Joseph Maynor

Every belief and role feels like a straight-jacket to reality that reality simply sloughs off after about 2 seconds. That's the trouble with beliefs, they purport to be independent of time and place -- or context-independent. But reality and truth are totally context-dependent. That's why beliefs have to be clung to loosely. Beliefs are an attempt to control reality in a sense. An attempt to define reality. An attempt to reduce the dynamic to the static, the changing to the changeless. You are that which is not definable. I think this is the first sentence of the Tao Te Ching. Lao Tsu knew this, which is pretty amazing. And we're still puzzled about it today. I guess there's some knowledge that doesn't accumulate with time. Why is that? That's a fascinating question, isn't it? Some knowledge seems to catch and some doesn't.

Totally! We think our ideas correspond to reality. We think reality closely corresponds to our thoughts about it. This is a deep prejudice we seem to be hardwired with. An inclination to err by assuming this metaphor is real. Not even seeing the underlying metaphor.

This video from Emerald propose an antidote to clinging to paradigms. She calls this kind of more flexible knowing "wisdom". Check it out. Test it out in reality too. See how paradigms and wisdom can merge in the flux and chaos of the moment.

@Deep You're making progress. The path is long. Keep walking it!

The longer I'm on the path the more it is pretty clear to be that there is no free will, but I could be wrong, as that's a belief too. Of course it's possible I'm just being brainwashed with all the Enlightenment theories too. There's truth and then there's theory -- and never the twain shall meet. All beliefs are theory and are suspect on that basis -- even the non-dual theories. Not knowing is more powerful than non-duality. Truth is more powerful than non-duality. And truth is simply reality. Reality doesn't need a belief. Does reality care about free will or no free will? Probably not. It's apples and oranges, and reality doesn't consider either one food haha. I'm enjoying playing this new role of the non-committed believer. Yeah! It's a role. Does that mean there is something wrong with it, something ideological? Is reality ideological, dogmatic, something in between, something heterogeneous -- an incalculable chaos perhaps? Reality yawns at all this, and moves on stoically unperturbed.

How do you explain the illusion of free will? That's what fascinates me. There is a definite illusion of feeling and thought that seems to suggest the free will conclusion. No free will resonates more with me than free will does. Free will seems more problematic. It's not that I need to prove no free will -- I can be doubtful of the free will paradigm. So, I am more agnostic about these issues pursuant to my attitude of skepticism and not knowing, but I lean more towards no free will. I'm inclined to think that Awareness or the Soul or Atman isn't the Ego and the free will concept kinda makes no sense without Ego. But I remain open to new evidence or possibilities. I prefer not to cling tightly to any paradigms, including the so called Enlightenment variants. All beliefs miss the bus of what reality is. Reality is only in the moment.

I agree with this. Or to sound less clingy and belief-oriented -- I should say that this resonates with me. It resonates very much with how I think about these matters too. The Ego is a belief and most likely false. Knowing how our ideas have ferreted out on many matters -- it wouldn't surprise me that our cultural beliefs are wrong. The Egoic Paradigm is simply a philosophy, a belief system, a cultural construction, not different from any other creation like Rock and Roll or Kung Pao Chicken. Is Kung Pao Chicken objectively better than Beef and Broccoli, well? Yeah! No. It's funny that we think like that with our other paradigms and don't even realize it. That's why Enlightenment is the eradication of ignorance -- the deepest eradication of ignorance.

I’ve been studying philosophy heavily lately, so I’ve been examining a lot of ideas that have converged to form our collective mentality regarding beliefs. And in the West, especially after Science got going, there’s been a real bent towards pragmatism, skepticism, and weighing of facts and arguments prior to belief, all of which is an advance in the collective mentality regarding belief in my opinion. And knowing that reduction of ignorance is the key to Enlightenment, it’s so important that we remove all vestiges of unsavory clinging from reality — to the extent reality does this for you. We all realize the benefits of this. We have a couple of cliches — awareness alone is curative and acceptance of reality alone is curative — that get at this. My point is that the theory of Ego encapsulates all of this wisdom, and then drills it down as a highly practical understanding which goes beyond the abstractions of thoughts. This allows us to have wise awareness, which miraculously cleans up reality for us, whether there’s a possibility of control, or whether we’re just watching a story play itself out.

Nothing changes. You most likely never had any control over reality to begin with. Reality just is itself. It is most likely not controlled by an egoic self. The egoic picture or story or belief of reality is very problematic and most likely false. But the best place to get to is the art and practice of not knowing or suspending belief. So, even the counter-weight paradigms, the enlightenment paradigms, are arms-lengthed. This leads you to be able to just focus on being the Soul or Awareness or Atman in the moment and not clinging to impermanent things. That's liberation right there! Atman don't need no knowledge.

