K's Journal

[Kevster]

Hey,

First of all I do not want to name this topic a fancy name. I don't post this for you guys, I do not seek validation or any confirmation. It is more that I want to be perfectly clear in what I write and think and not from a hidden agenda. It scares me, because it might be the case that it reveals I am not advanced anyhow. But that is the mind-game I am playing many times. I have been reading some journals on this site and the courageous journeys people are taking. I have done the No-fap as well, the Pickup journey and currently I am 'doing' the meditation journey.

I want to ask you guys, if you comment to just point me on any bullshit. Am I fooling myself? Do you see steps I might take, but I not yet see? I have come to the point where I have done countless 'journeys' in order to fool myself.

How do you know you are bullshitting yourself? Like when you post a journal of No-Fap for instance and you point all the benefits. Do you proceed further? Like why you are involving yourself in this game in the first place? It is a very popular self-felp topic, the nofap. It is supposed to make you more confident, etc.." But why do you want to be more confident? What is confidence in the first place? For who do you want to be more confident? For women, for other men? Every wants to be it, but what is it. It is a term, we are 'chasing' 'it'. Is it something you feel? What are the conditions? I do not know. Only what is said about it. It sounds very attractive. I am involved in this business for years, yet I feel I haven't 'grown' a lot. I am using these terms, but I am no scientist in this. It might be dangerous.

Cut the anlalysis, for me it became a 'must', an obession. If I dind't do it, I felt bad, wasted all my 'compounded' effects. And what about placebo? The placebo is supposed to be one of the most powerfull effects a human psychy can produce. Isn't it than just the belief which is enough. But then, a belief. Fuck.. I am mindfucking myself. I admit, I am just lost in this mindgame, and this scares me. it scared me I might have no control. If I look at other cultures, they do not live by the terms. I live by the terms, I brag about it to my friends. I brag about compound effect, I brag about NOFAP, I brag about actualized.org... Yet I see things through the different lenses. I do not see clear, I know it, but I yet do not see it, only when I meditate. But I must meditate for 40 minutes. I dont waNT TO ENslave anymore in these mindgames. Healthy food is Oke, meditation is Oke, but for the 'right' reasons. What are the right reasons. Yet I feel meditation brings me closer. Right or wrong. What is it. Isn't it just a label to some beneficial cause, which is claimed by some individuals. Ultimately we are to decide for ourselves what is wrong or right. And to do good for others, (well this is just something I write )..

Has anyone been in the same situation as me? You are questioning everything, you are lost.?

 

 

 

[Zephyr]

True^_^ before anything else you got to have a direction. 

First there's self actualization then self trancendance. 

Bro, pretty much everybody else is bullshitting themselves. I bullshit myself, you bullshit yourself, even those people who are in self trancendance journey are bullshitting themselves. Your journey ain't no more bullshit than any other else's journey. 

Our desire for self actualization and even self trancendance is all untruthful. Being truthful with your journey means being selfless and having to a take journey selflessly doesn't quite make sense to me. In order to kill the ego there must be an ego first, then the ego kills itself. 

[Kevster]

Well the point is, it isn' t always crystal clear we are bullshitting ourselves. You make it sound pretty obvious, yet you are ' fooling'  yourself with videogames etc.. You state these words for instance, but you are just reciting thing you have read elsewhere. That is what I mean. Do you really know? I never stated I wanted to Kill the Ego. I don' t even know if that is true. Going on another journey in order to kill the ego, would mean perhaps another side path. 

[Zephyr]

I see. I didn't read the whole thing so I was just talking about fundamental stuffs. It can be tricky sometimes. All we do of course are dictated by the ego, but knowing which one is truthful than the other can be a challenge. 
One thing for sure is integrity or even direction. What's your direction? You probably don't have a clear direction yet. 
I don't know about you, but for me I sometimes notice that I'm fooling myself when it's when I do things that does not align with my direction.^_^

[Leo Gura]

@Kevster Give your topic a title please or the moderators will give it one of our choosing.

"***" is not a good title.

[Time Traveler]

You asked why we are doing this ? 

That's how I put it, very simple.

