The Don

Because you are aware of your surroundings. You don't know what lies ahead in the Andromeda galaxy. You can't know for sure. That's proof for an impersonal Universe.

The fact that I'm part of consciousness, that's a TRAGEDY. That means consciousness is eternal. I can't comprehend the eternal state of consciousness. It's not possible for me such a catastrophe. When I start to understand and comprehend what consciousness is and the fact that consciousness is eternal, I'm getting depressed. Because if 'consciousness' has the wish to stop being in existence, IT CAN'T. It's like living in hell for eternity. Now I want to ask: is consciousness a living hell for eternity? Or otherwise, even if consciousness is a state of love for eternity, why would that be good, valuable and necessary?

All I want to say is this. Life is short and it should be enjoyed. A lot of people are starting to comprehend what consciousness is and how imagination works. As they understand consciousness and imagination, they don't get better. They get depressed and they lose the inherent meaning of life. Even if they don't get depressed, they lose the joy of living. So start living your life as a stoic and let consciousness take care of itself. You'll know the truth when the body ceases to exist. Until then, don't give up your precious connection with life for the sake of knowing what consciousness is. Don't break the boundaries of life because you'll never be able to get them back and fully enjoy the art of living. You'll be fooling yourself that you enjoy life but in the back of your mind, you won't be able to fully enjoy it because consciousness completely obliterates the magic realm-feeling of life. Why do you think that there is the realm of life? Ancient civilizations understood this.

Alright. As the sky is beyond death... beyond coming and going, what next? What's there? What's the importance of things that are beyond the mind? Let's say consciousness for example. Consciousness is impersonal. I'm not saying that consciousness is nothing or a void or pure emptiness. Consciousness can be associated with "no thing". No thing is different than nothing. Anyway, as consciousness is impersonal... all I can say is this: why should consciousness be relevant to me? Why should consciousness be of importance to me? Even if I understand and comprehend what consciousness is, then what?

@Leo Gura, whatever is the thing that imagines death, I want that thing to keep the body going for at least 200 years or even more. My perception doesn't want the body to go away. How can this "dissipating body" experience sex for example, after its imaginary death? It can't. Even if the mind or the body understands that death is imaginary, at some point the body will not be able to perceive those things because of "death". You are right when you say that everything is imaginary but without a body, you can't know that everything is imaginary. That's why the body and the mind are so important.

A deep sense of compassion for you and others around you.

Okay, @Leo Gura. Let's say there is no death. But how about God? Or consciousness. What if the consciousness itself is a tragedy? What if the eternity of consciousness is not a good thing? What if God itself or consciousness as you call it, is in a state of major depression? Or in a state of deep suffering. What if consciousness itself cannot handle itself? How can something like God or the consciousness itself can be something good? What if consciousness itself has no purpose? And how come that consciousness itself is a possibility? Why does consciousness itself has to exist?

I've kinda' been mastering my ego. I'm not attached to materialism so much as I've been in the past... and that's great. I still like to play with stuff but not in an attached manner. I've been meditating for a long time now and I started to notice feelings of depression, meaninglessness and despair bubbling up. The depression is gone but the feelings of despair come again from time to time. They are not as strong as they were before. I'm being mindful of every feeling. Noting can scare me anymore, regardless of how bad a feeling can be. When something negative comes up, I observe it and let it be as it is. After a while, the negative feeling fades away; it just disappears. When people talk about mindfulness, it takes about a year or two just to have an aha-moment. It takes a lot of time to reach that aha-moment. You go through a lot of pain and self-doubts until you finally get an aha-moment about mindfulness and what it really means. Then, when you develop mindfulness or the awareness muscle, you start to heal and get better. Only when you have developed this muscle the healing process begins. People like to learn about awareness and consciousness work. They like the ideas a lot from what I can see. But many of them don't understand that it takes a lot of time and effort (pain as well) just to develop a little bit of this awareness muscle. On the other hand, it's important to know that when you have an aha-moment, you're not fully developed; you just think you are but you're not. It's only the beginning. Progress requires emotional labor even when you think you're mastering some aspect of your life. Believe me, you're not mastering it. You're just tasting a little bit of it. So what do you do about it? You become conscious of the fact that there are many levels of awareness. Then, you can know and understand that you need to keep going without pause. In this process, negative emotions will bubble up again. Those negative emotions have the potential to influence your perception of reality and make you doubt yourself while you're on the path of mastery. If you want to stay on the path and not get off the path, obviously, write in your own journal about the doubts that come up when you're under the influence of negative emotions. Come back and read the traps of negative emotions that you wrote in your journal when your mind was in a calm state. It's very important to proceed in this manner. It will help you a lot. Any questions are welcomed here. Peace and well-being to all of you.

