zazed

Fascinating and thought provoking video. So many logic loops in the video. So having knowledge about the workings of the mind is self-deception. Is Leo exempt from self-deception? Isn't he sharing his knowledge? Knowing the truth is a form of knowledge, and we already confirmed we cannot trust knowledge. I conclude the only knowledge we can trust, is that we have no knowledge. There is no self. There is only being. Overthinking your actions also makes for an overactive mind far from awareness. I am a "self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "a self deceptor whenever the notion appears that I am a "something something""""" Isn't that a loop, are you sure this knowledge is true and complete? @Charlotte it's just a mind game. who is listening, who is deceived? isn't the mind deceiving the mind? Isn't Leo just a mind talking to another mind (You), using pixels on a screen (not even Leo). So the video is just your mind is talking to your mind, and your feeling bad is just because you told yourself a story of deception in Leo's name. if you are aware of this as a mind you can perhaps make different choices, which are also deceptions. But it's ultimately impossible as mind to be free of mind. The self cannot be what is not the self. Every value you have, every belief is a deception. It's not possible to fix this. In fact, this is just how the mind works. When or where exactly is choice made, and how? The video indirectly says deception is unavoidable, so why feel bad, only two options remain: You think, i have self deception, its a problem, i have to fix it You think, i have gone far, self-deception is not a problem for me you just deceived yourself, go back to 1. There is no you, so there is no mind. This is not an option for you. You are still doing 1 and 2. There can be freedom of self. But self cannot be free of self. This is powerful knowledge. But sometimes also meaningless. Often you are powerless to change it. This all is fine. Feeling bad about this, is beside the point, and the biggest self-deception of all. Letting go, dropping your burden, is the correct result. Relaxing, releasing, letting go, accepting and loving the self will create space for full awareness to arise. Self loathing, self hate, wanting to change the self, feeling bad, these creates inner conflict, and this conflict creates ripples in the mind that blind us from the truth. We cannot be free if we are busy with our-self, this all places the self in the center of our consciousness. When you want to be free of someone, you don't go constantly talk about him, think about him, and call him every hour of the day. Why you feel bad is simple. The video is directed to you personally due to the language used. It talks as if the viewer is broken and the viewer has this huge problem. Perhaps this is so. Perhaps you are deceiving yourself, and feeling bad because your ego took a hit. Generally it is normal to feel bad after watching someone talking about what is "wrong" with you. In this sense, the feeling bad is a deception in itself. You are feeling bad for being a regular human being... Instead, forgive yourself for all your mistakes, enjoy life, love, and be aware. You can grow, this moment exists as it is, you cannot change the past.

I have it when driving recently. Really relaxed in a blissful state, i start imagining driving into the canal. My car destroyed, sinking. It is more about destroying the car, than hurting my self. When waiting on the train and a train passes. The impulse of jumping under the train. I could jump under this train, and it would be over in a flash. Without having actual suicidal thoughts. More the fear of the possibility. Or, when i bought a tv when i was a teenager and had little money. The fear and impulse of wanting to pull the tv to the ground, destroying it. I loved that tv. It is a strange conflict between something you really value, in relaxation and the fear of doing something stupid to destroy it. It also shows clearly, how we are not our mind, and that our thoughts are not as much a self, as they are often involuntary and meaningless. It is some kind of conflict or error in your mind that creates these thoughts that you would never consider otherwise. Like an overflow from the extreme of love, into a sense of destruction. Maybe like how in 16bit calculation, 32767 + 1 = -32768 , the overflow of the max value. Too much love creating thoughts of destruction. These kind of thoughts i've come to consider as meaningless noise generated by something that is more machine than actually aware or sentient in us. And we have the choice to ignore our thoughts, our thoughts do not define us or or actions.

Hey, I was just curious how other people meditate and how often. Which techniques are used. And also, as i choose to meditate without music, if people like with music better? Partly because i was wondering about starting to use music more myself. Anyway, its multiple choice, so you can select more than one answer. I am also curious to see an explanation into why a certain practice. However, i don't want to start a debate on what is best. I only want to know what you think is best, works for you, and why. ---- I guess i'll kick it off... I meditate daily, about 30m to an hour, trying to build it up doing more in the new year. When i have time i meditate multiple times a day for longer time, like in the weekends. Mostly in ambient silence, sometimes with ear plugs when i can't tolerate my fridge buzzing. I use silence because i've once read over 15 years ago that music would be too distracting/pleasurable, and this stuck with that for some reason. I don't really think of anything special, rather just sit doing nothing, being aware of what is. If this doesn't work i focus on the breath and/or my heartbeat, until i can do nothing again.

