Search the Community

The ability of the brain to create objects within awareness from raw data (sight, smell, touch, etc) is so fundamental to truly understanding the breadth and scope of awareness itself. As an experiment, do the following: 1) Pick a mug 2) Now describe the mug using as many adjectives as you can (hard, shiny, smooth, etc) 3) Now, ask yourself: "Are any of the words I used to describe the mug an objective description of the mug?" Most people would agree that a mug is hard, but that is not objectively true -- from the perspective of someone that works with titanium drill bits all day, a mug is soft. From the the perspective of someone that makes disco-balls, a mug is rather dull in its appearance. Notions of soft/hard, shiny/dull, smooth/rough, light/heavy are all dependent on your frame of reference (and how your brain is currently wired). In fact, you can easily adopt the view that a mug is soft: imagine it just crumbling under the weight of a 10 tonne steel block. This view is no more false than the idea that a mug is hard! But here is where the interesting part comes in... Since a mug can be described as hard or soft, which is it? Both? Neither? What starts to emerge is that there are an infinite amount of ways to describe a mug. At the same time, the mug is objectively none of these things -- that is, the mug is in reality 'empty', only taking on characteristics once a mind comes along and gives it 'life', so to speak. To truly understand this is to see nothingness and infinity in a flower -- it is the ability to hold paradox in ones mind without cognitive dissonance. To truly understand this is to see how your own mind is sitting in a particular frame of reference to the world. Hard mode: Is the object you call a mug, really a mug? What is the purpose of a mug? To a young child, maybe it is a cave for a toy dinosaur? Which one is true? Play.

Awareness also only exist at the present moment. It exists only after the senses and thoughts. Without a sense, will you have the awareness which know the sense? They happened as cause and effect nature. Awareness has to be trained. So that later it appears naturally right after all the senses and thoughts. In enlightenment experience, that awareness sees everything is not permanent and also sees itself that it is also not a permanent nature. So the mind prepare itself to let go of everything. Then.... become NOTHINGNESS.

Why are we talking about all these? Nothing has a form, form is empty... this forum is emptiness Enjoy the nothingness of the forum Oooooohhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Good question! But no, don't worry that when awareness rises you will feel more shitty. It's the opposite. It might seem that way if you just think about it logically - like you do - but it is more like this: When awareness rises you literally become aware that everything you do is like a play. Sometimes you play the "good" side (when you are in your higher self and for example learning you for studies) and sometimes you play the "bad" side (when you are in your lower self and for example smoking pot while binging on ice cream and watching a netflix marathon). Not only your action separates in these categories (good / bad - white / black) but everything goes on in a similar way. For example you try to live your whole life (very passionately) not to die, because you have the sense in you that dying is something that just mustn't happen. Through awareness you begin to acknowledge how everything can bee seen as games, cycles and similar patterns. Not only that, but you also begin to see how you began to involve yourself so passionately in trying to make the one side win that now you are terribly afraid that black might win. Moreover, you know back in your mind that black will win in the end so you structure your whole life to get so involved in all kind of bullshit (other games) so that you don't have to face the fact that black wins in the end. And you just make too much of it. Awareness shows you that you are nothingness, incarnating itself in all kind of different games and patterns and that you are white and black, life and death and really can't die. If you begin to see that, you might still come across pains but it won't fuck with your head any more. It is by far one of the most cleansing and nice things to experience that you as the great self are immortal. It feels like being let out of yourself. And now ask yourself this: Isn't that really what you try to accomplish with all your bullshit involvements you make in your life? Cheers from Berlin,

@Lorenzo Engel I can relate to that experience. It may be that the mind transcends all thought. Mind comes to a dead stop and only awareness remains. You can actually watch a thought coming out of nothingness and arising into consciousness like a bubble. It is a very blissful state of mind being at rest. Sometimes it is referred to as the state of Samadhi.

During a SN Goenka vipassana retreat last week I experienced something very new for me. I was lost in unconscioussness, sleepyness and completely insane thoughs during a morning meditation. Suddenly a though popped and there was no reaction to it. As it dropped back to nothing I 'latched on' to it and dropped with it. At first nothingness seemed really far away but then just miliseconds after it was right at my face. Then for what seemed like 3 seconds my experience resumed itself to whiteness, silence, discrete joy and immense peace. No body, no world. Then body came back, and with it extreme contraction back into it. This left me excited and puzzled, very much. I wanted some feedback on this. How can I interpret this? Can I hold myself in that space for longer? Can I recicle this event for more growth? Thank you for your time

actually the idea of no self should be dropped, its an idea, a thought, a philosophy, it serves no good purpose. its about experiencing ones core being, what is your core being, it is the source of life, the creator of all things, the ground of all being, all knowing, all powerful, it should never be looked at as nothingness or no self, because it is all there is, everything else arises out of that.