I can choose instant and easy satisfaction (masturbation, booze, drugs, you name it) and feel bad later + degrade eventually

OR

I can choose to put some effort and discipline now (restrict from booze, drugs, meditate, you name it) and feel better overall + evolve in the process.

But I am weak and cannot discipline myself so I write this journal to keep myself accountable. I know, theoretically it's weird that I can do something for myself only if someone else looks after me, but if it works why not use it ?

 

[Kevster]

You make a solid point. It keeps me accountable. Allthough, it is a thing to see where others are so I might get a little taste of that and see things from a different 'perspective'. 

Anyhow, I am writing a lot. It appears pretty funny to me, that I can logically see the story of enlightenment but not yet see it for instance. That is funny. I am apparently trapped by myself who is blocking from seeing clearly. But I sense it is damn hard work. I am writing. I really believe I am ME, no bulshit. 

Me versus not me is a function. 

If there is a me there must be a not me, right, logical mind analysis. If there is black, there must be white. If there is this there must be that. In fact the formula is a distinction. 

I have a body. I believe that. There is this meaty something that "I' am carriying with me all the time, which belongs to me. I believe that for now. I am in my head, I hear myself, my thoughts. I am not aware of your thoughts, so they are my thoughts. 

I look at this glass of water, that must be separate from who I am. I can touch it, look at it, yet I can not influence it, it is distinct from me. Yet my body, if I cut of my hand, it is the same as a glass of water. It WAS me, or still IS me? Because I carried it all the time. I was owning it. But if I was owning it, it belonged to something else than itself. Therefore it cannot be entirely me. If I cut of my hand, placed it amongst 1000 other hands I probably wouldn't recognize it as MY HAND, but just A hand.  But what is the ownership. To own. Is to have. It belongs to someone. But I own this glass of water? An I separate from this glass of water. I am now just fucking with terms. 

This body is bound to me with a thinker inside MY skull, which is that I and thinks he is real. I have my thoughts and they appear very real. I belief them to be real. 

But if I cut of my hand, my toes all in the process of not dying and remaining exatly the same this implicitly means I am apart from my body. 

It means it must be the same as the glass of water. 

But I move my fingers. I can not move the glass the same as I do with my fingers. Wait, these fingers would be more correct, yet I actually really believe to be My fingers lol. I am controlling my fingers, thats why. I have direct ownership of them. Nobody else has. Specially me. Me me and me. 

Who is moving the fingers, I am. But apparently not in so direct control. They move by themselves. I think i am moving them because they belong to me, and therefore I must moving them. But they are not all the time. This pretty damn confusing. They are mine, but I am not in direct control. Just as with my heart, everything else. They moving themselves. Shit, this is free will dilemma hahaha. Yet I do not see it. Because I cannot see it, I hear you say. Yes Who is speaking. dur dur dur....

I must conclude that this body is in a great control in itself. It is just doing something. So the I is apart. I must have full control I guess, initiating my own thoughts. I have certainly Ideas as well, which appear to be very real. 

I am done for now, this is mindbuggling. confusing,.. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kevster]

So thoughts and thoughts appearing. What is it. It is filled with a dialogue in some form and a movie. Sometimes other sensations. Dialogue in the form of sound and light. And usually there is some form of 'feeling' to it. IF the feeling is 'bad' there is 'bad' thoughts and vice versa. Bad is something "I" wants to avoid, Good is something "I" wants more of. But What is a thought. I am now trying to conceptualise it. Again.. And a concept is putting a concept in other concepts. A Noun into other nouns. 

A thought has a begin and an end?

Now the thought is vague and fast, "About" a birthday party I "Sense". I "see" the situation of this girl where I am supposed to be going but I forgot, because of this ahahahah. funny. Shit. This is apparently the content. I have no idea how it started, so the thinker I thought I was is apparently not in control of 'its' presupposed ownership of the body but also not his own mind. I have no clue how this content started. It started itself and it ended on itself. This must be the wave where some folks spoke of. And I am supposed to be the ocean. I do not see it.

Sensing. WHat is this sensing. What is sensing. Immediatley the answer "ME". If a baby, unattached by social conditioning, wouldnt even answer Me, he doesn   know. WHy a baby. He has no concept of Me. Thus there is nothing to be me about it. 

