SOUL

Why do you believe the self doesn't exist?

That is just your personal belief, you are entitled to believe it and act according to it as you see fit but it doesn't make it fact or truth for everyone. So be it.

@Heart of Space I don't really have any issues with your words or your beliefs since they aren't mine but what is apparent in them is they reflect a limiting beliefs paradigm. There's a lot of that going on with Enlightenment and in spirituality so my apologies for attempting to bring it to your awareness. So be it.

@Thanatos13 You are missing the point that the evidence you seek is something only you can supply. You're making assumptions about the state of my life and what I have been through. This isn't a pissing match about who has it worst or who overcame more. It's about whether you have the will to carry on and find your own well-being in whatever way you can regardless of the circumstances in your life. There isn't anybody that can give that to you, it's something you search within yourself for.

You are the one who has posed the conflicted query in this thread and you are offering contradictory evidence thinking it somehow supports your conclusion.... besides, it really does seem as if you still are looking for a cookie. Trees? Um..... ok

Whether it is likeable or not is of little consequence, what effect on our being present does a belief paradigm have is more significant.

It's very understandable, you have a belief paradigm of what it's not and what it's only so that there is an infinitesimal hoop you believe you need to hop through. Your own beliefs are limiting your own experience and then you are going on to tell others that their experience is like your experience. None of that makes any sense, I don't know why you do it, I encourage you to lose that mindset.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Atman! Is that not right? Nevermind..... Yea, now it's stuck in your head....

So it took a genius like Newton to "invent" it? Before he 'invented' it people were freely flying around all over the place because gravity didn't exist? Gawd what an ahole! If it contains everything possible in the absolute infinite, then it's all cognition, perception, perspective and potential, not the absence of them because it contains everything possible! Your limiting beliefs are why you need drugs and 1000s of hours of meditation to even get a glimpse, it takes much to overcome your mind's belief paradigm as you have created it. Awakening brings clarity of cognition, perception, perspective and is a so simple state of being that few are attentive to it but the potential of it is absolutely infinite.

@sarapr Oh geez whatheffever, this is giving me a headache... I'm done here So be it.

So you think gravity is just a "function of the human cognition"? It doesn't exist at all outside of our cognition of it? Explain how spirituality isn't also from the human perspective so not subjective.

It wasn't my intention to interpret or estimate how full you are or consider if there any contradictions, just illuminate the beliefs in your words since you believe believing any narrative about reality is not enlightenment.

Whether I agree or not, flaws or whatever it doesn't matter, those aren't my words, they are yours. So be it.

Well, apparently you aren't aware of it, limiting beliefs are hidden in plain sight.

Even thinking there is an issue, a problem with a connection or relation and that detachment is a preferable way are also belief concepts. That's the whole spinning wheel of chasing the best, the right, the most, the truth, the enlightenment. All that is 'doing' is shifting the belief to be something else to justify 'doing' of it, to gain a pattern for the mind to build a paradigm around, for the ego to identify with. As soon as that wheel has been left unspun in us that impetus has been disenfranchised in our being, it has no power of force to captivate our experience, it is impotent. It's an absolute peace in being.

Yes, MisterMan, the middle man or to be more apt, middle men, as there are layers of identity seeking to influence our state of being.

Do you see it?

Here is something to consider: We have a gut biome and these microorganisms are alive in us, they live in the environment of our digestive tract, they are supported by the food we eat and from the conditions that exist in our gut. These microorganisms are of many varieties and they prefer different diets of nutrients and molecules that we could potentially ingest. Some like one thing, another likes something else and the particular foods we eat provide actually influences which ones can survive and flourish in our gut. So let's say we eat alot of empty simple carbs and processed sugars but don't eat greens like broccoli and spinach. The boime that we have created in our gut feeds on sugars and that's what it needs to survive of which greens has little to none so if we don't eat the food that gives what it needs it's going to die out. These tens to hundreds of billions of microorganisms all are at the dinner table waiting for the vittles but we eat a salad and they look at the nutrients wft is this crap? They start getting 'upset' and sending out signals like we need to eat or we will die! These signals make their way up to our amygdala and in response to them it effects our mood. In addition to creating emotional impulse it also creates craving impulses and we crave a donut or candy bar. We can't think of anything else except that craving even though we are eating a salad and fill up our stomach full of the greens. We don't feel fulfilled by the food we just ate and we impulsively still want to eat more and specifically the stuff that becomes a sugary meal for the biome. I ask you.... where did the thought to eat that sugary food come from? In this light consider where does the urge to have sexual relations come from? If we stub our toe where does the "ouch that hurt" thought come from? We are a whole body being and sensations are all throughout it but yes our brain is a grand central station of sensation. Though does every 'passenger' in the station originate there? Hm......hehe.