@Bronsoval After life is all depending on your nature of this life. Did Leo say it's nothingness after life? Maybe he meant something else. All physical existences and mental existences are supporting each other and happening together at the same time. For example, your body is changing as well as your mind. When a person is stressful, his body is also affected by his mind and causes illness. Also both body and mind are happening or renewing again and again according to cause and effect nature. If there's a cause, there will be an effect. Every mental state, Buddhist called Nama and physical state will appear at the same time depending on each other. The quality of mind and body must be equal. If not the weaker state will adjust to be equal to the stronger state. For example, if stress level is stronger, body will also turn stressful and weaker. If the mind is happy and full of energy, body will also be energized. Or if the body is very sick, a person will be stressful if his mind isn't strong enough to lift the physical state up. That's the connection between body and mind and how they are supporting each other. So... when the body is very weak to the point where it cannot continue to renew with mental states or mental state is just to weak or stronger than physical state, a person dies. Because the mental state has to seek another physical body that fits well. By the way, we also should know that there is no distance or separation in this universe. So don't be thinking how the mind travel. So... as soon as a person dies, his mind will attach to some other physical body that fits well with the nature of the mind. That way, a human can become an animal or human again or something higher in the universe. Christian refers as angel, Buddhism refers to other beings in universe. You're responsible for everything you have now.

Negative voice and emotion = fictional ego...the thought that helps you to solve problems, go for your life purpose, go for transendence morality, seek for enlightenment that is coming from the "everythingness" and "nothingness" is your true self. This is what "you" call being enlightened. In the end, "you" want to contribute to peace in this world. Having enlightenment experiences is different from being enlightened. Enlightenment experiences are outer body experiences or any wisdom that you get that gives out of the ordinary/meaningful info in life. It helps you understand your fictional ego. This is what Leo's clips are about. Nice story @Philip. I like your story on the ego.

be your own teacher, there is a master awaiting you within yourself, unleash it, this idea of nothingness, and no self, i would drop that nonsense too, the real you is all knowing, all power, ageless, experience your core being more and more, everything you need is there. following others is a long journey to no where most often, cut your own trail, your destination is self realization, don't let other people hold you back with their ideas of what you need.

Thinking is still here but you don t identify with it. It Is just belonging to the body/mind phenomenal world. It Is not of your concern anymore. Connect with the nothingness of your being. The one wich is calling your dead thinking conceptual mind to wake-up. Let it be. Stop associating the Truth with the non-thinking or meditation.

The only difference between this moment and "nothingness" is the direct experience. What I mean by direct experience is the physical senses, with no meaning (of the neuronal paths) attached. In other words, remove what it is felt through body and what it is thought through mind. That is nothingness... and that is who you really are

I would like to challenge the idea of nothingness after life. According to Leo, afterlife is the same as pre life, nothingness. This, I think, is based on the lack of information we can recall about pre life. Inability to remember an experience does not negate the experience.

I learn something from every post I read... or better said, I unlearn everything that was programmed randomly in my idea of my self. That what you are saying sounds correct to me... the thing is that I think (I didn't experience it yet) that once you arrive to that point (it is also true that there's no point to arrive) you won't need to build anything. You will find yourself. But that's my opinion, we have to experience it and to do it, we have to go to the nothingness you were talking about. :-)

@abrakamowse Well I dont know anything about the real self.. Kinda get the feeling that just being is better than looking for the true self.. To be , do we just need to strip everything away and then start from scratch consciously??Really cautious about listening to a devine or higher self.. I would just be happy If I could get back to nothingness and build on that.. whatever it is that is deeper than that .. well Ill deal with that when I get there.. Seems pretty evolutionary.. I imagine once I get there Ill know what to do.. I dont really want to get somewhere, I just want to go.. if that makes any sense??

