Forestluv

For me, thought is one aspect/layer. When attention is no longer on thought, attention is put on XXX. Thought is merely one of many "things" attention can be placed on. For me, I spent many years of my life paying attention to thought. When I became aware of that, I thought that was it. Yet then I would start having a minute or so without thought. Then 10min. without a thought. Then I realized this doesn't stop at thoughts. Thought is merely one player. For me it's like putting all attention on the trumpet player in a jazz band. When I stop doing that, I realize there are other musicians in the band. Attention can be placed on another jazz player. Each has their own niche and they are all integrated together to make the song.

@Harikrishnan It's hard to be a successful basketball player if you a 5'3''. Only one man was able to do it.

@Mu_ Thank you. I haven't seen her before. She seems mature and grounded (with understanding/emobodiment of groundless). To me, she isn't overly-intellectual or frothy emotional. A nice balance and very direct. A similar teacher in this "dimension" is Amoda Maa

@10min. is a good example of the "pre/trans" fallacy. He is contextualizing "nothing", "everything" and "god" into more basic constructs such as irrational religious beliefs. This is a hallmark of a being that lacks direct experience and awareness of "higher" conscious states. I did this a lot earlier in my development. For many years.

Ime, that is a key issue at the "deeper" levels. It goes deeper than the intellect and trying to figure it out. For me, it can get really uncomfortable, yet also liberating.

I have noticed that as well. Thank you for your suggestion - I think that could be helpful to those in that type of need. I think it is a challenging issue to address. Yet for another user to post an inaccurate inflammatory narrative and accusations about it isn't helpful.

I know how difficult it is. My first experience in this area was really uncomfortable and I still experience it from time to time.

No, it's not the truth and that is why you were called out on it. The narrative you created is blatantly false and can be highly disruptive to the community. Twisting yourself into a pretzel to rationalize it to yourself and others on the forum is not helpful to anyone. And as you've been told, if you continue to try and spread nasty inflammatory falsehoods on the forum you will be receiving serious warning points. This is an absolute no-brainier. You aren't even close to being in a grey area.

You can work through this. I'm sending positive vibes your way

It's not about making someone happy. You created an absurd, inaccurate and ridiculous narrative that could be disruptive to the environment. Take a look at yourself and your behavior. If you can't do that, you won't grow. This is a really short put to see. . .

For me it depends on the degree and intensity of Orange. There is a lot of orange where I work, yet there is flexibility and space for me to express green and yellow. I could not work in a hardcore orange environment in which green/yellow was repressed, attacked and not tolerated. Some of my favorite parts of green is the warmth, love, communication, teamwork, mutual support etc. I need at least some level of this at a workplace.

You could see a psychologist and there are tests you can do. I found that somewhat helpful. For me, I dated a psychologist and she spotted it. I've had symptoms since I was a child and developed many coping mechanisms over my life. I don't have the hyperactivity part though. Everyone has symptoms of ADHD from time to time. They are just more common and severe in some people. Here are a few of my personal examples: --Inability to read more than a page or two of a book. --Mis-placing things A LOT. Everyone does this from time to time - yet this was an ongoing theme in my life. I spent a very large portion of my life looking for misplaced things. Misplacing keys, glasses, wallet, drivers licence etc. I probably averaged at least an hour a day looking for something I misplaced. --Forgetting stuff a lot- sometimes important stuff - forgetting meetings, my passport, dates, times. I often forgot to shut things off, and lock things. I developed mild OCD about shutting things off and locking things. For example, I had a hard time leaving my house each morning because I thought I left something on in the house or forgot to lock the doors. Many times, I had to return home to make sure everything was shut off and locked. People often saw me as scatter-brained, irresponsible and not caring. I was often told it was all in my head and I could change it with some effort. --An inability to stay engaged in a movie, talk or conversation. Everyone has issues with this to an extent. Yet for me it was extreme. For example as hard as I could, I could not follow a storyline in a movie, a talk or a conversation. I was a highly motivated undergraduate, yet could not maintain attention through a class - and not because I was disinterested. I would go off on tangents. I had to audio record every lecture and re-listen to it over and over. I couldn't even re-listen to it all the way through. I kept getting distracted and would have to rewind every few minutes. It took me hours to get through a one hour lecture. --All sorts of random weird stuff. Like I would set up the coffee maker to make some coffee. I would go into another room and then wonder why I was in that room. I would return for some coffee. Several times, the coffee was all over the counter and floor because I forgot to put the pot in the coffee maker. Another time, I was looking all over for a notebook and finally gave up. The next morning I found it in my refrigerator. . . I often found stuff I had lost in weird places.

I've had ADD symptoms since I was a child. The above statement made me lol. I totally get that I had a similar experience with Adderall. Yet I think acclimation with Modafinil may be an issue as well. Currently, I am taking 200mg of Modafinil twice a week, a low dose of Adderall (10mg) twice a week, LSD microdose (10ug) once a week and two days off. Within this cycle, I have not felt any type of dependency or addiction. Some days I forget to take one of them in the morning and just skip that day (if I take any of them after 9am I will have trouble sleeping that night). I feel ok on days I forget, which is a good sign for me. When I was on Adderall 20ug five days a week, the two off days were really hard to get through. Yet now my off days are fine. Also, I find meditation/yoga/concentration practice to be really helpful.

