Distinction between actuality and imagination/concepts

[Juns]

 

In this video, @Leo Gura talks about the distinction between actuality and imagination/concepts and creates a distinction between your thoughts and concepts and the present conscious experience that you are having. He gave a few examples, such as science, reason, logic, and your life history.

My question is: if your concepts and imagination are a part of your present conscious experience, then isn't that just as real as the hand in front of your face? I generally understand what he is talking about; however, I just wanted to some clarification on this point.
 

[Leo Gura]

A picture of a pizza is as real as a pizza, but it is not a pizza. But people easily mistake the two. That's the illusory nature of concepts.

Edited January 4 by Leo Gura

[Sophophile]

Whatever you "say" it is, it isn't 

[Juns]

@Leo Gura But your thoughts and concepts are made of the same "substance" as your hand, right? That substance being consciousness. So why do you feel as if the hand is more "actual" and real?

I guess the response to that could be that the picture of the pizza is made of atoms and so is the pizza but they are not the same I guess. 

[Juns]

28 minutes ago, Sophophile said:

Whatever you "say" it is, it isn't 

could you clarify please? 

 

[Leo Gura]

31 minutes ago, Juns said:

ut your thoughts and concepts are made of the same "substance" as your hand, right? That substance being consciousness. So why do you feel as if the hand is more "actual" and real?

Read my pizza analogy again.

[_Archangel_]

7 hours ago, Juns said:

But your thoughts and concepts are made of the same "substance" as your hand, right? That substance being consciousness. So why do you feel as if the hand is more "actual" and real?

@Juns Because You are able to imagine different levels of "actuality".
With "You" i don't mean your little identity. But You as God. To the Ego these processes are so automatic they get overlooked. That's why poeple fall in the materialistic paradigm.

Edited January 4 by _Archangel_

[Davino]

This exercise may help you:

 

[Davino]

8 hours ago, Juns said:

My question is: if your concepts and imagination are a part of your present conscious experience, then isn't that just as real as the hand in front of your face?

Then you're feeling into the actuality of thoughts and concepts

Which is a different level of perception altogether what people usually do with their thoughts is projection and mistaking the map for the territory. Well yes the map does exist in the same way the territory does exist, so both are Existing, but map as a model has certain limitations and it can be misrepresentative of actuality; while actuality is always self-evident and self-explanatory.

In the same way a baby interacts with a chair before it has the concept of a chair, she interacts with the actuality of it. As it grows up, higher development happens which means the ability to distinguish and categorize. However, this inmense gift has the trap of living in a world of shadows and losing contact with the actuality of experience, which is KING.

Edited January 4 by Davino

[LastThursday]

@Juns Everything is real because, as you say, it's all consciousness. But. Imagine you walk past a restaurant, and displayed on a table outside is a beautiful huge freshly made pizza. It looks so good with the cheese perfectly melted on the tomato base. You go up to it and then realise it's made of plastic (this has happened to me in Japan, but there it was noodles).

Was the pizza real?

This shows that a "pizza" is a thing of the imagination, a concept. The direct experience of a pizza is actually the red of the tomato, the yellow of the cheese, the smell of the bread - and you choose to call that combination of experiences a pizza.

Edited January 4 by LastThursday

[Aaron p]

one massive trap when contemplating this topic is disregarding the mind/imagination or worse, rejecting the mind/imagination. This is big big trap. I fell into it for years thinking i was avoiding delusion. Trying to be some rigorous spiritual elite refusing to even use my mind like a buddhist. This is of course a valid method but for starters its weak (just use psycs) and secondly [when done correctly] its entire purpose is to be used sparingly as a launch pad for the mind to be used in ever greater capacities! 