Well "enlightenment" as it seems to be understood around here is about there being no-self and thoughts/beliefs are illusions or the enemy and what you want is "nothingness". Their idea of enlightenment is based on pushing away and disconnecting from thoughts, identification, internalization, and self-reference in order to maintain that void (that's their aim of course, yet despite that, they still have beliefs about belief being an illusion and self-identify as not having an identity. It's cognitively inconsistent if you ask me). That is extreme and one-dimensional, taking the pendulum all the way to one side, rather than working on being capable with the pendulum, so you can chose which direction it swings and the degree of swing along whatever direction chosen. In this case, the pendulum being the ability to choose the degree of void and the degree of attachment. That degree, is being capable with attraction and repulsion and being capable with the ability to hold the tension of attraction and repulsion as it pulls you one way or another. So rather than being afraid of thoughts, beliefs, the self you can differentiate the natural pulls and pushes that arise from the chemistry of our bodies and share that space with your own choices. That road is more expansive than "enlightenment". You're healthier, more expressive, capable, have greater choice, and deeper connections. You can build rather than just, reject, reject, and sit there in a void, that ends up dissipating anyways for them, because the greater the emotional intensity, the greater the charge of attraction, and real life is stronger than any practice of mental rejection (the void is actually a gap or vaccum that happens when your mind isn't fused/immersed within a thought).

http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/this-is-your-brain-on-silence Key points....... One of the researchers who’s examined this question is a Duke University regenerative biologist, Imke Kirste. Like Bernardi, Kirste wasn’t trying to study silence at all. In 2013, she was examining the effects of sounds in the brains of adult mice. Her experiment exposed four groups of mice to various auditory stimuli: music, baby mouse calls, white noise, and silence. She expected that baby mouse calls, as a form of communication, might prompt the development of new brain cells. Like Bernardi, she thought of silence as a control that wouldn’t produce an effect. As it turned out, even though all the sounds had short-term neurological effects, not one of them had a lasting impact. Yet to her great surprise, Kirste found that two hours of silence per day prompted cell development in the hippocampus, the brain region related to the formation of memory, involving the senses. This was deeply puzzling: The total absence of input was having a more pronounced effect than any sort of input tested. Here’s how Kirste made sense of the results. She knew that “environmental enrichment,” like the introduction of toys or fellow mice, encouraged the development of neurons because they challenged the brains of mice. Perhaps the total absence of sound may have been so artificial, she reasoned—so alarming, even—that it prompted a higher level of sensitivity or alertness in the mice. Neurogenesis could be an adaptive response to uncanny quiet. The growth of new cells in the brain doesn’t always have health benefits. But in this case, Kirste says that the cells seemed to become functioning neurons. “We saw that silence is really helping the new generated cells to differentiate into neurons, and integrate into the system.” ------ In 2001, Raichle and his colleagues published a seminal paper that defined a “default mode” of brain function—situated in the prefrontal cortex, active in cognitive actions—implying a “resting” brain is perpetually active, gathering and evaluating information. Focused attention, in fact, curtails this scanning activity. The default mode, Raichle and company argued, has “rather obvious evolutionary significance.” Detecting predators, for example, should happen automatically, and not require additional intention and energy. Follow-up research has shown the default mode is also enlisted in self-reflection. In 2013, in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Joseph Moran and colleagues wrote the brain’s default mode network “is observed most closely during the psychological task of reflecting on one’s personalities and characteristics (self-reflection), rather than during self-recognition, thinking of the self-concept, or thinking about self-esteem, for example.” During this time when the brain rests quietly, wrote Moran and colleagues, our brains integrate external and internal information into “a conscious workspace.” Freedom from noise and goal-directed tasks, it appears, unites the quiet without and within, allowing our conscious workspace to do its thing, to weave ourselves into the world, to discover where we fit in. That’s the power of silence.

