tatsumaru

I am struggling with this notion. If one achieves the ultimate level of Self-Love and recognizes that everything is already perfect as it is then why bother even waking up from your bed in the morning? What's the point of consciousness if nothing needs to be changed at all?

There's a certain thing called The Doherty Threshold in computer science. In the 70s and 80s the computers they made were very slow so when the user would input something they would have to wait for too long for the output and the experience of using a computer was too painful and no one liked it. Eventually computers got faster and faster until one day the speed of output crossed a certain threshold which made using the computer a breeze and also addictive and they called it The Doherty Threshold. I have contemplated this many times and have understood that in life there are certain thresholds for each aspect of life and below them it's not good enough and above them it's good enough. It's the same thresholds that make someone pretty enough to be considered pretty or how fast you understand something to consider it easy to understand or how healthy you are to feel healthy enough etc. And so to a certain degree the feeling of well being has to do with these thresholds in life and when you are unable to reach them you feel like life is effortful and its quality is low and when you are above them you feel effortless and life is easy. I guess I just want life to be slightly easier. Even Elon Musk declared - "I wish things weren't so hard". It feels like this dimension that we live in is very dense, thick and resistant to change and that what makes it such a hell in my opinion, because it takes 10 fucking years to solve a simple problem in your life and you have thousands...

I would prefer not to go into what I have tried already as I've been experimenting for 8 years plus and I have a 10 page summary of all my experiments, tests, approaches etc. Suffice it to say I have the equivalent of a PhD in Nutrition in terms of how much I learned because of it. I wouldn't say I want to kill myself although I fantasize about not existing almost every day. However wanting to kill yourself is something very different which I've only felt twice - first slightly after I graduated high school due to a severe depression and second at the peak of my health meltdown when my body was falling apart and no one could help me and even tried to convince me that I am crazy and I am all fine. I've endured physiological and psychological hell many times and in many ways I am tired now even though I am what you would consider young I feel like I've suffered for 10 lifetimes. On the other hand I decided at one point that there's no point in killing oneself since I am going to die one day any way so I might as well try and learn something from my life even if it become complete hell. I think I would only kill myself if I get something like ALS or suffer some incredibly traumatic injury that completely incapacitates me.

Yes, I have been struggling with insomnia, chronic fatigue and endless cycles of existential crises for the last 15 years. I have tons of health issues that doctors can't diagnose and that I've tried anything in order to fix with very little success. I can go on and on, but I think that's irrelevant, even if my life was perfect I would still complain that these things exist for other people. I think it's irrelevant whether I truly want it or not. I can certainly kill myself without wanting it or get cancer without truly wanting it so I might as well be able to do anything else. And to answer your question more directly - I'd love to try being a cheetah or a bird for a day or so, it will probably suck even more though but who knows, maybe it will be kewl, it would definitely help me get to work faster. I don't like this train of thought - it's cyclical not liberating. If there was no suffering you wouldn't need to get stronger.

The usual stuff people complain about - disease, madness, pain, rejection, cravings - almost everything really. Ryokan suggested: This is a flawed argument. One doesn't simply decide to believe in suffering, one picks it up from their environment prior to having any beliefs about it. Your cat gets hit by a bus when you are a kid you miss it - has nothing to do with beliefs and your beliefs are certainly not going to resurrect the cat either. Suffering is inherent to our dimension, we can only pretend it doesn't matter by telling ourselves it's all cool. If this reality or whatever you want to call it is so great then why aren't any of the Buddhas sticking around after they get enlightened even though they are immortal?

Can I become a baby cheetah now if I wanted to? Ok since you have recognized this truth already and you are cognizant of being a master why don't you show me and free my mind like Morpheus did. Show me how my slavery is falsehood. I've heard from tens of so-called enlightened masters that they are the masters of their fate and can do whatever they want and yet they struggle with health or to achieve some humanitarian causes just like anyone else and eventually they die just like anyone else. For me this is just some delusion, some psychological mantra that results in a secretion of dopamine much like Muhammad Ali declared "I am the greatest!".