Where does it start, there is only something noticing it, call it awareness. But the content itself of the story,.. But that makes perfect sense. It is continuous...Pff, i am making this shit up. I just want to proceed. Where is the beginning.. again.. Why is there even a beginning in the first place. The story is the labeling itself.. hm.. I do it in hindsight. It's no story it's fragments. 

Content Fragments appearing continuously. And there is indulgence in these thoughts. Like I can see the shift where I lock into them and lock out of them. But if the i is thinking them, how can I think them at the same time as locking into them. Hm. now I starting to lose it. makes sense but I cant grasp it. 

Been meditating for 6 months consistently but this inquiry is by far the hardest thing. It is confusing at least and I feel I am running in circles. Giving different definitions, sharpening everything. I feel that I am looking for this AHA-erlebnis. Perhaps another game. 

Must proceed.

How do I even test a thought is true or not. I am now writing the thoughts which I call content fragments appearing continuously (for now). But that is again a definition. It is all rational. Truth in ratio. Famous cogito ergo sum. Third person truth. perhaps a contradiction. I don't know how to test it. 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

[Kevster]

So, been meditating again or contemplating. And actually when I do this I see how mistaken I might be, how we all might be. I had been meditating for a while now, but I really did' t do much self contemplation about experience itself, but even experiencing the experience which is something that confuses me on a rational level, but where in my ordinary conscious must be deeper truths. 

The locking in in the fragments, I have been trying to zoom in on that. It is like a lens, I sense the thought and the content is what I 'See. As I stated before, there is no really a control in it, no me what I thought was controlling this. I really think I am the beginner or the initiator of thought and that I can put a direction to this thought at will, but this is not the case at all. Close observation. But how can there be observation and control at the same time, isn' t that a meta-level above the thinking itself?! 

 

 

 

[Kevster]

Just watched the enlightenment series of Leo, very interesting. He talks about conceptualizations and the different levels to it. It might be essential to dive into that. 

I have so many objections right now against Leo' s arguments, but there must be something in it, because I have already concluded that I am not so much in control that I think I am, or that I think that I is. 

Although I do not ' own' my body, therefore it is a body. I still feel that it is somewhat bound to me. I can feel it, nobody else can feel my body (I assume). I can sense it's sensations. There is a whole area of scientific research stating that, for example, my fingers are connected to my brain with neurons, inserting ultimately in the brain, the are called the homunculus. That is where proprioception comes from. It is a concept. If people can' t sense it anymore because in one of the links (according to the theory) there is a defect, they can t sense their fingers anymore, for example an amputation. Yet I am arriving now at the same problem as in my first post and it begins to look a lot like the theory about existence. It does' t say anything. And there are cases in scientific literature where people feel as if their amputated limb or body part was still there. So there goes this theory. So it is only the sensation they put their conclusion on whether it is still there. So it really doesn' t need to depend on if the ' finger'  was still there attached to the body. But yet, I guess you do not even need to know this ' theory'  there is no mine in to the question. I am now logically on a rational level trying to arrive at a conclusion that it either is or isn't mine. So it doesn' t really matter if the body part is still there, any sensation I feel can be interpreted as mine, because only I can feel it and nobody else. 

But I guess I have to look more closely. Can I feel everything? I cannot feel ' consciously'  my liver, my kidney, etc. only though referred pain for example, which is another theory. Right now, I do not think I feel them. If I concentrate and focus, I can feel my thumb. I assume it is my thumb. If I cut of my thumb, there is a different quality of sensation near the area where the thumb has been cut off. Yet only I have that sensation, therefore I exists? Yet If i do not feel it, doesn' t exist, because I still have fascia around the liver which I can' t really feel. Whether I can feel it or not, where is the I feel in it. There are feelings, but what makes it my feelings. 

So the question is, are these my fingers, are the sensations I feel my sensations. Because I assume I can' t feel a car, can't feel a bird, only look AT them. 

I am separate from the other objects. I can' t see it any other way at this point. 

 

[Kevster]

So I had an interesting experience. I was sitting in the train, occupied with my daily mental noise and I was also experiencing the social fear I experience from time to time. 

I was sitting, other people were sitting as well, there was a sensation which I describe as an intense 'fear' which in my story I describe as linked to other people, thus social fear. 