Accepting reality in the sense of being it and not trying to exercise control over it.

I wanna discuss this more. There seems to be a paradox between accepting reality and thinking we can change reality.

Intellect is a conceptualization of reality.

Stop judging and trying to control reality. When laziness is in your shadow you will naturally be attracted to it. If you allow laziness to be part of what is, the shadow will lose its force and power over your unconscious mind. Basically, hating laziness is what causes you to be lazy. Because you have formed an Ego identification against laziness, you’re gonna be unconsciously attracted to laziness because it’s a part of reality that you do not love and accept. Reality doesn’t like to be partitioned. So the shadow traits are always gonna be inclined to want to be loved and accepted by you, and therefore the shadow will constantly try to get laziness re-integrated in reality for you. So, in a nutshell, if you wanna stop being lazy, stop judging it as bad and accept and love your own laziness. It’s paradoxical, but there it is. Knowledge of the shadow is a very powerful tool in this work.

Self-confidence is where you don’t question reality so much. Lack of confidence rests on the illusion of control. Oh I need to control some thing! No! There is no you to control. So, confidence is none other than just letting reality do whatever it wants to without trying to control it. You’re just ok with whatever happens. You don’t try to self-censor. You don’t let your own beliefs and fears cause you to want to shoot a hole in your own boat when you are in transit on the waterway. Lack of confidence is evidence of a huge Ego, paradoxically. It’s a fear of being judged and rejected. How Egoic is that? There’s no you in reality! How does lack of confidence even make sense? See? It’s predicated upon an illusion, a thought-story about reality. Confidence is positively correlated with acceptance of reality without trying to interfere with it, judge it, or control it. What appears on the outside as confidence is on the inside just acceptance and the resulting peace that comes from that.

You’ve got the theory. Now you gotta put that into practice. You’re learning fast.

What do you mean by insight?

Congrats. I'm glad you've been doing the work.

You can't shed the tentacles of Ego by insight alone. "In reality, acquiring self-consciousness means long and hard work. How can a man agree to this work if he thinks he already possesses the very thing which is promised him as the result of long and hard work? Naturally a man will not begin this work and will not consider it necessary until he becomes convinced that he possesses neither self-consciousness nor all that is connected with it, that is, unity or individuality, permanent 'I' and will." -- P.D. Ouspensky

Insecurity only comes from clinging to the self-image or Ego. When the self-image is dropped, so is insecurity, in theory. In practice, it's much more work than that makes it sound. It takes a lifetime to detach from Ego. And it's a matter of degree, not some kind of binary thing. Nobody fully detaches from Ego. But you can de-center the Ego to a greater or lesser degree over the course of your life.

Clinging to the impermanent is foolish. Who said that? That was one wise dude! Be the atmosphere not the clouds. That's the same advice!

Skepticism is a word not a belief. It's what you make of it. It's a caution regarding belief, not a belief per se. It's a willingness to assume you could be wrong at all times. And this is a rare practice.

Yeah. The Mind is sneaky in its conceptualizations. That’s why we wanna be skeptics. Wise skeptics though, not stupid skeptics. Wise skeptics are ok with suspending belief because they understand the limits of the mind. But that doesn’t mean they don’t use thought when it’s useful. If they held back in that manner, it would only be because they are clinging to some theory that corrupts natural wisdom. No wise skeptic does that. They just aren’t sloppy, that’s all. And it’s knowledge that makes them not sloppy. Moksha is achieved through knowledge. Avidya, or error concerning belief, is the sole block to Enlightenment. Video on point to watch:

Folks I just watched the video again, and I think the biggest thing is that Leo seems to be too much in love with Metaphysics. He loves Metaphysics a little too much. That’s the issue. There are some good stuff in the video, but his Metaphysics makes it hard to digest. Metaphysics is and always has been highly problematic.

Beliefs will become much less important to you when you transcend Ego. They will lose their allure to you, like an older man losing his youthful lust. Beliefs once looked so important, so attractive, so pure, so natural. Now, you see through that issue like a 70 year old man sees through a teenage relationship. Beliefs are not what’s important. What’s important is detaching from beliefs, detaching from clinging to an Ego of beliefs, or a self-preserving system of assumptions about reality.

Stop trying to control. You have no control. Just rest as awareness and watch the movie play itself out. What this story points to is just be reality, which is awareness, or Soul. Soul just is God. Awareness just is Reality. Reality just is Awareness.