Accept reality fully. What is is. Sadness and loneliness and suffering are feelings that you can experience. They can become a lot, they can become unbearable to your mind. This can influence your body, i have had anxiety attacks in the past, which are different but similar. It is not a failure on your part, it is not something you need to fix. Allow yourself to be as you are. It is only the mind that disagree's with what is. Feelings are not inherently unbearable, if you investigate a feeling in great detail, it becomes an abstract thing. Life can suck, and will induce feelings. There is no need to fix this, Now is Now, but time passes for the body. Good luck. We love you!

This is more or less what i was saying/talking about. But better explained. @Joseph Maynor

@Faceless Thanks. Meditation is indeed not the end goal. You seem to have a well established practice without it.

Now

Do you need to know how a movie was made, when watching a movie, to know you are not in the movie? Sure, i'll engage. It is best to do some self inquiry on it, to be able to experience the mind as a separate world.You already assume that you are seeing a real thing and not only yourself, or perhaps dreaming. How can you prove that the world you see, does not only exist as a part of you? Everything you use to prove there is such a thing as seeing, uses what appears to be seen to prove this. You think you are talking about sight as having a sense of being 3d, but it is not sight at all. This is your mind world, the reflection you constructed. This 3d world exists for you alone, as a part of you. And yes, your sense is right, it is 3d. It is 3.5d even, because you have even a sense of the inside of certain objects and much more. Look at a mug from the side, do you not have a sense of the inside of it? And when you trip, it is the same. You are tripping inside yourself. You are not seeing an external objective reality everyone sees. But your mind world experiences another "reality" reflected there. In this case, perhaps it is more easily seen that this mind world is more than just a 3d mirror of "outside reality" created by sight. The sight is part of the illusion, it cannot be proven to exist. Perhaps it does exist, but you cannot prove this. Scientifically, sight is two 2d images, offset by the distance between your eyes. Because there is distance between your eyes, the images are not exactly the same. Your brain is very powerful and from the angles and the shifts, it can construct a 3d world for you to experience. This 3d world resembles the "real" 3d world, but it is in fact a world existing only inside your mind. Even science agrees, this world exists only for you and is created by you. Watching a 3d movie, the movie is shown in 2 shifted 2d images to trick your brain in creating a 3d world for you to enjoy. Close one eye, and the world still appears 3d, because the mind is smart and remembers the previous image. Go drive around in your car, and close one eye while driving. Soon it is more difficult to tell how far objects are. As your brain still has size to go on, but you haven't memorized the size of all objects in the world. All of this applies to all the senses. Every sense terminates within the mind world as a mind mirror. We experience only our mind. It would take enlightenment to go outside of the mind. Some self inquiry you can do: Touch a coffee mug, and the feeling of sight and touch converge in your mind-world. Ask yourself: "where do I see this, where do i feel this?" Do you see it outside of yourself, or inside yourself? Where does sight happen, what is its location, does touch join sight. How and where? Look at your arms without moving your head. Where exactly does vision stop in your mind world? Is the sensation of your invisible shoulders really detached from the vision of your arms? Smell your morning coffee while looking at it. Is smell completely separated from sight? Where is the smell, where is the sight? Would a bat with its sonar also have a mind world, what does sonar look like, how would sonar and smell mingle? Can you imagine this? You should answer this for yourself. Are the senses really separated, or does it all mingle in some coherent whole, existing seperatly from the outside reality? Non-Dual warning: This all doesn't mean anything. In the end, you do not even need to know. If you have this mind world, constructed by various seemingly real senses, what is knowing this mind world? And, if there is a being, experiencing our own self mind world, does it then matter how our lower self constructed this mind world? Do you need to know how a movie was made, when watching a movie, to know you are not in the movie? Yes my movie character does like to know how "the movie" is made, but that's just a hobby for this guy making the movie. The only thing that such a hobby(philosophy) is good for, is humbling the self by realizing as a self, that humanity knows very little about being in the movie. And off-course, it's a way passing the day inside the movie.