Yet if this is a fiction, it can feel very real it is a fiction. So I tried to explore the whole perception, what I was seeing and who was aware. 

This perception wasn't reality. I saw the perception, I felt the sensation of the story (can't really put it into very understandeable terms) as if it was a screen where the dust of my perception coloured everything and yet I couldn't see everything for what it really was. I just looked at the perception and everything in it, including myself. I really saw how my story distorted the view and I was kinda zooming and focussing in on the perception, like a lens over a lens. It was short as I got locked into the fragments again. 

It feel slike the glue has been crippled a bit. The glue to the lens and now there is a possibility to an extra lens investigating the lens. The perception is a sensation. Yet I write it and it makes it seem so obvious but it isn't. I get sucked in it again and again and again. I woke up and saw that it was just a story, then becoming the story again. WHat I see is not what I see. What I see is projected on a wall, "My wall". I am in this world but the world is in me. Yet i can't touch or be in this world, but I can't be in me as well.. I do not know what the essence is. 

I was meditating yesterday and there was an object named a book. I looked at it. Really trying to get to the matter. I call it a book. I call it a book, because somehow someone stated this is a book. It is called in different languages different sounds but which refer to this. I really tried to grasp it in the perception. Again the lens on the lens. In the lens there was it and the voice calling it book and funny enough also mental images of a book, not this book but something which might be aliek this book. It all occured at the same moment. I tried to grasp the me in the perception and the book as it was occuring together in my imagination. Yet I couldn't grasp both of them. I was aware of the perception of the book, the thing which refereed to the book and the whole perception where it all occured in it. Yet I couldn't see.. Blurghh. This is hard. Can someone give me a pointer please.. I feel I am on to something but I cant grasp it. Thanks.

Kev 

 

 

 

[Kevster]

So I was stuck at this level. I am really trying to figure out what the perception is. I am amazed about how much in what I see is perception and being affected by perception. Almost simultaneously when I see an object there is a mental voice and a picture of it. When I meditate I can separate the two, even though I can get locked in the mental picture easily. In the whole experience, there is perception of perception and perception itself, but the perception of the perception seems to be in the same field of awareness, which makes me doubt at this level which is more real or less real. The objects are just as less " ME" as I suppose I am me. I have the same sort of experience of objects as of me. The objects appear on the same mental screen as is the whole line of thought. So I feel somewhat dissociated. 

The sensations, which we also call emotions, are just there too. In the same mental screen. Which makes me wonder if not everything I see is a mental simulation. Is there even reality. This is where there has been written about if we are not just a dream lol It also makes me wonder how less I really looked and took everything for granted or just the way things were. Now it is obvious what a silly saying that is : "Just the way things are."  I think 99,9% of population are delusional when they say this. Just the way things are, makes me prone to describe how things are which misses the point entirely. 

Again, I am drifting off. So direct experience is nearly impossible. How can i Directly experience anything if there is no I to experience it. If the I is part of the experience, which is experiencing it. This makes sense but there are many questions. 

Let' s make it more practical. For instance, I am writing this. I believe that. This proves I didn' t proceed anything. My fingers, and I am initiating this. What proves the reality of I in this? I can doubt the existence of I and the Initiating of the I in this. 

My fingers are not essentially me. 

 

[Kevster]

So I proceeded on the mental screen. You could say I was struck at the level of all I see, is perception. How much do I really see? Everywhere I look, I look at concepts, which makes the I a concept as well. I doubted the direct experience as possible. But only as far as there must be an I to directly experience it. It is not impossible. 

It was 11P.M. and I was walking in nature across a big lake where there was little noise except the sound of the water and some ducks fighting against each other. There were many trees, a lake, the air, some other people walking their dog or cat (which is always the most funny: A cat on a leash). If something is antithetical, it is a cat on a leash being walked. 

So, I was wondering, Here is this thing we call a tree. Can I really see the tree for it' s full reality? And after that: Who Is looking at the tree. And " Who is aware of looking at the tree?" 