@Telepresent Great post, thank you! See the thing is, I think the I in that statement is secondary. It's unnecessary. The moment can exist just as it is without needing to project oneself into it. The focus of that statement is more on the Being aspect of it. "Am" implies present moment and exists without precept. Yeah, this is one of the things that I've thought about quite a bit. There is the illusory nature of time that includes past and present in its context. For example, a weather forecast may say that it will rain at 3 PM today, but that is not real, it is a prediction/projection. I can think about what I had for breakfast this morning, but again that is a memory which can only exist as a conceptualization. So then that leaves us with this moment, in which reality occurs. cetus56 brought up a great point that these are all actually snapshots that are strung together which I hadn't thought about before. But this idea of time becomes convoluted because I also have to think about the difference between what is real in the moment. An object is tangible, so we call it real. A thought is intangible, so it is not real. I can think about a microwave and conceptualize it, but I can't use that thought to heat my food. I need the real object to do that. I'm going off on a tangent again haha Because if you are clinging on to any one moment then that is already in the past. It is experiencing each thing without holding onto any one thing. This is exactly it. It got rid of unnecessary emotional baggage. More importantly it turned my actions from a means to an end to an end in and of themselves. By not being so attached to a vision of the future, I can focus more fully on what is right in front of me. I still have goals that I'm working towards, but I'm not as concerned about the fruits of the labor anymore. Well, I guess that is the next question that I have to focus on because it is essentially the same as asking, "what is reality?" All I can say about that is, reality just is. Hahah very unsatisfactory answer I'm sure, but I don't think there's any way to describe what is real. I can describe what the plant in front of me looks like, but anything I can say is only a concept. The plant is the truth in and of itself. To think about it another way, it is like the park bench scene in Good Will Hunting. Robin Williams' character says something along the lines of "you have read about the Sistine Chapel, but can you tell me what it smells like?" There is no description for reality. Nothing that can fully capture the essence of what is true. This is an excellent point. If we are holding that reality must be constant, then the only answer for that is a paradoxical one: nothing is constant. Everything changes. The only constant that can be is nothingness. Holy shit. Oh my. If everything is changing, then the only thing that is unchanging is nothing. Yeah, I think without realizing it that is exactly what I was trying to do.

No, please don't apologise: it's a heck of a wall to be knocking your head against! A biggie, and I'm not nearly through it myself. In a similar way, I'm knocking my head against "I", which is probably why I keep focusing on that part of the discussion! Probably they're related. The struggle I have with "I am" = the present moment is that there's still (in my head, at least) an implicit element of distillation/separation in the use of the word "I". Always a label, always an idea. But then it's pretty much impossible to write about without doing that, so... yeah... Have you addressed time at all? As in, have you clarified for yourself what time IS? What it actually is, versus what most people think it is? Again, being and thinking are very different things, and time resides almost entirely in memory and future projection. The reason I ask this is because Now means different things to different people, and I'm trying to gauge what your meaning/understanding/definition of Now is. I think a lot of people fall into Now being a moment in time (hence the question "how can we remain in the moment if it's always slipping away?") But I wonder if you've already dealt with that, seeing as you state: Once I recognised - really recognised - that my concept of future was imaginary, and my concept of past was memory and no longer real, I calmed a great deal. I wonder if you've done the same? However, there's a third note to hit: what is Now? What is the moment? I'm still batting that around and I'm happy to keep knocking ideas about, but alas can't give a quick answer! But let's look at a couple of things you've said. Great, cool: we have a constant, and we're calling it Now. What I'm investigating right now (no pun intended ) is "what is Now, and what is not Now?" It can be very easy to look around and go "well everything that's here/happening is now, isn't it?" But you've identified Now/the moment as a constant, and that means that almost everything (if not, in fact, everything you perceive) CANNOT BE THE CORE OF NOW, because they are all temporary. So - for me - it's a question of stripping away again: take away everything that arises and disappears, and what is left? (I recently started a thread called 'Energy' which addresses one of my thoughts about this) But to return to your very first question: Maybe I'm interpreting you wrongly, and you're actually ahead of the things I've just written, but if not I wonder whether asking if "nothingness" and this moment are the same thing, is putting the cart before the horse. One of the perennial issues I find in this work is a desire to understand, understand, understand: "is this that?", "oh, does that mean XYZ?" and so on. Questions that are very useful as a process of inquiry, BUT if you actually get given an answer, then things may halt in their tracks. I wonder here if you're asking this because you are striving to understand "nothingness"? Trying to define it? And if so, my only suggestion would be to focus on getting to the truth of what this moment is. Once you have the truth of it, you will know whether or not it is the same as "nothingness". And if not... well, there'll be a new question to ask!