I dream a lot as well. In my case, the dreams I have are extremely negative. Since I'm becoming more conscious as a result of meditation, I remember my dreams after I wake up. Before meditation, I couldn't remember my dreams. I'm having scary dreams. Almost like nightmares. Maybe my dreams are showing me that I have a negative psychology. I don't know what exactly to say about my dreams.

@Nickyy, this is what I am trying to do. Do emotions reflect what happens in our subconscious mind?

Do you mean what is happening in the subconscious mind?

Yes. I can relate to that. And try to understand what every emotion tries to tell you. Develop this understanding of what every emotion means because every emotion has a message. Every emotion contains a message.

Thank you guys so much for your answers; they are encouraging to me.

When someone becomes enlightened, can he still enjoy life, start a family and play with materialism? Can he still live a life without depression?

Hello. It's okay to have your own way in life; nobody disrespects that. But when it comes to life, there are some objective rules to follow. There is a path in life... and when we wander off the path, hell breaks loose. Rules that sane human beings adopt: 1. People are not basically good which is why we need to make people good. 2. The family value is the cornerstone of human progress. Father, mother, and children. 3. The pursuit of happiness is absolutely crucial to every human being. You can be whatever you want and do whatever you want after you understand that goodness, the family value, and happiness are the building block of life. When people and societies drop those values, hell breaks loose. When people fail to see what wisdom stands for, societies die.

Good families have good kids. It all starts with a good family and a healthy way of thinking. Parents have the role of teaching the kids what human nature is and the importance of goodness in the world.

Sort of.

Yes.

Human life is sacred. Human life is precious in infinite ways. Human life is not secondary compared to planet Earth or anything else. You are fooling yourself with the idea that "Mother Earth is a Goddess" that is more important than us. Ask yourself, how much of a threat to the Planet are those people under the rubble as the result of a violent earthquake? Or, ask them, how much of a threat they feel they are to the planet today, as they're sitting under the rubble? When we fail to understand that human life is not secondary to anything else, we wander off the right path and hell breaks loose. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take care of our planet. Of course, we should. But who's dumping all the plastics in the ocean? Asian countries and underdeveloped countries as well. Nope. Wrong. Click here to see why. We need to preserve every good culture. Neuroticism has nothing to do with a healthy culture. Those people who feel that our culture is rubbish, in part they are true; they are true because post-modernism has lost "it's mind". Take a look at what those leftists are doing. What kind of art they're producing. Poop, scatological art and nonsense. From Leonardo da Vinci (1) to leftism (2). It's really that bad, really. We should celebrate every good culture and disregard everything bad. To get my point of view, make sure to check the links above. I'm in favor of human life, as Seneca would say: always decide in your own favor. We should let mother Earth take care if itself as it is a self correcting system.

Is this true in the Western world?

On the other hand, let's say that the population will shrink. Let's make an imaginary prediction. What would happen if the world population will shrink? What are the worst-case scenarious?

In this video, Elon Musk predicts population implosion which is pretty fascinating since Elon was never interested in these kinds of subjects. There is a reason why he's talking about the subject. He tries to tell us something important.

That's absolutely true but just for a while, Leo. Then the population will shrink. It's inevitable according to a handful of scientists. There are people who study this subject; some studied this subject for decades. Just a few scientists are aligned with the idea that the human population will shrink. Maybe we should consider their points of view as well. Shouldn't we?

I am listening to you, @Leo Gura. I always try to consider other points of view. Should we look and learn from the past?

@Leo Gura, there are statistics in the Western world about birth rates. Japan will be gone in 100 years. They don't reproduce themselves. Germany as well. Low birth rates. All Western countries are faced with the same problem. It is happening and nobody seems to care. It is a problem that we need to overcome.