Sometimes, but mostly when I am not in physical or psychological pain. However that's cheap - anyone can enjoy life when things are going their way. It seems to me that there are two ways out of this misery - either have enough power to express yourself as you wish at any moment (which seems impossible) or be able to feel at home even in hell (which leads to my initial question and becomes a fractal).

A master of life implies some sort of omnipotence, you should be able to do whatever you want e.g. if you are 40 year old guy to turn into a baby cheetah and then a tomato. Saying you are master but not being able to do anything is just make believe.

The notion that I am really just a puppet really makes me feel like life is not worth living.

I guess I still struggle to realize how you can be a prisoner of joy if you are being burned alive or someone kills all your children or if you are the ugliest person in the world and no one wants to be around you or whatever. Yes I know this is a very low quality way of looking at it but if you should really accept anything I just don't see how any structure can be sustained, humanity would collapse. Your house is on fire? Just enjoy it. What kind of master can't even remember itself?

So are we just slaves who need to learn to enjoy it?

For the last couple of years I have been feeling a disconnect with my heritage and last name. I no longer identify with this particular part of my history. I don't hate my family or anything of the sort I just don't relate to this circle of people anymore. Also I feel I've been feeling the desire to found a new clan. Maybe this gives off a "what a douche" vibe, but honestly this is not rooted in being pretentious etc. After all even my current last name was created by some grandfather who was forced to come up with something when he was filling some documents somewhere. I feel that a lot of those names they came up during that time are very boring and generic. The syntax for most last names in my country is [firstname]'sson e.g. johnson etc. To me this is very boring, bland and unimaginative and I just want to create something more creative that reflects my deep passion for art, chaos, freedom, truth and free thought. I want this name to inspire my future offspring to be different rather than have such stupid labels as "leatherworker" or "john'sson" etc. I want this name to be slightly rebellious and non-conformist to current syntax, but also would like to avoid sounding like a low-level cartoon villain e.g. Dr. Doom. I resonate with how Thomas Anderson became Neo and I resonate with fantasy and game names where just saying it makes you think of adventure and legends etc. I want this name to be incredibly meaningful for me and once I change it I don't want to ever change it again. I would appreciate some advice on how to come up with something true and meaningful for me? For me this is almost like discovering my spirit animal - I don't want something random that just sounds cool I want something that when I hear it I just know that this is me. I've had these moments in my life before - for example when I started playing music - I knew this was me. When I watched the Matrix - I knew this was me, when I saw the Far East I knew this was me, when I heard 80s synthpop, synthwave and dreampop music I knew this was me etc. Thanks.

Remember that when the Buddha uncovered his final level of evolution he started referring to himself as the Tathagatha. I am not implying that I am enlightened or anything of the sort but rather that as you progress on the path different words will be uncovered. And Tathagatha while not a name was definitely something inherent. Not sure if the Buddha came up with this word though, however the meaning of it is so profound that it's unlikely that anyone else would have any use for it before the Buddha. Gautama => The Buddha => Tathagatha. Thomas Anderson => Neo => The One.

My goal is not to put mental energy in it as in creating a brand name for a company. Rather I am looking to uncover my inherent name. The same way you don't think about your spirit animal but uncover it.

Well, if you already create a special nickname for the forum, for me that's the same. It doesn't have to be any more special than that. Its just a pointer, like a T-shirt that says Truth on it or The Matrix.

