Check This Out!

[cetus]

 Watch what happens @10:15

 

[Joseph Maynor]

There's the egoic self; there's the external world; there's the egoic self in the external world.  All illusions.  All thought-stories in the mind rather than actual traits of reality.  We actively generate the world through our expectations/ cravings of what we seek.  This is why being mindful of seeking is probably very important to be mindful of.  Let go of knowing and get into a true state of not knowing.  This is the only true knowledge, counter-intuitively.  Should we expect any other result?  Us upright primates?

Edited July 24, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Toby]

If I remember correctly I read about this (the experiment with the hand / arm) in the book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465020690/, so it was interesting to see it on video.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Toby

[Truth]

This is a really good video, I love the distinction he makes between controlled hallucination vs uncontrolled hallucination and that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality. "we predict ourselves into existence." That's true not knowing right there. 

[Visionary]

15 minutes ago, Truth said:

This is a really good video, I love the distinction he makes between controlled hallucination vs uncontrolled hallucination and that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality. "we predict ourselves into existence." That's true not knowing right there. 

Yeah, was talking about this with a mate of mine yesterday. Isn't this exactly the zone where magicians make use of our brains "predictive abilities" that are responsible for these controlled hallucinations?

[Truth]

2 minutes ago, Visionary said:

Yeah, was talking about this with a mate of mine yesterday. Isn't this exactly the zone where magicians make use of our brains "predictive abilities" that are responsible for these controlled hallucinations?

definitely, but the real magic trick being played here is of our own existence, and that can be a very serious game we play with ourselves and others, people have massacred each other over that one. 

[Loreena]

Real magic. Nice video. Clearly explained. I love how the distinction is made between the two. It's so easy to fool ourselves 

[cetus]

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 6:21 PM, Truth said:

This is a really good video, I love the distinction he makes between controlled hallucination vs uncontrolled hallucination and that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality. "we predict ourselves into existence." That's true not knowing right there. 

 'Consciousness is a biological process'.  Great point he makes there too.  The organism (through conscious awareness) is a biological process specifically tuned to it's environment.

The octopus navigating it's watery environment made a great comparison vs. consciousness as the human organism navigating it's land based biological environment. 

So I've been contemplating what is the self and I'm seeing sort of a two prong process to what is 'me'. First and formost there is the natural biological process of body and brain. In that respect I am really no different than a rat or an octopus. Each organism being fine tuned to it's specific environment through conscious awareness and a brain that makes continuous choices to better it's chances for survival.

But what makes me as a human different from the rat or octopus is the addition of a stronger sense of self or ego. So the point being, even when the ego is reduced, there still remains the conscious awareness of the biological process that exists as body and brain. It seems that some part of that sense of self will always remain as long as that process continues to function as consciousness.

So when it's said the 'I" doesn't exist, that is true on the absolute level. But it is also true, while I'm alive, there will be the sense of self that does exist as part of a natural biological process. For instance, I wouldn't say that my dog has a strong sense of self or ego, but she does have some sense of self. She has her likes and dislikes. She may prefer one toy over another one day to the next.

Is it possible to completely eradicate the sense of self?  This stems from the question I keep asking. I know I don't exist in the absolute and everything that is 'me' is just a dream. But something of 'me' persistently remains. Could that something' be consciousness as this biological process and as long as this biological process is alive (conscious) some sense of self will always remain? Because that's how I'm viewing myself from the point of the absolute. Everything that is 'me' is just a conscious biological process navigating it's enviroment

What do you guys think?

 

 

[Dodo]

Here I am thinking we don't believe in brains here... This is truly most interesting to me. This is not the circlejerk I used to know and love. But seriously tho... Do you believe in brain? Why does this have so many reps? Isn't this video just monkey-mind in science religion cloak?

[cetus]

15 minutes ago, Dodo said:

Here I am thinking we don't believe in brains here... This is truly most interesting to me. This is not the circlejerk I used to know and love. But seriously tho... Do you believe in brain? Why does this have so many reps? Isn't this video just monkey-mind in science religion cloak?

Doesn't everything you've said here prove the use of a conscious brain ?

[Dodo]

Just now, cetus56 said:

Doesn't everything you've said here prove the use of a conscious brain ?

Yes, if there is such a thing in the first place. Maybe it proves the use of conscious nothingness.

[cetus]

35 minutes ago, Dodo said:

Maybe it proves the use of conscious nothingness.

I don't know. Does nothingness have consciousness? What would nothingness be conscious of?  Maybe consciousness is a aspect of existence only. Could it be that the absolute has no awareness of existence or of itself?

If existence is Maya. And all existence is created by consciousness, Wouldn't that mean that consciousness is also an illusion?    I know that's thinking outside the box here.

Edited July 26, 2017 by cetus56

[Dodo]

27 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

I don't know. Does nothingness have consciousness? What would nothingness be conscious of?  Maybe consciousness is a aspect of existence only. Could it be that the absolute has no awareness of existence or of itself?

I don't know either about this. But seems more plausible based on my current experience.

By the way don't get me wrong, the hallucination bit is awesome. Here's my problem. If the brain is hallucinating everything and brain exist, who is hallucinating the brain in the first place? We will go back to nothingness every time no? This is the same as finding a God out there or the beginning of the universe. 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Dodo

[Azrael]

"And when the end of consciousness comes, there is Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all."

[Truth]

@Dodo @cetus56 there's really no need to inflate what's being said here and jump to a bunch of conclusion, he's only pointing at the extreme guess work that goes into creating an "accurate" perception of reality with the illusory nature of making predictions based on basically nothing, meaning, the issue of looking in on ourselves, not just trying to create an accurate perception in the body but in the mind or consciousness. Consciousness is trying to look at itself, and since it can't, instead of looking at what is actually there, as biological entities we've become more concerned about if its running well or not, because for all we know, the biological systems are keeping us conscious and we want to stay alive and conscious right? 

Edited July 26, 2017 by Truth

[Dodo]

@cetus56 I just watched this video with Adyashanti and this reminded me of our conversation about whether nothingness can be aware.

Starting 11:11 (lol synchronicity),  it's interesting to contemplate.

On 26/07/2017 at 4:36 PM, cetus56 said:

I don't know. Does nothingness have consciousness? What would nothingness be conscious of?  Maybe consciousness is a aspect of existence only. Could it be that the absolute has no awareness of existence or of itself?

If existence is Maya. And all existence is created by consciousness, Wouldn't that mean that consciousness is also an illusion?    I know that's thinking outside the box here.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2017 by Dodo

[cetus]

@Dodo You gotta love Adyashanti.

What I said about whether nothingness is conscious awareness or not has a lot to do with how I feel theses days and I'm questioning what is true reality. I could throw out knowing all together.  It's ran it's silly course.