SOUL

@alyra Please explain this "duality", I don't see it.

In my opinion most of the pro Trump mentality is just a form of psychosis. Those people have problems with everyone.

Who is it that said the human condition is a mental illness? If they didn't, they should have.

I am one with everything so I am all the Rolls Royces that ever existed... just no smoking in me, it stinks.

....because the alternative has produced such a sane society devoid of suffering, right?

This is an example of how enlightenment isn't about knowledge, understanding, truth or any ideas, concepts and beliefs. Enlightenment is about awareness, both in focusing awareness on the moment and expanding our awareness, so the mind will get preoccupied with what it can be aware of and fixate on that as a way to gain it's identity. The way I view it to limit the disharmony in me or anyone is to let it come to me, I don't seek out opportunities to tell anyone anything. If someone seeks out my opinion or are venting or complaining then I offer what I can but not much more than that. This limits the exposure in real life to potentially running afoul of egos and possible conflict. Online it's a little harder because in public forums people seek all sorts of stuff and it can be difficult to discern exactly what they are seeking or need to satisfy them. This is where most of the disharmony comes in my own experience now so I am always learning ways to offer what I can with few expectations and avoiding conflict even while addressing a wide range of topics.

I'm pleased to see that you put the words "control" and "negative" in quotes because those are words that can complicate things so at least you recognize they need to be contextualized. Trying to control, especially something like emotions, is very frustrating and virtually an impossibility since emotions rise from our unconscious mind. "Negative" is really just our personal perspective of something, it's not that emotions are in of themselves either positive or negative. I'm also pleased to learn you have already begun to see the distinction between pain and suffering, while we are in painful circumstances it is commonly referred to as suffering, though, there is a self imposed suffering that happens when we aren't immediately in the painful circumstances but it continues to linger in our consciousness. What you called being a victim and it isn't necessarily a commentary on whether the painful circumstances were of our own doing or not but the victim mindset is a form of self suffering which you apparently recognize. It doesn't mean you are weak minded at all, even the most strong minded people will self suffer, it's just the way the ego will exert influence to guide us into certain behaviors. It seems you would benefit from becoming more detached from the reactionary emotional impulses evoked by the ego, this doesn't mean become detached from all emotions, it's just not reflexively endorsing the ones that the ego offers up. When the ego wants you to suffer with an emotion that makes it the situation or you feel even worse, don't agree with it. It's difficult to counter those reactionary impulses the ego instigates in us in the moment they are occurring so it's helpful to work to counter them in meditation beforehand. By using visualization to envision ourselves in circumstances that would normally trigger the suffering emotions but instead we see ourselves thinking, feeling and behaving in the alternative ways we seek for ourselves. Music is a powerful resource for us to inspire emotional connection to ideas so if you can find non-distracting music to use in these meditation sessions it will make them more effective when coupled with the visualizations. Cultivate the emotional response you seek with help from inspiring music while envisioning yourself in those circumstances will influence the unconscious mind to make the associations we intend and will "recall" them in the circumstances. It may not happen right away and it may not disappear forever even after we do see some change in us but eventually we can find relief from self suffering through letting go of the old and using the imagination to create new. The mind can't really tell the difference between what's real and what's imagined because it uses the same parts of the brain for both, use that to your advantage.

This is more dualism delusion, to experience isn't dualistic and as soon as you break your belief in dualism you will see how obviously you are under the delusion of dualism. Even if you think there is one divided into two, dualism, there is really a third that the primitive part of our mind fails to recognize and is the source of this misperception of a dualism delusion.

If I could just make a suggesting that how you are framing it all may be contributing to the pattern, labeling with good and bad could be creating the swinging. That doesn't mean I'm suggesting removing all morality, but that in our inner work by labeling one group of habits with good and another groups with bad the strength of the associations is triggering increased instances of them. When we create a mental construct around groups of habits our subconscious mind will label and link them together to help orient it self and if that construct involves the notion you swing between period of one group of them and another group of them, the subconscious will oblige in prompting the impulses to behave in accordance with the way we view them. So disconnecting all these individual habits from label groups and viewing them as instances of them on their own removes the powerful associations that can bond them in the subconscious mind. Even if you have one instance of individual habit they won't empower others cascading them into these periods you swing between. There are many methods to redirect yourself away from old habits and into new ones but you can find them easy enough without me talking on all of them. What I was hoping to illuminate is how we can subconsciously create the experiences we are going through by how we view them and altering our view of them can often be the most effective way to influencing the associations.