What is the difference between awareness of space, direct experience, truth, being, mystical union, non-meditation, isness, suchness, thusness, samadhi, satori, kensho, etc. Some will say that all these are pointers towards the same isness, however different traditions seem to make clear distinctions. For example in Dzogchen rigpa consciousness seems to be different than yin(emptiness) awareness in Taoism. Additionally in Taoism - yin(emptiness) awareness, seems to be different that Oneness and also seems to be different than Tao: The Tao created The One and The One created Yin/Yang. While mahayana seems to go as far as the emptiness/awareness/impermanence nihilistic realization, Vajrayana Buddhists seem to claim that non-meditation goes further and can penetrate deeper into reality where meditation can not. The Buddha suddenly starts speaking about a True Self and permanence and Tathagatha (beyond coming/going, beyond being/non-being) and about permanent happiness. Tilopa in his Mahamudra to Naropa seems to suggest that this naked awareness that we call Truth here, seems to be the entrance to Truth rather than Truth itself. It's like the red pill rather than the desert of the real. Similarly to spiral dynamics levels, it might be the case that there are deeper levels of realization than simply resting in naked awareness. Consider the Bon's shamanic insights of the ultimate nature of clear light that seem not to belong to the level of the 6 senses. Also there seem to be a couple of people in history (such as Walter Russell) who during their solo retreats in forests suddenly were penetrated by visions about truth and undivided light and they downloaded instantly the mechanics of systems that we are not even aware of, and that seem to govern Maya behind the scenes (the book The Secret Of Light for example). Nikola Tesla said about Walter Russell that people would need another 1000 years to understand him. Oddly enough there are many similarities between Bon, Walter Russell's insights, Vajrayana and even Quantum Mechanics. Obviously these are just my own interpretations of the scriptures, but it's important to note that they are born out of questioning whether the rock bottom is really the rock bottom. For example in the movie The Matrix - awareness that one is in The Matrix is not equal to waking up from The Matrix. Resting in your awareness is still within the Matrix. Of course this is just a movie, so it's just some food for thought - what if awareness isn't the final dimension? How could we penetrate further? Cheers.

It's possible that I was misinformed or that I just misunderstood. I suppose I am going to edit this out.

I like waking up in the morning, the bright sun, the warm breeze the birds chirping, I identify this with endless possibilities, happiness and potential etc. but when the sun starts setting I feel like the day is dying and that yet another day has passed and I am still not where I want to be and that my time is running out and all these kind of "end of time" emotions. It reminds me of death in general and of my own mortality as well which in turn makes me depressed. I am not sure if this is a serious emotional problem but wasn't sure where to put it. I just feel like this sadness towards death is unnecessary but I have trouble letting go. I have this thought in the back of my head going like "You are not complete yet and if this would be your last day you would have failed at life...". Why do I feel that I am never enough and that I need to conquer some legendary goal in life in order to be able to die with a smile on my face? Thanks.

While that might be the case I am still wondering about this.

