Carl-Richard

I think when somebody tries to say "no other minds exist", that is what they're trying to say. And when they point to the limited human experience being the reason for that, they can't be talking about the Absolute. And when they keep referring to limited objects of their experience, e.g. "what you're reading right now", that becomes even more clear. If they then at some point concede "ok, no in fact, no objects are absolute, I'm actually not talking about my limited experience but the unlimited experience or recognition of the totality of everything", them we can talk about the Absolute again. But then they are either contradicting themselves or they are simply confused or unable to make proper distinctions that convey their understanding more or less accurately. That's the crux of the issue. If they were to study what the "mind" is in a Western psychology sense (e.g. mostly human perceptions, sensations, feelings, experiences) and contrast this with the mind in a Hindu Advaita Vedanta sense or Buddhist sense (unlimited consciousness beyond all human experience, emptiness), they would maybe see that what they're trying to deny the existence of is other human minds in the Western sense while they actually are having intuitive insights into the Hindu/Buddhist mind, which is an unfortunate conflation. Imagine going into a food store and you run into apples in the fruit section (and the oranges are hidden behind a stack of crates) and you say "there are only apples here, that means oranges can't exist, because only the store exists". That's the level of confusion of a solipsist who declares that their human limited experience is absolute (and that other human minds don't exist) while grounding their reasoning in insights into unlimited consciousness.

Give me your best explanation. Best explanation gets a cookie (laced with meth).

I'm specifically saying the solipsism of taking your finite limited experience as a human (and only it) as Absolute, is what doesn't work. If you want to say that the aloneness of the great beyond or perfect ultimate presence is solipsistic, that's fine, but that is usually not what solipsists want to do. They want to pull it into the human realm. They want to talk about "other human minds" and such topics. Their focus is interestingly very human, perhaps because that is where their identification (and attachments and fears) lies. What strikes me is you will (to my knowledge) never find an Enlightened (not merely awakened) person obsessing about the ontological status of other human minds. It's only those who are awakened (or parroting those awakened or enlightened) who are still (most of the time) identified with their finite mind that go into these weird obsessions and neuroses. If you ask an Enlightened person "do you think other minds exist?", they will be like "what? Not even your own mind exists. What are you so concerned about? See that you were always dead, nobody was alive, it was all a show, including you and your story".

Why are there seasons? Why is there night and day? Why are there orbits around the Sun? Why are there orbits of the Moon around the Earth? Why do women have cycles? Why do men have cycles (breathing, eating, working, resting, women too)? Why does your attention have cycles (between details and the big picture)? Why does your thinking have cycles (between selecting information and generating new information)? Why does your cells have cycles (between clearing waste and building new infrastructure)? Why does your neuronal cells have cycles (between excitation and recovery)? You see, the world is cyclical, and we adapt accordingly.

Teachers who talk very little (while initially having the heart in the right place, end up thinking very little and perhaps not making things clear enough, giving out clues but not carrying the students through the clues to the end and leaving them confused) are ironically complicit in spreading the solipsism bug. A student will ask a question "what is consciousness? What is the Absolute truth?", the teacher will say "This!" and just lift their hands and look around. Then the student asks "but what is this?". And the teacher answers "just this" and smiles. And the student might conclude that "this" is just their sensory experience, and hence solipsism might arise, but the teacher actually refers to the recognition of your true nature as pure ever-lasting presence. The thing about your true nature, the Absolute, is it has existed since before you were born. Now, imagine how ridiculous it is realizing you were never actually born and then you start talking about that the human experience you have now is actually what is the most real thing. It's like you're experiencing the most extreme form of amnesia, forgetting completely where you came from before all these human stories, perceptions, thoughts, ideas about minds and other minds. It's not just that you saw the Sun and now you retreated back to the cave of shadows. It's that you were a Supernova, but you forgot all about it.

Watch his BATGAP interviews if you want to be absolutely blown away. The experiences he talks about makes all the ridiculous stories of saints throughout history sound plausible.

"Your experience right now", if it is limited to right here, right now (and whatever colors, sensations, experiences you associate with it), does not transcend space and time. Space and time is exactly what is meant by "right here, right now". But if your experience right here right now is part of (or at One with) something greater, and this thing transcends space and time, then you can look at what is right here and right now and feel that it is part of this larger thing. But that does not mean that the right here right now is all that there is. It's all that there is right here right now. You're trying to claim something limited as unlimited when you say "these limited things are the only things that exist, and this is Absolute". The Absolute is unlimited.

I'm saying that is not Absolute. There is no limitation to your experience as the Absolute. That's true Omniscience. Your experience as the Absolute is fundamentally beyond space and time, beyond immediate appearances. The mistake of making limited appearances Absolute is the mistake of taking the shadows as the Sun. And it's understandable, as the human mind has trouble conceiving of experience beyond space and time. Even when having had glimpses into it, the mind can still make the conflation, because it inevitably tries to make sense of it. And as the Absolute is beyond space and time, beyond immediate appearances, there is nothing stopping it from creating experiences beyond those limited appearances. What's stopping it? It's not bound by space and time, unlike the appearances you're pointing to. It can create "separate" bubbles that don't overlap (or partially overlap) with each other. Because the separation is not spatial, not temporal, you don't have to notice. Now, this is different from saying "there are" such separate bubbles out there, but from the Absolute perspective, nothing stops that from being possible.