The true self is that which exists beyond our 9-5 self. Sometimes also referred to it as pure being,, atman, soul ect. It seems to an essence of self as just a silent observer to pure awareness that exists beyond personal identification. When the mind and all it's noise is transcended, all that remains is pure awareness/emptiness for all things to arise within. Nothingness is a field that surrounds everything within the moment. This field can be experienced really strong after a deep meditation. Nothingness, pure awareness and existence within this moment are realized as one unified field. Each moment is a still or snapshot that is static. The illusion of time flowing from past to future is stills strung together, one after another like a movie reel that allow for change from one static moment to the next. *I understand that everything explained here is a conceptual framework, but sometimes it has to be digested by the conceptually thinking mind before it can be experienced directly. I do that often. BTW- "Zen Mind, Beginners Mind" is one of the first books I read about Zen. Good choice! "In the beginners mind there exists all possibilities".

What is the difference between being "nothingness" and this moment? I realize that the egoic self is illusory, culturally conditioned, etc. but my realization was that my real self is this moment. Is "nothingness" just another way to describe this? For example, in Leo's "Enlightenment Guided Inquiry" he speaks about how the true self must remain constant and that is why "I" am not the senses or my thoughts. I understand that, but something that is constant in experience is the fact that every moment is this moment. However, what exists within the framework of this moment does change constantly (but even though things/thoughts/etc. change in this moment, the fact remains true that it is still this moment). But, is the true self something else? Also, I understand that enlightenment must be experienced, not intellectualized, but isn't the process of self inquiry intellectualizing it? Yes, it has been necessary for me to have the realizations that I have had so far, but is full enlightenment only possible at the suspension of all thought? After all, if the noumena is things as they are then any thought or intellectualization is an abstraction of what Is, right? Which would explain why enlightenment cannot be talked about because any description or interpretation of something is a conceptualization of reality. Am I the silence in which all other things can arise? I know this post may ask too many questions at once, but any guidance would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

@Natasha Sorry, but this interpretation of reality is quite ignorant and framed in superstitious fear. Again, if you had any capability with tension you would understand this (the ability to manage the degree of attraction and repulsion going on within a moment). The human mind is not "addicted" to objects, it's having an attractive chemistry with them to one degree or another, or a repulsive chemistry. It's not that your mind "can't deal" with "nothingness", it's that holding space or creating a vacuum has an attractive chemistry of it's own and the mind by itself doesn't have the traction to properly balance it. The difference between me and you is that I can choose the degree of space I hold and what I choose to attach to, so rather than just a vacuum, I have a porous boundary (that space/gap) that is also a dielectric material. This is mirrored in reality via capacitance with electromagnetism, including electric coils or spirals that exhibit mutual capacitance, which is partly why graves spiral dynamics model is dumb to me. What's the point of using a spiral if you don't incorporate mutual capacitance, synergy, and nested function? That model comes from a frame of replacement rather than associative synergy. You and people like you are trying to repel everything that our self-referential systems have an attractive chemistry with in order to hold that vacuum, which is why you call thoughts and beliefs illusions or think they're trying to "trick" you (and it's also why you fail to hold that vacuum with any degree of intense emotion. The charge creates a requirement for a higher degree of tensile resiliency.). Self-inquiry will only go so far without a commensurate level of tensile resiliency because the mind isn't strong enough to hold tensile contrast by itself. You don't build tensile resiliency with the mind, you do it through physical involvement and build it like a muscle. It's like a magnet and a metal, it takes a firm grip (self-restraint) to hold the metal from attaching to the magnet, the closer and more intense the charge of attractive chemistry is. When you don't even realize this ability exists you are left with faulty conclusions, distorted by extremes and lacking in nuance. Like I've said before, the mind or narrating/organizing mechanism is only one of 12 sub-systems I'm making use of at any given time. I have so many more things to interface with for direct experience. Also, your post above shows you still clearly don't understand the inter-relation between energy/dynamics/chaos/subjectivity and matter/structure/order/objectivity. That duality is at the very foundation of the fabric of our universe and understanding how that duality inter-relates, making it a trinity, is how a person truly becomes multi-dimensional and able to create for themselves. None of you so-called "enlightened" people know how to do that.