That could be true. It doesn't necessarily need to be proven via the scientific method but it has to be distinct from belief or lies in some way. Otherwise if we drop this verification thing then nothing is left and you might as well say that everything is true, which for me is a useless conclusion because if everything is true then true doesn't mean anything. My first spiritual teacher told me that True is something that doesn't change ever, and if it changes that it can't be it. Obviously that's just an idea though, why would you go and define what truth is from the point of view of not knowing what truth is. Well just like anything else "Truth" is just a concept or an idea. Jed McKenna says one thing is certain "There is truth" and he starts his whole journey from there, but I don't see how that's certain at all, I mean truth is just a concept and maybe you can even argue that logic dictates that something is true, but existence doesn't have any obligation to be logical. In fact I think logic can only survive with concepts and objects because it relies on comparison and how things relate to each other, but if you remove everything then what's left to be rational about. In a tv show called Sense8 they said "without your past there's nothing to think about and no thinker to think it". The idea is that the self is just an abstraction layer that emerges out of the past. So yeah I have a big problem with trying to use the relative in any way as a starting point to understand the absolute since the absolute by definition doesn't relate in any way with anything (hence it's not relative). Also the literal meaning of absolute is "not in solution with" so I don't see how any perspective can ever reach the absolute etc. Yeah I know what you mean with the descartes thing, I've heard this from Eckhart Tolle before - Oprah asked him what's real and he basically said that there is something that is like the fulcrum and its real, but that isn't certainty for me that's just rationalizing an experience - this could be anything. As you can see I am not able to trust anything and I am consumed by doubt. One spiritual teacher said to me - if you are going doubt everything you might as well doubt your doubts as well, which was kind of interesting and created a little crack in my confusion, but wasn't enough. I don't necessarily value survival over liberation as if I had a button that I could press to achieve maximum enlightenment at any price I would press it without hesitation. That being said I am skeptical about the whole no-self thing as it really doesn't make sense to me to surrender your center and claim non-separation but at the same time having your awareness only limited to your body organism. Yeah I am everything but I can only sense my thoughts and my body and my pain. That the Ego might be an illusion, I don't have a problem with that but I am not sure that's the same like saying there's no self. Vajrayana level buddhists actually don't claim there's no self, they only say that the you that you THINK you are isn't real. Tathāgata: the Other Buddha; that can never be destroyed, and knows no death, only eternal life. This is a subject that the majority of Buddhists stay far away from, and non-Buddhists, with the exception of some Taoists, ever farther. Tathāgata was the term that Sakyamuni referred to himself as, instead of the pronouns me, I or myself. Tathāgata is the Buddha that most Buddhists, those on the Long Paths, don’t want to discuss. “Those who cannot accept that the Tathāgata is eternal, cause misery”-Mahaparinirvana Sutra. What? How can Buddha say that; didn’t he say everything is impermanent? The Buddha said the Self is “indestructible like a diamond” -Mahaparinirvana Sutra. No way! The Buddha said there was no self. “I will now show you the nature which is not produced and not extinguished” -Shurangama Sutra. Buddha said that “Buddha Nature [the Tathāgata] is the True Self and like a diamond, for example, it cannot be destroyed” Dharmaksema. Yes, Buddha taught impermanence, suffering, Emptiness, non-self for child-like students; yet on the day of Parinirvana, the Tathāgata taught eternity, happiness, and the Self, saying , “now, when his students have overcome the sickness of false views and possess a healthy, more mature appetite, he can teach them the Tathāgatagarbha.” “Those who hold the theory of non-self are injurers of the Buddhist doctrines, they are given up to the dualistic views of being and non-being; they are to be ejected by the convocation of the Bhikshus and are never to be spoken to”-Lankavatara Sutra 765. So why did Sakyamuni Buddha speak of non-being? He told a story of a woman with an ailing infant. The sickness of that child requires that it temporarily desist from drinking its mother’s milk while the medicine which has been administered to it is assimilated. To facilitate this, the mother smears her breasts with a bitter substance, and this deters the infant from suckling at his mother’s breasts. But after the medicine has been absorbed, the child can drink the health-bestowing mother’s milk to his heart’s content – although at first he is hesitant and fearful of doing so. This relates to the doctrine of non-Self, Emptiness (which many commentators on Buddhism equate with “non-substantialism” or “non-essentialism”) and Self: when his students are still spiritually “sick”, the Buddha gives them the bitter medicine of “non-Self” and Emptiness; but when they have progressed into greater health and maturity, he teaches them the reality of the Tathagatagarbha. A commentator mentions how early in this sutra the Buddha has to reprimand his enthusiastic “non-Self”-championing monks who “repeatedly meditate upon the idea that there is no Self” for being perverse in their understanding of Dharma and wrong-headedly applying the teaching of non-Self where its writ does not run – to the real Self. “As when a garment is cleansed of its dirt, or when gold is removed from its impurities, they are not destroyed but remain as they are; so is the skandha self freed from its defilements”- Lankavatara Sutra 756. I agree. I recently watched the "What is the devil" video of Leo so I kind of know what you mean. It's an interesting take but I still don't get it completely since you kind of only let go of the concept of self, but you still have to eat and survive which is like a contradiction to not being a separate thing and not having to survive. You still have to defend yourself if someone attacks you - it doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like you are doing the same stuff but just like a zombie instead of consciously. I agree. I need adventure and purpose in my life. I don't know what to do without a meaning. Claiming that it's 100% freedom is obviously bullshit. No one is really free in a relative world where everything is connected. In fact I have yet to see anyone who is actually free. Maybe you can free some space in your mind but I haven't seen anyone who is free. With cause and effect there are also consequences. Maybe you can get to the level where consequences do not matter to you but I wouldn't call this freedom. If you mean this as in being like a Vulkan from Star Trek, then I wouldn't agree. I am a sensitive person. You should see me cry to great violin music and animes. I don't believe that, in fact I have a suspicion that I will not like truth at all. Chogyam Trungpa said "Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.". I do believe that if I find it there will be some relief because the search will be over. Not sure if I am going to be happy, but I am going to be complete. Or at least that's my current belief. I am not sure how to drop it because it feels almost inherent like it's in my dna or something. I don't have an opinion on free will. I've reasons to believe and disbelieve free will so at this point I consider myself agnostic on this topic. My inner feeling is that we have something like a fate but we have the free will to resist it and suffer from going against the stream, which is not really free will but rather just making shit harder. Well I am not aware that I am enlightened so at least the awareness I need to uncover which is still something that I need to do. If I don't need to do anything then there wouldn't be any struggle. All in all truth would be something that is 100% clear and beyond any possibility of doubt (not just because you are not smart enough to doubt but for some reason completely undoubtale) and also it wouldn't change and it wouldn't be subject to change ever. A classic definition of truth is "whatever the case is" but for me that's a very weak definition because then you have to go into what it means for something to be and not to be, and then you go into buddhists dependent origination which leads to the realization that nothing really exists and there is nothing at all to hold on to which kind of destroys this definiton. Yeah... all of these are just ideas and concept I wouldn't want to impose my belief system over reality (if there's even such a thing). Cheers.