Seems consistent with my experience. I feel better on some level of carbs, but I avoid sharp-spiking carbs (refined sugars or too much carbs without enough fiber). The safest bet is using whole foods or again simply getting 50% of meal weight in veggies or fruits.

So bread.

Sometimes a student goes too deep that you need a guru mechanic to re-install a "seed of ignorance" so that they can function in the world. I believe Ramana Maharshi was in such a state at some point. And a note about the video: it's interesting how he said he had to manually count the years back to see how old he was. It's like his Default Mode Network was so turned off that it did not have the automatic loop of "age" anymore and he had to use his tasking network to find it manually. I've said before that the non-dual state is essentially being in the tasking network so thoroughly that no self is to be found, and apparently, unless you make it a task to find it.

It's just the attitude of seeing an Instagram video with no external references that says "this woman is 141 years old" and then you say "this woman is 141 years old" and not "this woman is allegedly 141 years old" or "according to this Instagram video, this woman is 141 years old" that doesn't sit quite right with me. And I could imagine that this attitude of evaluating information might feed into other areas where you might be evaluating information.

I believe "other" is a concept. I believe "exist" is a concept. I believe "don't exist" is a concept. None of it is actual in the absolute sense. To pose that other minds exist or don't exist, it's philosophy, it's stuff you think about. But what "is" irrespective of thinking? That's what the Absolute is.

Her speaking gives me the ick. That's my psychic reading of the day. What I want to know is how @Ramasta9 knows that a lady in an Instagram video is 141 years old

At least you're here asking for guidance. You've presented pros and cons of both. Perhaps seeking the middle way is the answer.

One of the whistleblowers in the various corruption scandals in Siemens. The way he retells the meeting where corporate tried to intimidate him and the CEO opened the meeting by screaming "We have a mole high up in the system! He will be found and he will be fired!" and then looks directly at him, is something right out of The Wolf of Wall Street (22:00). https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bribe/2009/02/portrait-of-a-whistleblower.html Completely unrelated: I learned about this guy because he is one of the brothers of Lars Monsen, the famous adventurer guy (at least in Norway), who now has a YouTube channel.

What's the state of jails in India?

If the first thing you're saying is a result of distinctions, and then you go onto say "and this is a result of there being no distinctions", is that true or false? "Distinctions" because "no distinctions". That's not true. But then the non-dually awakened "solipsist" will retort and say, like @Eskilon points out, "but there is no distinction between distinctions and no distinctions", as if that is an argument that supports their position and doesn't defeat it. I'm pointing out how it defeats it. They are making distinctions, but then when pressured on it, they say that there are no distinctions. "Absolute solipsists" are nihilistic addicts with the memory of a goldfish. They will contradict themselves like it's the only thing that brings them pleasure, and you can trust them to always repeat the cycle when pressured on it. They will reliably make distinctions and then they will reliably retreat to "but no distinctions" when pressured on it. And that's the only way they will ever be reliable, the addicts that they are.

I would hurdle the comment above in a heroic last ditch attempt to save their minds from the shadowy grips of their own mind. So the Absolute and relative is a distinction, there is no distinction, yet the distinction of "my mind" vs "other minds" exists and it says "my mind" exists and "other minds" don't? "But what I'm actually saying is that there is only one thing that exists in existence". Ok, say that, but don't say "when I close my eyes, my grandma has now stopped existing, and this is somehow a result from there being no distinctions", because that is obviously not true. "Grandma" is a distinction, "eyes" is a distinction, "stopped existing" is a distinction, "because of closing my eyes" is a distinction. You're fighting with shadows. If you want to affirm or deny anything in existence but existence itself, you are not talking about the Absolute, you are not talking about "no distinctions", you are distinguishing, you are affirming or denying. If you are about the Absolute and the Absolute only, it cannot be captured by anything but itself. Hence the Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.

I think Plato's cave is a brilliant way to illustrate what the solipsists that confuse relative with Absolute (and that have had legitimate glimpses into the Absolute) often do: So the people in the cave only see shadows on the wall, and then when they climb out, they see the light and they realize "this is what is truly real, and it's One, it's the only thing that exists!". But then what they erroneously do is they go back into the cave and start saying "these shadows on the wall, they're the only things that exist!". So despite their legitimate glimpses of the Absolute, perhaps due to inexperience, perhaps due to a lack of intellect, they make this unfortunate conflation, of conflating the shadows on the wall with the Sun that shines. The Sun creates the shadows (hence the Absolute creates the relative), and indeed the Sun shines ultimately as one, but to start taking the insights of the Sun and presenting them as shadows, that is the misunderstanding. The Sun is self-luminous, ever-shining. It does not need limitation, it does not need shadows, to exist.

"But my grandma doesn't exist when I close my eyes" 🐒 Honestly, one of the very few that gets it. I applaud you. But I will give my dry formulation of the same thing: whether minds exist or not outside your field of view, is a relative matter. The Absolute ultimately doesn't care. Therefore, to invoke the Absolute to say that minds do not exist outside your field of view, is a misunderstanding.

There is possibly a way out: But you should try to work with someone if trying this out, not do it on your own.

Ask why you ask "why" and realize asking why is the issue.

If solipsism was a country I'd nuke it.