of you as audience, and the light in my hallway that just turned on by itself. The mental projection is real, cause its happening, but its not me, its just some thing. I've found, really looking, and by looking i mean just observing, watching without judging, and especially without identifying is the best solution. I'm afraid, then i examine the fear, not with the mind, not asking myself questions, not really with any effort at all. I just look at it, deeply, intensely, pure fascination on the process. Like watching an animal at the zoo, or a campfire, or anything fascinating. By just looking the emotion doesn't really diminish at first, it becomes like these sequence of bodily sensations that are quite abstract, then the mind seems to forget about them, then they vanish. It's not like i want them to vanish, i'm just looking at the components as they are. The components are not fear, fear is a mental label, the components are just "tensions, pressures, tinglings" in various locations. And they are often neither unpleasant or pleasant, they are just there somewhere, but not entirely sure where. Even if you press your thumbs fingernail into your index finger, you notice it's just some kind of pressure, it's not even exactly where you are pinching, it's like radiating out, where is it exactly? I've also found, emotions are also complete liars. You'll experience something, and then a split second later there is an emotion. It's like the emotion was always there, but actually the thought about the emotion changes your memory of the past, and injects itself upon the sensation. When someone tells you bad news, first you are just hearing words. But the hearing of the words and the interpretation of the meaning of the words gets merged in your memory, like they've always been one and the same. The mind is changing the past to make itself seem real. This is even true with physical pain, just press your thumb fingernail into your index finger and see, it's not a bad thing in itself. (not advising self-immolation here, that is not the point) I've also found, the mind likes to finish thoughts, like its very important for it. It's funny, if you start thinking about something, you want to complete the story. Even making excuses, i almost made this design in my head, just a few more thoughts and i am done. Or you can have thought loops, to prevent you from forgetting some idea you have, they pop up every few minutes until you can put it on paper, days later. These are real devils to me, they sapped a lot of my energy before. In the end, all this thinking is sooooo tiring. Nothing can be gained from it, it means nothing really, but it appears to mean everything. By just perceiving, everything becomes hilarious, like watching a child paint with finger-paint. Its like watching a comedy, its not heavy, everything is funny cause it doesn't matter. But also kinda bland sometimes, cause nothing really matters much.

I agree 100% on the micro scale. Most thoughts and actions i take are involuntary in the instant moment. And it certainly is an interesting and abstract view, which from some perspective seems fully correct. I also don't know how it would help or even matter to me, other than being a fancy theory Your also using computer analogies for the brain, trying to say something weak can't control something powerful, as if that means anything. An old ps/2 port has a max of 12bits/s, plugging in both a mouse and keyboard you can fully control a computer using 24bits a second. Even just showing the mouse cursor move on the screen takes much more processing power, you need to cursor to dissapear where it was, and appear in new places, refreshing the entire screen at 60Hz, which takes in full HD about 2.78 Gbit/s, just to make your mouse move from 12bits/s input. As resolutions increased and pc's became thousands times more powerful, the slow ps/2 port kept working, and can still be used today to control a pc, altough its not always available these days. Following your analogy, the computer should make the keys on my keyboard go up and down, and also make the mouse move around. There is no reason, for a low bitrate device not being able to control something of much greater power. You can control a forklift with some levers. You exert only little force on the lever and can lift heavy burdens with ease. On the macro scale. The subconscious mind can still be influenced and trained. Fear reflexes can be trained, some people learn not to flinch for anything. Since starting my meditation practice again recently and sticking with it , i have more willpower. I'm an entirely different person now, and people have even noticed this and commented on it. I'm living less in a haze of automata, and am more aware of what is happening. This awareness brings certain logical flaws to light, which i don't repeat because of this. My automata are also changing, my instant reflexes are beginning to be different from what they where. I notice this easily in my daily life. I'm suddenly much more detailed at my job. I also do administrative tasks exactly on time, which i always post-poned. I'm also doing things very very far outside of my comfort zone due to this, which I would never voluntarily choose otherwise. The claim that there is no free will, would mean i could do nothing else than choose to pick up the meditation habit. That it was pre-destined to become better at my work. I had no choice but to enter these forums. And you guys had no choice but to steer me into the direction where my job got better. That may well be. But i don't believe it. Why now, why not two months ago, when i was in a darker place. Marijuana for example, will definitively impact your choices and the way you live. But does that mean the choice to use marijuana never existed? If free will doesn't exist, should we tell addicts they have no choice and just to keep using heroin, booze, and whatever they want? It is also a mentality that is not without danger and could be self-defeating, making life a mess. You would say that if the addict decides to quit, its because he had a motivational drive to do it. But why would he decide that, heroin impacts mind and body fully, the only remaining drive is to do more heroin. And what about those difficult choices, the one's you deliberate over weeks? Or even my dinner tonight, due to time, i was seriously considering getting take out. But i decided not to due to health reasons. But i could almost taste the take-out, and had great desire for its greasy goodness. Or when i go out to exercise, and my entire body is screaming to stay indoors and chill, but i still go and do it. What about a computer scientist designing a model. He thinks deeply and hard about the model he is creating, he makes many many choices in the process. For some he will deliberate for days, for others he might call a colleague for more input. I just don't believe it. I know you can keep going "meta" on everything i said here. You can say i make these seemingly hard choices, because that is what the subconscious is determined to choose. That the mind is set in its way and even the fact of deliberating for days is part of an automata for a hard choice. It's an automatic involuntary process. I understand all your reasoning and theories on it, and it's a logical view. But i don't see the relevance or the importance of it, and I don't think it's true either. I would say, having no free will is the illusion here, and you actually have free will I would also say, perhaps many normal people have little to no free will, but increasing your free will is a result of enlightenment work , due to more awareness of the subconscious. Personally i believe, we are not the body, not the subconscious mind, not the conscious mind, not a voice in our heads, not what we see, not what we hear. We are perception itself. As such, we are nothing in this world, and whether or not something here has free will, should be beside the point. Self improvement and the free will to choose to improve, is important only to create a stable environment for enlightenment work.