Why do you believe that the idea you have about consciousness is false and another idea is true? All that amounts to is swapping a belief for another one, then instead of believing the old one, you are believing the new one and belief is still framing the paradigm of the mind. Just because others agree with you, whether on the old idea in certain ideological circles or on the new idea in different ideological circles, it's still a belief in the mind's paradigm. It's not the ideas in of themselves that are of value, it's how those ideas serve our experience that are the value. Belief in an idea is the framework of the mind's paradigm and by labeling an idea it's the mind seeking to identify it more than our experience of observing it in the present moment to fit it into it's paradigm of beliefs. An idea is like a flower in the field, it's beautiful and alive as it is in it's natural state of being but once we pick that flower to keep for our self it dies. An absence of belief in any mind paradigm is an inherent trait of being present in the moment awareness, this 'presence' doesn't go about labeling things as true or false, It is simply being as it is and observes as it is without using systems to identify which are the processes and products of the paradigm creating mind. Presence isn't using a belief to be present, it is just being aware as it is and observing the moment as it is.

@Prabhaker So be it....

@Prabhaker .....and those with the ears to hear will hear.

@Prabhaker He calls it commune they call it church..... those with the eyes to see will see.

@Prabhaker No really, what? Well, except he isn't aware of his own faith, that's different I guess.

What's the difference between Osho and any one of those TV evangelist preachers living lavishly? No joke, really what?

@Socrates So this good and evil mind paradigm is just relative assessments based on subjective perspective that has no way to conclusively determine it's validity? How do you apply your "theory with real life" as you asserted others are not doing? There are a multitude of actions that are very much grey areas of disputed morality, how do they get determined to be sorted in this absolutes paradigm of good and evil? Is it just left up to each of us in determining which is good and evil depending on our subjective perspective of relative assessments?

@Socrates You used many words to avoid answering the question, will you answer the question? From who or where does this standard come and how to determine it's validity?

I have asked a question of people who suggest good and evil exists apart from just in the mind many times so I will ask you, from who or where does this standard come from and how to determine if it's valid?

There are plenty of people who position themselves as teachers but instead of clarifying it they obscure what is actually quite simple in an effort to sustain their status. This can lead many who are seeking liberation from their self imposed suffering to be even more disillusioned and they may eventually become embittered and doubtful. Then some of these disillusioned ones may try to coddle their own suffering minds by dissuading and distracting others from seeking what they themselves do not have. If they weren't suffering and instead were fulfilled in their life they wouldn't seek to discourage anyone else from seeking it for themselves regardless of the way it is found.

@benny Oh you want to resolve it! I can't help you with that, I couldn't solve it the first time so I couldn't explain how to resolve it I transcended it and gave the broken tangle to goodwill. Didn't mean to waste your time.... never mind.

@benny Well, faith in yourself can help build confidence. Behaving in the ways you seek to in the present is creating new habits even if they feel "fake" at first though with faith in the moment can build confidence in you and become natural eventually. The difference is that instead of digging around for the reflection material, let the ego bring it to mind and then observe it. Once the issue is repeatedly brought to attention in various ways you can contemplate it in light of what it is. You can be aware of the emotions, memories,,dialog habits that are entangled in the thoughts of your personal self paradigm. It's all interwoven and trying to deal with it would be like trying to entangle the messiest knot of Christmas lights in your mind, why even bother? Since the whole thing is plugged into a fearful socket and it's made up of yesterdays... unplug it! See, I know that most people seek pleasurable experience so I suggest plugging in to the emotions associated with well being. As cliche as it sounds the only way you are going be attractive to others is for you to be attracted to your own experience, agreeing with the fearful yesterdays isn't likely going to help in doing that. Focus on the now because any prospective partner you are going to be talking to now is not privy to your inner memory bank and they will only see you as you present yourself to them in that moment. Turning a blind eye to the past? Do it! If you stop paying attention to the past and everything the ego is flashing in your mind jumping around in your head hopping look at me looooook at me look at meeeeeeee! Agree with me that you suuuuuuck! AAARRRGGGGG! Turn that blind eye to the past! Do it!