Will check out the link above, thanks You have to be wise enough not to get trapped in all this conceptualized business. Every move you make, every thought you have is just there to trick you. You're not located anywhere. The human mind is addicted to objects and it's addicted to space and visual imagery. What your mind cannot deal with is nothingness/ existential emptiness. In the video on existential self I linked above, Leo gives good pointers for self-inquiry: - Stop looking for objects, you're not an object. Any idea of an object is not you. - Stop trying to see or feel yourself. You cannot see or feel yourself. - Stop trying to experience yourself. You cannot experience yourself, because you are not an experience, you are the thing in which experience occurs. - Stop trying to locate yourself - that's all space thinking and is mind activity. So, recognize it for what it is and remember that's not what you are. You are what allows location to be even possible. - Open yourself up to the possibility that you're not a human being. You are Reality itself. As long as you're fully identified with this human body, you can't do proper self-inquiry. - Again, open yourself up to the possibility that you're not an object. Even if you think , Ok I'm not the body, but I'm some energy-spirit thing, or I have some kind of aura , or I'm 'software' of the mind, or whatever, you're still thinking of yourself fundamentally as an object and just substituting one object with another object. What's really radical to say is, Maybe I'm not even any of that. Maybe I'm completely different domain than objects. What could that domain even be? cos all I know is objects, no other domain have I ever experienced.' - Nothing is hidden. This thing I'm looking for is right here as an empty field of awareness. The true you is ALWAYS there - it was there before you were born and it will be there when your body dies. That's how PERMANENT it is. Our mind is filled with so many delusions, so many fantasies and ideas about what our true self is. You really have to let all that stuff go through a graduate purging process, which self-inquiry is designed to help us do.

@Atom I can understand where you are coming from as I too have had similar questions in the past. I know that feeling you get when you are concerned about something and its not widely talked about. Plus you are just being open and honest about what you are experiencing. I do not actually know where to start feedback. This "Rabbit Hole" is Fucking deep! You are not "crazy" , Everybody has their own unique experience and that includes you. People might be shocked at what you want to know because they haven't experienced it themselves or they might be shocked about what you are asking/telling. people might not believe you and its easier to call you crazy and dismiss the whole subject.- Many Religions teachings are the same/have contradictions. I believe Religions are a teaching of enlightenment but the problem is people do not understand WTF they are reading and then they puke their dogma on others. The Light of the body is the eye. Matthew 6:22-23 In all my research I have conducted I have realised there are many simularities between Kundalini and the bible. I am born Christian or grew up in a Christian family but I soon realised some mindfucking going on there, Thats where my journey started. This "Rabbit Hole" is Fucking deep! NEW age ... You might want to be cautious when stepping onto that stuff as there is alot of BS hanging there. 1. can you explain what to do when you get to the other dimensions/portals?.. When you get there, please let me know how it was and what have you seen 2. Are there any exercises/instructions to make your third eye more powerful and focused?.. Nutrition, organic foods. Check out Teal swan and Ralph smart on youtube, I have found that they have good info. also check out this guys videos. 3. Does this have anything to do with enlightenment? You will have to watch the videos above and find out. I will also advise you to watch Leo's enlightenment videos from the start. Going through the videos(if you listen carefully, it should answer your questions.) 4. Can others change stuff in your brain ie open and close abilities? (i feel all kinds of stuff poking around in there) You have control over what you believe and what you allow in your life. sensations are mostly your Third eye activating, unless Binural beats is a scam that turns your mind into a monkey, Just kidding. 5. Wheres yoda when you need him? Yoda is Within. Lastly; As a general rule in life, Fear is a indicator of where you must go in life. Dont believe everything you see on the net. Keep it simple. You can just by being part of this community become enlightened(with practice ofcourse) Simple Breathing Meditation and Mindfullness can help you to "nothingness" 6. Is this too much for this community to handle?

this idea of nothingness is the wrong concept to have about enlightenment, it did not come about from people who were enlightened, it came about from people who have never experienced enlightenment. they are merely speculating about something they know nothing about. its not about destroying the ego, its about functioning as the being of consciousness that we are without the body. the ego and desires of the flesh simply are in the back seat while consciousness is the driver. ego is not some entity it is the programing that you have programed yourself with and have allowed yourself to be programed with, part of it is your false belief system that you carry, also the desires of the flesh, and finally your warped perception of everything, this is ego. the only way this is overcome, or subdued is by taking up a different state of being which has more power than these things. that state of being will keep you in a state of reality, which comes before your ego, programing, false belief, and warped perception, it will also keep you in the moment of life with the ability to see reality and function without sequences and one has some measure of free will and choice, however that is limited in the respect that once self realized, the choices are made to remain in liberation, and not further enslavement to the human identity.