So there I was, looking at a big giant tree (it is winter here, pre spring). What I was looking at was really a screen or the perception of a tree. I could' t ' grasp'  the essence, because I did' t even know what the essence is. The moment I tried to ' see'  the reality, I tried my best to capture it (in words), or I really tried to feel the tree, but I have/had no clue what the meaning of reality is. Again, I tried to figure out some mental standards of reality, but again that made the perception turn into another orchestra of sounds and words. Which is a mental conceptualization of the ' thing' I was looking at. 

Who was looking at the tree. Obviously me at first conclusion. But the tree is just there. Perhaps the tree is looking at me. In either case, there is this thing which the meaning of words refer to. After that the meaning of words and the whole web of mental associations as the voice. But where is the I. I cannot experience directly an I. 

 

 

Tan there is this awareness, the whole of experience where these phenomena occur simultaneously, the thought processes and the meaning of words which together make up this whole lens. 

Colloquialism is this form of ' reality' where there is ' my reality'  and your reality. This is where obviously the fictional I with all it' s perceptions and beliefs are included. Your versus mine. Intersubjective reality etc.. But this must be false as when the I disappears this whole notion of your reality and mine cannot be possible when this is true. Yet, I am not at the point to REALLY grasp it, instead I can just grasp it logically. I need some more meditation and contemplation on this. 

I was recommended a book by Thomas Kuhn: Structure of scientific revolutions. 

I am stuck at the level of terms:

- Duality

- Direct Reality

- naive realism

-etc. 

 

 

[Kevster]

So "my reality" and "Your Reality" and "A reality besides your and my reality", Many different realities, or perhaps no reality at all. 

My reality must be in some fundamental way the same as your reality, as it is relatively your and mine. But perhaps because I got a "My reality", there must be a "Your reality" just as black implies white. My reality is the way I interpret the world, my looking at the perception. But what makes it my reality. Only because I have the 'unique thoughts' you are not having at the moment I experience them. But the thing is I do not know If they are real just because only I can have them. How do I even know that? Because I do not have your thoughts, feelings and sensations. 

We are all living perception screens than. 

Let me be just trying to be as objective as possible. 

My reality can't be possibly your reality.  e.g. Every person is having a different reality of the world. 

- I have unique thoughts that only I can experience at this moment of time. In the same sense as that you have different thoughts, feelings and sensations. 

  What do I actually mean with reality of the world. I read it in a book. IF it is a reality of the world. Perhaps I am jumping too soon behind these words. Reality of the world how can that actually be true. If there is a reality OF the world. That is dualistic. How do I know that what I see is reality in the first place? A reality of the world implies a reality apart from the world that is about that world. Is there a reality in the world itself. If that is true than We can both have our realities OF the world, but than we still have it about the world. And we might be equally have our realites, which makes it fundamentally the same, but yet we are both looking at the world. But what we see, is our perception which I equal with reality of the world, but can there be a reality of a 'reality'. Or perhaps different kinds of reality. Realities of realities. But a reality is what is real. Allways and everywhere. If that is true and If my 'reality' differs from yours than I just contradicted myself.. :S. Then there can not POSSIBLY be your reality and my reality.

But where am I talking about then. How can it be that there are so much 'models' about reality. That is weird. If there is only one reality which I now assume. How can it be that there are so many models of it or better descriptions. But 'improved' models over 'improved' models. In a way the previous one was not as accurate as the next one. But if one is not accurate or in the slightest way not ccurate does it not mean it isn't reality. And what reality is there in a model anyhow. A scientific model of the world is in that sense not different from 'yours' or 'mine'. If that is also true than a scientific model OF the world can at most approach reality at the same way as your or mine. Does it make any difference in which way they are accurate. I would like to think YES at first but I am also doubtfull now. IF it is a approach of reality it is also fundamentally the same at the level of 'your reality' and 'my reality'. Yet some we 'consider' more 'truthfull'. But that word must be mistaken as well. How can it be truthfull if it is about reality. Why are we creating models anyhow. What is a model anyway. 

What are we looking at when we are 'modelling' ourselves. I guess we are looking at models of the world so the world becomes the model of the world. 

Proceeding.. 

 

 

I was at the point that I experienced my perception in this whole field of awareness. 