Thanks for the replies and voting. It's interesting to see some diversity. @star ark That feeling of the feet leaving the ground is weird right? Sometimes i feel like something disconnects, and then there is almost nothing there, but at the same time no need for anything, it's just being. It's very hard to describe. Then my mind notices it and tries to figure it out. That kills it. I can be in that state for a couple minutes now, until my mind realizes what is happening and breaks it. I also meditate in the bathtub, i like the weightlessness @pluto You do this all day? Or you do sit from time to time, but do not label it as meditation? @Faceless Are you able to be mindful the whole day? Is it sometimes easier? Do you never sit to meditate, or even remove distractions? Like do you take walks in silence, or do chores around the house in a meditative state? Or are able to do it all the time doing your daily job/hobbies and whatnot? Obviously you are right, we should not just sit once a day, and then forget about it. I find meditation helpful for short periods of heightened being, to help put me in a "higher state"(whatever that means) for the rest of the day. Thats quite some dedication! What is a visualized meditation, do you visualize something in specific? Yeah, i had this to for the longest time. Now i realize, it is likely better than watching another TV series, or doing other mindless consumerism. In fact, i often find my self totally bored these days. I'll do my chores, visit family, go to work. But when all that is done, i watch some spiritual teachers on youtube, and often browse these forums. But i quickly get "bored". As I don't want to watch TV shows, or do anything else mindless. There is nothing left to do, and i still have 2 hours before going to bed. So i sit... This is I also try to do, sometimes it can be a distraction to me. One time i jumped up wanting to write in my one not. But i sat back down, because I realized it was defeating the point of meditating. Do you keep a paper close by?

@Shanmugam Slightly off topic. But have you written many books? I would be interested in buying a digital version if possible? I reckon it would be well worth my time to see what a fellow actualized forum member writes about.

Yes, many of the strongest human beliefs are about spirituality, enlightenment and religion. When beliefs don't seem to match, people become judging and start making remarks dismissing another insights as being not real. Spiritual people can sometimes be in fact the most judging and thus the least enlightened people there are. In such cases, it's better to wonder why we find it so important to discount another's experiences. Why do we care so much to make these points? Is then not our ego invested in the belief our spiritual insights are superior over others? How can we know another's entire life and achievements based on some text, or a few words spoken? It's quick to judge, it's easy to judge, it is ego-affirming and in this way comforting to us and increasing our confidence in self. Even this post contains some of it.

Are you saying god cannot be a flying spaghetti monster? That would be a very restricted god, if it could not be such a thing. As said by @abrakamowse ,@Nahm ,@snowleopard @Shanmugam @cetus56 @Annetta @pluto , in different ways. Everything is god, or god is everything. And this everything also is nothing. It is what is. It is you, and you are it. It has no restrictions. Yet it also is all restrictions. You cannot say anything about it, and everything you say is it. You cannot think anything about it, and everything you think is it. You cannot know anything about it, and everything you know is it. It is the illusion of reality, it is the appearance of time. All your feelings are it, your very identity is it. Yet it is also not limited by any of these things. If it cannot be all these things, how can it be considered a God, with such limitations?

This is a valid point, i was only explaining what science considers real. None of this is spiritual, it is more to say "what exactly is real, how deep does the rabbithole go?" The point to take home is, whatever perspective you follow scientific, spiritual, immaterial. Reality does not exist such as it seems to us. The only consistent agreed upon result, by all fields, is that our experience is illusionary. That alone should be enough to at least detach. Immaterialism is also true, because none of us can prove the world exists, nor that the physical body exist. The mind exists, because you can experience the world in your mind and you can also think and dream. So reality exists at least as an experience within a mind. A mind does not inherently have eyes, legs, nose or feet or ears. During dreams you can see, walk, smell and hear stuff. How can we prove the reality of the sensory inputs, by using the very senses that may not exist at all, to prove they exists? This mind trying to prove reality is real results in a loop consisting of only mind. Using ideas in the mind (the perception of a microscope) to prove that ideas in the mind(seeing eye-tissue enlarged) are created by ideas in the mind(eye tissue allows sight). As such you can never prove reality exist, every time you try, you realize its just the mind examining the mind examining the mind examining mind, into infinity. You cannot get out of mind as mind, you are stuck in mind and can only experience what appears within this mind. This is my loose interpretation of the philosophy of one George Berkeley (1685—1753), very fascinating. Edit : Definitions of reality may differ. In this post i mean the physical material reality made by atoms.