But what if a serial killer gets excited about hunting his next victim or a drug addict gets happy about getting a fix, is that still the voice one should listen to? What about getting excited to eat something sweet when it's clearly bad for you? If there are feel goods that lead us astray and feel goods that lead us in the right path how to distinguish? Also Leo says that if something sounds deeply offensive and disturbing it's probably because there's a lot of growth to be had there if you become conscious of it, but you say that we should go with what feels good, so I am confused. Chogyam Trungpa once said "enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment" and Jed McKenna said that "your moments of blackest despair are your most honest ones" so I've always had this feeling that if I like something its because it's wrong and is reinforcing the ego where if something sounds bleak, morbid and depressing (e.g. there is no self, life has no meaning, you are here for reality not the other way around, there's no certainty etc. etc.) then it's probably true. The more the ego is disappointed the more hopeless it is for the ego, the closer to reality it ought to be as reality reminds that ego is an illusion and it wants to survive and is being suffocated by spirituality.

The problem is that I don't believe any answers. I started my spiritual journey with Jed McKenna spiritual autolysis so I am familiar with this dissolution of self through questioning, but my problem with the whole method is that it's always based on some assumption and this assumption is required in order for the method to work. In Jed's case he makes an assumption that truth exists, which is just logical reasoning and there's no guarantee that universe or reality has to obey logic or reason. You remove all assumptions there's nothing to think about. Essentially it's all an assumption, so thinking is futile. We don't seem to have the capability to discern between true and false and these seem to just be some concepts that we came up with to make life more palatable. Hence why philosophy is a dead end it always ends with some sort of fanatical belief-system or nihilism/agnostic oblivion. The intellect just can't solve it just runs in circles. The answer is not inside. Whenever someone start talking about spiritual inquiry, or self-inquiry or spiritual autolysis etc I just feel this guy didn't push hard enough on the limits of his intellect and has some sort of belief system that's left unchecked supporting his current conclusions. Even science is based on assumptions such as - cause precedes effect, objects exist separately etc. It's all faith and this is driving me crazy I want truth not faith. I've searched the as much internet as I could and I haven't been able to find anyone who can say something that solves this, which is obviously making me incredibly sad and depressed because if it can't be figured out what's the point of it all, just a meaningless nightmare. I always doubt everything. It's like there's no knowing at all. I will give you an example: Let's say I reach to the realization that suffering is caused by the desire of things to be different than what they are (as the Buddha explained), but then I am like, but what if suffering is necessary for growth? And then I am like if I am okay with everything then I don't even need to move from my chair anymore because everything is okay and I don't need to resist anything. But then I am like well maybe hunger is good and I should eat when I am hungry, but then I am like but what if I feel like taking drugs should I follow this as well. And it doesn't lead anywhere. You can do this bullshit all day long, I've been doing it for the last 10 years my friend. In my experience if your imagination is big enough you can't hold on to anything because at some point you are going to doubt logic and experience as well and there will nothing at all left to hold on to so it becomes an empty nightmare. Then you can either go back to beliefs with this uneasy feeling that you are lying to yourself and suffer or suffer in complete confusion and nihilism. There might be other options but I haven't found them well. One of the options that seems to be interesting is to follow your inspiration without hesitation because it seems not to be born out of belief, the so called flow, the so called surrender and this is probably the wisest choice but I am still learning to recognize flow and whether flow direction changes based on my intentions or whether it has only one ultimate destination - truth etc. It has been suggested to me that spirit/flow will guide towards my wishes, but how can I make a wish if I don't know what's true? I prefer to be open-minded and being guided without beliefs. etc. etc. It's an infinite or almost infinite problem I've spent my whole life trying to unravel this and as a result I've become a miserable, depressed and highly neurotic person. I am a little bit scared that I might go mad at some point. If I had to pick one thing that I wanted more than anything else in life that would be absolute clarity beyond any doubt. If you ask me why I want the doubt to go away - then yeah probably the ultimate reason is because I want to be as peaceful and as carefree and lighthearted I was as a child. I want to let go of this burden. But I don't want to be a meditative zombie devoted to escapism where my life is just watching the raindrops and waiting to die, I want my life to have a purpose, a real meaning, some sort of adventure. I do have severe monkey mind problem that's for sure. Very neurotic. Meditation is good for me indeed, but for me meditation is like treating the symptoms rather than solving the problem. Still valuable but not the real thing. I don't want to cut individual branches of dukkha I want to remove it at the root. In Tilopa's mahamudra it is said: "A tree spreads its branches and puts forth leaves, But when its root is cut its foliage withers; So too, when the root of the mind is severed, The branches of the tree of samsara die A single lamp dispels the darkness of a thousand aeons; Likewise, a single flash of the mind's clear light Erases aeons of karmic conditioning and spiritual blindness." That's what I want. Desperately. I suspect that there's some sort of knowing/gnosis beyond the intellect because the intellect is just so utterly helpless at figuring life out, it's just recycling the past. I feel like this intuition might be the key to going further but it's so easy to confuse intuition, instinct, emotion at least from where I am so I am really not sure how it works and whether I set the goal or whether I exist as reality's slave as it has been suggested by some spiritual teachings. Very confusing. Isn't there at least one thing that I can Really know that I can base my life on? Isn't there anything real or is it all a constant river of simulate imagery that is ever-changing and meaningless and would not reveal its ultimate nature to the mere mortal like me?