Don't dismiss the work you have already done because external work is also inner work just as inner work is also outer work. As an example, if we are learning a new skill, at first it's uncomfortable and unnatural to us. Although, as we do this new skill it becomes ingrained in our psyche and eventually we can perform it reflexively and unconsciously. We have internally wired ourselves to behave externally according to the pattern we set for ourselves through habituation. Faith is a powerful tool in our personal work, it's an inner tool that creates a fulfilled experience in life because it is also exercised externally through words and deeds but it seems you may have been neglecting to have faith in your work. Find that faith force that resides in your willful intention and exercise it in doing your personal work, both inner and outer, all of it. Doubting yourself rarely, if ever, leads to fulfillment. If I would give any direction in searching it would be to not do any deep digging at all, let it come to your attention on it's own, if it doesn't, is it really there? Of course if it is relevant to your lack of fulfillment the ego will bring it to mind because it wants the attention on it. When it does get brought to attention, then examine it. What are the accompanying thoughts, feelings, images, the memories and inner dialog that are present with it? Our mind will tell us what's relevant and then we can do our work on those things that are connected to the lack of fulfillment in our experience instead of needlessly trying to fix things that may not even be broken, so to speak, leading to much fruitless work that may just end of frustrating us with the issue still unresolved. We don't need to dig just for the sake of doing it! Just observe the ego working in the mind doing what it does, it will bring all these unsatisfactory thoughts, feelings and ideas to attention(awareness). What I found is that it's usually just one or two motives that are the root of the unrest that feeds much of the misery regardless of how many varieties of manifestation in us that it appears to take form as. Once you become aware of those one or two keys to the unrest you can work on those and you will likely find that much of it all will be resolved through it, plus some things you aren't even aware being related to it. One of the effective methods I used is to detach from the root causes, the ego will do everything it can to get you to care about it, to invest your whole being into endorsing what it values in identifying. Simply unplugging the cord to it robs it of it's power. Replacing the power source with the love, peace and joy in faith will completely change your work since it likely is being powered through fearful thoughts and emotions right now. This will transform the work you have been doing into much more effective efforts in bringing well being to the whole experience in a fulfilling way. Peace.

I can agree it seems like so many will place hoops and obstacles in the way, in many degrees and levels of them, so it appears it's all one huge series of things one 'gotta do' before we can 'git it dun'. That's what transcending is all about though, 'being it' all the while regardless of what comes along, even if we are still plagued by 'undesirable(coughtrashcough)circumstances' you may be thinking you have to wait out. Actually, consciously transcending is 'being it' all the while, especially because of those things you may think you are waiting out. Will it change? Yes, it will change..... will it change into a way you seek?... maybe, maybe not, that depends on our inner work... but even if life becomes a less appreciated state of existence we can still 'be' the thing you think you are waiting the trash out to finally be. That's the point of transcending it, we see through awareness the absolute potential in the fulfilled state even though the mind, by way of the sensory fed brain, experiences the ebb and flow of existence filled with the trash... and the treasure. The only influence we have is in the present moment to be whatever we intend to be in that moment and the moment-um of that fill each unfolding moment...um. Of course letting go of expectations, another facet of the mind's paradigm, that once transcended allows us to be at peace with the outcome regardless of what it brings. So transcend the trappings and observe it all with the peace of being in awareness of the absolute potential fulfilled, that is enlightenment! Be it now! It's that simple even if the mind doesn't want to believe it and tries to convince there needs to be a complicated process to wait out.

I beat my ego in chess every time because I know all it's moves.

Perfect can mean 'without flaws' but it also can mean 'complete'. The logical part of our mind fixates on the 'without flaws' meaning but it may be that some are attempting to express a completeness when they use the word perfect. So when some say the universe is perfect it baffles the logical mind when they see the misery and suffering in the world and question it being perfect by interpreting it as without flaws. Another example of words falling short for expressing.