What we can see with our eyes does not exist at all. If you follow the scientific explanation. The size of electrons and protons are so small, an atom is mostly empty space. If you could really see with something smaller than light, you would see tiny dots all around you, buzzing. The entire world would be almost empty. 99% of reality is empty space. It just happens to be, the wavelength of a photon is such that it bounces on solid objects, and we use this to form vision. Light has a wavelength of vibration. Atoms have no color, they are colorless. When light bounces of atoms of certain properties, their electrons absorb energy from the foton. This changes the wavelength of the light reflected. But a wavelength of light, is not inherently a color. The color assignation happens during seeing. The human brain makes color by interpreting chemical reactions at the back of your eye, being sent to your brain and constructed into an image inside your mind. Then the mind goes to work, and creates this further into a 3d world. Try looking at some objects. A glass, a bottle, a spoon. Especially objects you use a lot. They fill your mind like a concept, you have a certain sense of their entire shape, not just what you can see with your eyes alone. In this way the mind even creates things that do not exist.

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Do you think, thinking is the problem? Isn't every word spoken, every letter written an expression of thought? most action in life, follows thought. Semantically you are completely correct, it depends what you consider they. "Someone thinking" refers to mind/ego/self, as such "they" can never be enlightened, so if mind thinks it is enlightened, it would be thinking a lie. More correct would be, "The mind as self, can think the thought, that enlightenment is being or has been." But who thinks like that? No one can be enlightened.But there can be enlightenment. Enlightenment always is, for everyone. Enlightenment is not a goal to reach. It is the dis-identification with everything, and the identification with everything simultaneously. Because we are not only the ego, the mind and the self. But we very much are in fact the ego, the mind and the self, and so much more. These things all occur, they are experienced. Everything we experience is what we experience.

@Shroomdoctor Yeah, there are many streams of consciousness work on the forum. As i am more scientifically inclined i am not very much interested in that myself, and like a more stripped down style. It is best to recognize that we are all on unproven ground here. I have not seen any refutable proof of any stream on this forum or in life. We cannot even prove enlightenment is real, let alone that zen Buddhism is more pure than works of someone like Bashar. To a staunch scientist, the full topic of enlightenment is new age BS. And in the land of the blind one-eye is king. But well, best to quickly close the posts that are not interesting to you. Being triggered or going against it just leads to flame wars. Anyway, i think it is best to ask a question perhaps, or just post something. What schools have you studied so far, or make sense to you personally? Perhaps i should post something, but i don't know what

@Joseph Maynor This is a good point. I don't think this. I think sometimes i am enlightened. Other times i can't remember what that felt like. Perhaps people like to call this enlightenment experiences, and label enlightenment as a permanent state. Then they are not incorrect in their labels. If what i experience is anything resembling enlightenment, I do experience it as a binary thing. But i find that i can never quite remember it, nor describe it afterwards. Mentally i cannot grasp it. It is more like a feeling, like seeing the face of someone you can't remember the name of. And during meditation, it often comes back to me, and i think, its totally different, but its also the same. I don't really know, that's just what my meditations are like i guess... But this is all labeling. I guess when you are enlightened, you are not enlightened.

Yes, philosophy is king for critical thinking and examination of ideas. This is a good 18hour course giving an overview of philosophy, albeit long. Im only 2 hours into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybBwsldL0k4 01. Philosophy and the Modern Age 00:01 02. Scholasticism and the Scientific Revolution 29:47 03. The Rationalism and Dualism of Descartes 1:02:24 04. Locke's Empiricism, Berkeley's Idealism 1:33:32 05. Neo-Aristotelians—Spinoza and Leibniz 2:06:20 06. The Enlightenment and Rousseau 2:39:30 07. The Radical Skepticism of Hume 3:11:52 08. Kant's Copernican Revolution 3:42:27 09. Kant and the Religion of Reason 4:12:50 10. The French Revolution and German Idealism 4:44:09 11. Hegel—The Last Great System 5:15:01 12. Hegel and the English Century 5:46:57 13. The Economic Revolution and Its Critic—Marx 6:16:38 14. Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason 6:47:36 15. Nietzsche's Critique of Morality and Truth 7:19:32 16. Freud, Weber, and the Mind of Modernity 7:52:03 17. Rise of 20th-Century Philosophy—Pragmatism 8:24:07 18. Rise of 20th-Century Philosophy—Analysis 8:55:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs1PiXu8G_c 19. Rise of 20th Century Philosophy - Phenomenology 0:00:00 20. Physics, Positivism, and Early Wittgenstein 0:32:16 21. Emergence and Whitehead 1:03:00 22. Dewey's American Naturalism 1:34:27 23. Heidegger's Being and Time 2:06:31 24. Existentialism and the Frankfurt School 2:37:54 25. Heidegger's Turn against Humanism 3:07:52 26. Culture, Hermeneutics, and Structuralism 3:39:03 27. Wittgenstein's Turn to Ordinary Language 4:09:57 28. Quine and the End of Positivism 4:41:02 29. New Philosophies of Science 5:12:49 30. Derrida's Deconstruction of Philosophy 5:43:55 31. The Challenge of Postmodernism 6:15:42 32. Rorty and the End of Philosophy 6:46:09 33. Rediscovering the Premodern 7:18:08 34. Pragmatic Realism - Reforming the Modern 7:49:59 35. The Reemergence of Emergence 8:19:44 36. Philosophy's Death Greatly Exaggerated 8:50:13