@Gopackgo That's an interesting perspective. I can appear to make choice, i can deliberate between what i'm eating for dinner. Off course that can be an illusion. On the other hand, my meditative practices are having since recently already an impact on my professional career. That would mean, that i was pre-destined to start my practices and have impact on my career. I don't really buy that . But it's just a semantic thing really, it doesn't really matter if there is free will or not. It matters most, to realize who has the free will. I believe, the body does have free will, it can have needs, desires and choices based on this. But i also believe that that body is not really me. And even the I i'm referring to is not me. If my true nature, is perception or some similar concept. Then I don't have free will. I'm just looking at a movie happening. The movie may not be predetermined, and the body has choices, but there is no interface for true being to control the body. So it will just keep on going and choosing whatever it may.

@ashashlov Oh, i did not have any problems at al in my life, cause by weed. Until it became too much, then i had some problems waking up in the morning, nothing more. You tend to become foggy all the time, if you do it a lot. Also you don't feel much from it after a while, you are just in this kind of haze, like your mind is numbed. I also noticed, i always wanted to smoke 1 more in the evening, so i would stay up way too late. As @Spacious said, motivation is also a huge problem after a while. You just can't be bothered to do anything after a while, other then vegging out and watching TV. I also found a solution all the negative sides of weed. Rigorous exercise, like cardio training, 3 times a week. Then smoking weed in the evening. It will make you get higher with less herb, and it's more fulfilling if you do smoke. You also tend to stop sooner, there is less craving to smoke more and more and more. That seems to bring me in a state of equilibrium and removes all negative side effects of weed for me (not being able to get up early, low motivation and focus)

It's true regarding the weed. It reduces your REM sleep, when you quit you rebound and get a boost in REM sleep, causing intense dreaming. But i'm not doing that much less, i've been managing my habit for some time and am only smoking in the evening. Should be the same. But who knows.

I'm addicted to weed, i admit. You can become dependent upon it, making life worse when you don't have it. It also causes troubles sleeping, it will reduce your REM sleep (proven throe science), and increase your deep dreamless sleep. And after years of this, you tend to get chronically tired, you need REM. Other than that, it's a manageable habit to live with. It's better than being a functional alcoholic for sure. But speaking from years of heavy usage, i would smoke like 10g, maybe 15g a week, which is a bit much. One a day, two a day, is not addiction, and its something i'm trying to get back to, and am managing so far. I would do 8 on a week-evening at my peak, 15 in a day if it was weekend and i started from morning. But still i can quit cold turkey, it's just not fun to do. Would go on vacation 2 weeks often in summer, in countries that forbid it, so... As for meditation, it can be ok for meditation. Personally it messes more with my meditation when i don't have it. Proving again my dependence upon it. Be careful, smoke it, don't let it smoke you