The buddhist idea that all you should do is just clear the mind at ever increasing rates of crystalline clarity and just keep it there until you die...could be comparable to someone cleaning a blank canvas over and over and over again....the point of the canvas is to make something beautiful on it. and thats where the imagination comes in...the diverse and colourful force of beauty and expression of love, grace and freedom...fragrant and elegant. Breaking free from spiritual strictness and dogmatic rigidity. Aw. fucking beautiful

imagination is actually imagination. Actuality is imaginative actually.

Edited January 4 by Aaron p

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, Aaron p said:

What a beautiful painting. Wow!

[The Crocodile]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What a beautiful painting. Wow!

I like:

Hosannas from the Basements of He↓↓

[Aaron p]

yeah its cool @Leo Gura. Bro, hope your well. Your work continues to change and inspire my life. Your a complete legend and a beautiful being <3 

[Sempiternity]

2 hours ago, Aaron p said:

one massive trap when contemplating this topic is disregarding the mind/imagination or worse, rejecting the mind/imagination. This is big big trap. I fell into it for years thinking i was avoiding delusion. Trying to be some rigorous spiritual elite refusing to even use my mind like a buddhist. This is of course a valid method but for starters its weak (just use psycs) and secondly [when done correctly] its entire purpose is to be used sparingly as a launch pad for the mind to be used in ever greater capacities! 

The buddhist idea that all you should do is just clear the mind at ever increasing rates of crystalline clarity and just keep it there until you die...could be comparable to someone cleaning a blank canvas over and over and over again....the point of the canvas is to make something beautiful on it. and thats where the imagination comes in...the diverse and colourful force of beauty and expression of love, grace and freedom...fragrant and elegant. Breaking free from spiritual strictness and dogmatic rigidity. Aw. fucking beautiful

 

I personally do not get painting like this. To me art is something that takes talent, as in something very few people can do, as in the artist took years crafting a skill. Anyone with paint scrapper and some paint can do this painting. A 10-year-old could do this painting. Requires no talent, just scrapping paint in random patterns, done in a few minutes. 

[Leo Gura]

33 minutes ago, Sempiternity said:

To me art is something that takes talent,

Making that painting takes crazy taste.

Art is more about taste than it is about skill.

Great taste is very rare. Which is why great art is very rare.

That painting is perfectly balanced.

Edited January 4 by Leo Gura

[Breakingthewall]

16 hours ago, Juns said:

@Leo Gura But your thoughts and concepts are made of the same "substance" as your hand, right? That substance being consciousness. So why do you feel as if the hand is more "actual" and real?

I guess the response to that could be that the picture of the pizza is made of atoms and so is the pizza but they are not the same I guess. 

They are different, they come from a different source, perception comes from the senses and the brain creates the images and sounds, ideas are created by the brain independent of the perception, then they are not solid, are just waves without any real base, just appearances that the human mind creates due it's movement. Human mind is a crazy machine, it scape from the solidity of the 3 dimensions and open itself to another dimension, then it can look inside. 

[Vynce]

57 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Making that painting takes crazy taste.

Art is more about taste than it is about skill.

Great taste is very rare. Which is why great art is very rare.

That painting is perfectly balanced.

If I showed you the technique for such art, you would be stunned how easy that is. Trust me.

With a little preparation you can do a canvas like this in 15 minutes.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Sempiternity said:

I personally do not get painting like this. To me art is something that takes talent, as in something very few people can do, as in the artist took years crafting a skill. Anyone with paint scrapper and some paint can do this painting. A 10-year-old could do this painting. Requires no talent, just scrapping paint in random patterns, done in a few minutes. 

 that paint harmonizes with your mind and touches your interior. Its combination of shape and color transmiit an open, clean, clear, deep and precise spirit

Edited January 4 by Breakingthewall

[Vynce]

38 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

 that paint harmonizes with your mind and touches your interior. Its combination of shape and color transmiit an open, clean, clear, deep and precise spirit

..just because it does that to you, doesn't mean a 6 year old or a bad AI couldn't do that as well. And this puts people off. Most like to imagine skill behind art and work. But if thats not important to you, thats fine I guess.