Mind, there is not necesarily much to find in these fields. But it interests me also. Coincidentally I've been reading and watching various youtube channels on neuroscience and also theoretical physics. Neuroscience is very interesting, it teaches us how our mind works, and this helps in understanding some of our behaviours and problems as individuals and as a whole. Theoretical physics is certainly very interesting, to see how matter at the low level interacts. But the math is very complex and a bit over my head, so i usually don't pay much attention to those parts. One course on neurobiology is very illuminating https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D, It is not so hard to grasp also, I highly recommend this to anyone on a spiritual journey. Another course on theoretical physics is more complex : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzhlfbWBuQ8&index=10&list=PLQrxduI9Pds1fm91Dmn8x1lo-O_kpZGk8, It may be a bit much. There are a lot more high level youtube video's on theoretical physics, that show the metaphysical implications in layman's terms. But as you want to actually go to university i posted a complex course. Susskind is very knowledgable, and i like listening to him. This is more understandable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIl3Hfh9tY also from Susskind.

Exactly. The self cannot work and struggle and think a million philosophical thoughts to make itself disappear. Everything the self does, enlarges it. The self has to leave the room and close the door. You are the room. One thought it truly believes can be enough to make it leave, if it is willing to listen. It only needs to do this one thing. This is what happened to Eckhart, he saw it was so, his self fully believed it and checked out. The problem is, our self does not believe it is not the room. Even though it is working hard, meditating and philosophizing to become the room. The self thinks it is the room, and there should be something else should leave the room, and then it will have become the room. Most selves have now found a scapegoat, called the ego, using it to label undesirable parts of their selves. This undesirable ego has to leave the room, giving the self an excuse to stay in and keep on struggling to become the room. But the self is not divisible at all, so this will never work. You can never. If you aren't in this state you wont know. If you are in this state you have no desire to go around labeling people, it would be absurd to waste mental energy on such a thought. If you do go around labeling people you are not in this state.

Do you feel a need to know?

he clearly writes how he couldn't live with himself anymore. suddenly having the realization that himself not able to live with himself is a paradox. he talks about seeing how the thought thinking this is separate from himself. this is all and more in the first chapters of his book "The Power of now". being in such a dark place, ready to die, is not a natural state of mind you can intentionally reach. it requires deep self hate that is not recommended... you are right in part. there is not that much to go on there. he was suddenly enlightened. the rest of the book is from an enlightened perspective. it's not as much a guide on becoming enlightened, as it is a guide on what life is like if you are enlightened. but it's inspiring to read. so still a good read.

Everything is a awareness. We experience the world trough our senses and construct an entire mirror world in our "mind". You do not see a tree, you see the mental abstract construction of a tree. But if a bat notices a tree using its sonar, it has an entirely different construct in its internal world. Colors do not really exist as an actual property of light, it is just a label our eyesight places upon wavelengths of light. A tree has no color, it reflects photons of a specific wavelength. Green is not a property of the tree, it is not a property of light, it is a property of our eyes and brain. If you look at a flower, your mind world does not only construct the flat 2d representation that you really see. It is constructed as a 3d object, you have the sense of the back of the flower you cannot see also. Our vision is not just a flat canvas, you are innately aware of depth, size, and the backside of things. This is because you know what a flower is, and you add information from somewhere, memory, intuition? You cannot prove anything exists. Because everything you ever experience is in the mirror of your mind. Even the existence of your hands, feet, eyes are made seemingly real in your mind only. If you touch your feet, this feeling is an idea of your mind, and you conclude this is where my feet begin. But what is this where, where exactly does this feeling exist in space? The physical world cannot be proven to exist by a mind that can only see itself. The only thing we experience is the content of our mind changing, we do not experience a world outside our selves. There seems to be something causing the change, but we cannot prove this is an actual world seperate from us. As such it may be that we are all individual minds of awareness, connected within one global consciousness which provides consistency when two minds interact. Ideas just appear in our mind, when they are created by the one consciousness. If you kick me in the nuts, the one consciousness gives you the experience of your foot touching my balls, and me the experience of the sensation of pain.