Haha, I find so much humor in this and there are too many jokes that could be made but I will just leave it be.... thanks for the chuckle though. haha.

Your oversimplified generalization perspective aside it's interesting how you framed this, spiritual people "hate" a method of discovery and scientific people "hate" other people. I think this is something that could prompt us to examine ourselves to discover if we actually "hate" people or if we even "hate" at all. I also find it interesting to note that both the scientific method and spirituality are methods of discovery.

Pain and suffering aren't quite the same thing but though we can suffer pain all pain isn't suffering and all suffering isn't pain. As an example, there are people who put themselves through painful experiences and it's not suffering to them or perceived negatively. Conversely, there are people who can go through experiences that pleasurable and still suffer in them or perceive them negatively. We can have an experience of continuing physical suffering due to ongoing circumstances but the suffering that the Buddha spoke of and what most seek to be 'free' from is self induced suffering. As well intention as Buddha or other people are in trying to alleviate self induced suffering by saying that life is suffering that isn't expressing the whole as it is. In life there is happiness, sadness, apathy, pain, pleasure, insensitivity, love, fear, dispassion, joy, misery, stoicity and on and on. Life is filled with many things, one of them is suffering and no offense to the wise Buddha but life isn't just suffering. We can be liberated from suffering without the "death" of our body, our ego, our self...we can be at peace in life and it's simply a state of being which may be difficult to realize when we are distracted by everything life encompasses but it is really that simple.... just be it.

Honesty and being authentic aren't quite the same thing. We can be authentic but not necessarily tell everyone everything in our thoughts or our feelings. Thoughts and feelings are perceptions that are filtered through the self conscious so even though we may perceive we are telling someone the 'truth' when we are being radically honest with them it doesn't mean we are accurately expressing what it is. We are expressing it as we perceive it as, which may or may not be accurate to what it is. So understanding this when we are talking about "radical honesty" may allow us to recognize there are perceptions apropos for silence and this doesn't alter how authentic we are being.

Someone can call anything "truth" they want which isn't the same thing as being "true" to their beliefs so this inconsistency between their "truth" and what actually is can produce quite a significant degree of mental yoga in an attempt to validate beliefs/thoughts/ideas/personal experience. Which is why I encourage people to accept this physical manifest for what it is, it may be illusory but it is persistent and insistent in it's behavior regardless of what we believe/think of it or what we perceive it as. People who have a personal experience of subjectively perceived 'truth' which contradicts the objective natural physical manifest often perform extreme mental contortions and rationalizations to resolve their perceptions. An example that often is present in people who profess non-duality is when someone thinks/believes that there is an 'absolute truth' because 'truth' is a dualism/dichotomy so if someone is really non-dual they wouldn't perceive 'truth'. No matter how much one thinks/believes it's "absolute truth" a bookcase isn't a unicorn. To them it may be so are completely convinced it is but they can't make me perceive it as a unicorn and it doesn't magically become one in the physical manifest, it just is what it is.

Our personal experience of inner life.

@Faceless Although, order of thought is subjectively perceived. What I think you mean is logically consistent. Such as if someone thinks that violence is unhealthy and say that they live a healthy life but they also spank their children, this is logically inconsistent or lacking this order you speak of, it's "trueness" Their idea of violence is unhealthy isn't really a "truth" for them because they don't live 'true' to it Their belief that they live a healthy life is a subjective delusion in this scenario because their genuine actions contradict their belief regardless of the rationalization.