Hey, I was just wondering if magick exists, i am not talking about sleight of hand but the kind of magick that is with a k, that is the basis of fantasy novels and heroic adventures. I know there are a ton of books on magick - grimoires, scrolls what have you, I've tried some of them but they don't seem to be doing anything. For some reason I still keep thinking that maybe it exists somewhere. All those pyramids, huge stone blocks, strange rituals of the ancients... Also - are all of the mythological creatures such as elves, faeries, dragons etc. just a fairytale or did they exist in some form? I know this question is a bit childish but for some reason I feel like magick is something really cool. What are your thoughts?

I don't ignore your posts dear sir, I've just tried some of your suggestions you make and they have provided only temporary relief and I am looking for permanent liberation rather than having to manage my thoughts on a day to day basis. I want to cut suffering at the root rather than deal with the symptoms. I don't really like Ester Hicks and The Secret etc. I don't think the Law of Attraction is a real thing, I've never seen anyone manifest anything in this life other than through following their passion and doing a ridiculous painful amount of hard work. Everyone who claims they LoA works has only manifested very minor things which you can build in your life without this belief in LoA as well. When Elon Musk started Tesla and SpaceX he said he thought both companies would fail but he created two of the greatest companies in human history. The only way I can see LoA working is as some sort of a motivational booster to help you do things you don't really like to do. But how can we have both free will and fate? And if there was nothing pre-determined in the Matrix how did the Oracle create the prophecy? Was it just a stunt to motivate everyone to save the world? In the second movie there's a scene which one of my spiritual teachers said was the most important scene in the movie. The Oracle and Neo meet in a park and the Oracle offers Neo a candy so Neo asks: "But if you already know what I am going to do, then how can I make a choice?" And the Oracle replies: "Because you didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You are here to try to understand why you made it." I think this scene holds the key to understanding free will but I am still not sure what it means...

Because I have never been able to make a conclusion that I cannot doubt and therefore answers don't work for me.