 

[Kevster]

So, basically the many realities are everyone' s own story and it is funny now that I am reading Marcus Aurelius Meditations* that is what is called impressions and there is something aside that is truth from this. All I can conclude is that there has been conjured up and been messed up with terms and making it very difficult to bring order in it. I have already seen that an intersubjective reality is just an agrement of two or more views OF the world, about impressions on commonality which seems to be  most correct on mutual agreement. But the word "REALITY" has been attached to it. It is derived from NAIVE Reality. So basically an agreement of ' Impressions' . (i need to educate myself more on this). 

I know, I know, I am investigating the scientific field about reality etc. Yet Leo stated this will only sidetrack my process. I field-test this with direct experience. It is biased, I know, yet I try to unbiased myself more and more. That must be what seeing is reality. Therefore my initial response is to investigate how to recognize bias and what a bias is in the first place. If I am to seek in ' models' about reality there must be in 99,99999% biases, because a bias is a diversion of reality? So it is inherently subjective and therefore biased. 

Like now, when " I AM LOOKING AT A CUSHION", I can investigate the whole field of experience. The mental voice, visualization, and the actual thing where I am looking at. Then going a level further, Who is looking and who is aware. Is there someone looking and is there something to be looked at?

Am I just looking at my conceptualizations and not looking at all. When I look at my brother, do I not only see my conceptualization of mine, and not truth. Who is he after that? I have attached words to my brother and evaluated everything he does or doesn't according to this concept and it had to be congruent. Why? If it is plain bullshit. I just take it for granted, but what if it is all false. What is everything " I think about me"  is not real. Yet there are many, manyyyy ' THINGS"  ABOUT ME which seem to FEEL RIGHT. Just as with any belief I guess. It just feels right, when I " RETHINK" or I am in a situation negatively evaluating Phenomena, including myself, others etc. The same situations,  many perception, walking perception screens again from different people, the agreement between them making it intersubjective realities, but what is true, apart from agreement on perception? It is still a perception... 

I am going to state what "my perception screen seems to story out of the moments", deriving sideline scenario's which seem to be a continuous sense of self, apart from what is really going on. I am not yet at the level to discern this. Yet I am drifting yes, It feels like I am on a lost ocean, without any guidance no pointers. Pfff. But what is it to die with having lived with a fiction, all in vanity. Sigh. 

Feeling right.. What is feeling right. it must be more an underlying fear of perhaps be wrong, and just comfort seeking in righteousness. No-one likes to be challenged right, when they seek comfort. Things feel right for me to. My beliefs feel right. 

Body

I have a body..

There is an I which is located behind my eyes, which is owning a body. That body stops at the skin. It is a body, not my body, I already arrived at that conclusion. So the I dies when all the thinking stops.  Is there any truth in I? is there any truth in all the thoughts? Everything I think ' Feels right' . Feeling right, is not being right. Everything that feels right needs to be investigated in the first place. That is all I see for now. 

I have a body is a thought as well. And the thinking that it is a thought is a thought about that thought as well, a meta-level above.... I can go meta all the way, but yet there might be no single truth in it... Yet I am lost again, now in circles... 

A belief needs to be right all the time, in every occasion. Why do some people, including me, hold on to beliefs in spite of this. Perhaps, as Alan Watts has stated, that what is to gain if one is to lose his heart. Scientific evidence is far on the process to fully discern a God as being described in the bible (literally). Yet people hold on. Yet they are not more delusional than I am on other levels. If you ask me something I am deluded about it is probably a whole elfin lot. Funny. Yet for the scientific the religious are deluded, but for the Yogi' s the scientific are at equally deluded as the religious. On content they differ not the fundamentally axis where religion and science are the same. 

Enough, enough, Time to point it at me. This is all time waisting. I must show my own ignorance to myself and also to every reader here. Because I am deluded ad infinitum (lol) as well. 

 

 

 

  

[Kevster]

Tha@Pinocchio Thanks!

Sometimes being biased is supporting for evolutionary purposes I suppose. 

I am drifting off like a seagull. What is reality blah blah blah. Models can' t be truthful only more accurate when precautions increase... It is a map not the territory. It is pure rationalism. 

Rationalism depends on logic. If this, than that. Based on that predictions. Like a computer, where you only have 1 and 0. If yes, than.. If not, than. If mostly yes, in what cases not. If in these cases no, how comes?