I agree with this sentiment. After going through my direct experience, I've been able to draw a distinction within compassion. Before I had my severe anxiety/panic episodes, I would say I had compassion for my students with those disorders. I really tried to imagine what they were going through. I really wanted to help them. I spent extra hours tutoring them. I allowed them to take exams alone in a quiet room. I tried to be supported. I would say I was truly compassionate. They really appreciated my efforts. Sometimes they gave me heart-felt "thank you" cards or gifts. Yet once I experienced it myself, the compassion dynamic shifted. It was a different type of connection. I knew what it was like and the students knew this. They started telling me things they said they have never told anyone else. For a couple students, I was the only person in the world they could talk to about certain elements of anxiety/panic. I think this was because I just knew. I was them and they were me. It's a beautiful connection, yet it's different than the compassion I described above. So, I use different terms. I would call what I described above as "true compassion" and I would call what I describe in this paragraph as "true empathy". I've found both to be helpful to form human connections. I've found that sometimes a person is trying to communicate through a compassion channel and the other person through an empathy channel. Sometimes, compassion is helpful, other times empathy, other times a combination of both. . . Yet sometimes these two channels aren't "clear" because egoic "noise" can enter. For me, something like wanting to "be right" can be interfering noise. People use these terms in different ways. This is a good example of using terms in a different context. I would say true compassion exists as a form human connection between two people. I would say that true empathy is when that separation dissolves and there is simply the shared experience and humanness. With these descriptions, consider a friend I have that has suffered through post-partum disorder. I am a male and have no children. I would say I have very strong compassion with her, yet just a little bit of empathy is present - since I don't have the direct experience and that direct experience is not shared when we are together. In contrast, my sister died in a tragic accident. My gf also lost her sibling in a tragic accident. My gf and I have very strong empathy together, yet just a little bit of compassion is present. I think both are beautiful.

I’ve actually done this quite a bit in my life. For example, I would discuss anxiety and panic disorders within a place of personal comfort. Often with good intentions. Fir example, I would genuinely try to help my students with their anxiety/panic disorders. A couple years ago, I started having extreme anxiety/panic attacks that were unbearable. I had never experienced this degree of intensity and didn’t understand what the experience was *really* like. After this, I related very differently with people that have anxiety/panic disorders. Our communication and connection is very different. We still discuss the psychological dynamics from headspace, but there is now something more present. Yet I think both are important and useful. The headspace and heartspace of human connection are more integrated.

@Key Elements Your detective analogy was helpful for me. Thank you.

Consider your cellular level. Independent cells are functioning in your body. Individual neurons interact with individual muscle cells. Collectively, all these cells give rise to the next level up - your body. You. Now imagine you were 100% obsessed with the functioning of each of these independent cells in your body. That would cause problems within the next level up. It would be problematic in your social and work life. Consider the other extreme. Being 100% obsessed with your social and work life. This will cause problems at the cellular level and inhibit the cells in your body from interacting well with each other. For me, it’s an integrated whole. Focusing too much on one leads to imbalances. I often see people gain trans-personal awareness of collective consciousness and then reject personal consciousness. This was problematic ime. This is just one way of looking at things I find helpful.

Sure. It’s just what’s arising in my mind right now based on my experience. It may have value for some and may lack value for some.

I would consider this one “level” of consciousness and I find it problematic getting stuck in any one level of consciousness. When I was contracted within the personal level of consciousness, it was problematic. Then I realized the social level of consciousness and tried to rehect the personal level of consciousness. This became priblematic as well. I’ve found there are various levels of consciousness, similiar to various levels of maps. There is a map if Los Angeles. a map of California, a map of the U.S. and a map of the World. They are are inter-related and each has truth and is useful. Getting stuck in any one map is problematic - at the cellular, organismal and community levels.

There is a story of self realization. There are stories of awakening and enlightenment They can be beautiful, helpful and useful at times, yet stories nonetheless. Whether I am self realized, intelligent, playing coy. . . all stories. They can be useful and fun - yet I’ve found over-immersion causes problems within the human mind-body.

That witness consciousness and the storyline are not mutually exclusive. Imagine you are in a cafe and there is witness consciousness of the background chatter. Does the prescence of the background chatter mean there is no witness consciousness? What if I said sometimes I like the background chatter and sometimes I get too imnersed in background chatter and don’t like it. Would that mean I don’t realize there is background chatter? There is also a storyline about the self, realization and awakening. I kinda like it at times and it can be useful. Other times there is too much immersion in that awakening storyline. Would a rabbit understand that storyline? Would nature understand it?

I don’t know what your idea of self realization is.

I don’t drink alcohol. If someone asks me if I want a drink, I just respond “no thanks”. If they ask why, I simply say “It’s not my thing” (this suggests I have a “thing” that is better than alcohol). If they ask “what’s your thing?” that ooens up a new area. If the press more on the alcohol consumption at this point, that usually indicates they have an issue with it.

This is just my experience. I found I can get too caught up in the timeline, in the storyline. I’m not saying to reject the story, memories, goals, plans etc. As you’ve said, there is magic in that. Yet what I’ve found is when I become over immersed in the storyline/timeline it becomes problematic and the magic kinda gets distorted. I’ve found it best to have a balance between tge timeline and Now. Not to reject one or the other. A balance. There is sooo much to explore in Now. So much to discover, experience and be. Now, without the story or timeline. I think of it like salt and pepper. I like both and I like having a balance. Too much salt or too much pepper doesn’t taste so good.

@Shaun I like this question. When I was learning Spanish, I noticed I was always translating Spanish to English. It took a lot of effort to break that habit, so I could just hear the Spanish. Somewhat similarly, I notice my mind “translates” words/thoughts to meaning. At times in life that is very useful. Yet other times, it interferes with certain forms of exercise. One meditative practice I do is to allow thoughts/words as impulses. I also add in a second impulse - my favorite is bird chirps. I sit there and allow thought impulses and bird chirp impulses to arise right next to each other. This allows contrast. It’s totally obvious if I am giving meaning to word/thought impulses and not bird chirp impulses. Allowing both to coexist equally as simply impulses in my brain helped me a lot in this area.