Are Trolls Real?

[Shin]

Just now, hundreth said:

This thread has devolved into semantics about what "Real" means. For the sake of argument, we can reframe the question as "Are trolls really part of our materialist hallucination? or are trolls simply another hallucination within a materialist hallucination?"

 

My hallucinations are more real than yours !

 

 

 

 

[Dodo]

2 minutes ago, unknownworld said:

And that's the difference in our views, as I think this journey is not about being able to see things and do things which other people can't, those are all egoic desires if you investigate closely. All it is, is waking up and realizing that you are god, and then living life according to how you would enjoy. So to me, non-duality is the only thing in question here.

I remember specifically you making a post, saying that Martin ball is "enlightened". (which you love doing, identifying who is "enlightened" and who is not).

No you don't have to wear a clown hat or run around naked, but your demeanor and attitude would not be this serious, nor would you be chasing "enlightenment" or anything else for that matter. You would also care less about everything.

The spiritual journey is for the body, the True Self is already perfect.

[WaveInTheOcean]

14 hours ago, unknownworld said:

The problem with most people who are tripping, is they fail to recognize that it's all them, and their ego creates illusions of spirits, realms, and entities. (from a non-dual perspective). 

Ordinary reality, eg. going in the zoo and watching animals, is also an experience created by You, appearing in You, perceived by You. After all, what the fuck could it else be, an actual real physical outside world appearing outside of You? nahh, only if you look at it unconsciously through the illusionary ego-glasses which we naturally tend to do of course   

When I write 'You' I mean the Ultimate Self / God / Consciousness / Absolute Infinity etc etc etc

[WaveInTheOcean]

14 hours ago, Juan Cruz Giusto said:

If you close your eyes and I pull out a gun, shoot you and kill you, you are for sure dead, whether you are a zen master or a homeless guy.

Leo will be dead. The Self which were experiencing itSelf through the ego, Leo, (while simultaneously experiencing itSelf through all other egos) isn't death (it was never born in the first place). Also, there might be infinite Leos in infinite parrallel universes, and maybe in one of them the bullet missed, the gun failed, etc, so Leo might go on just fine:D 

Edited August 17, 2017 by WaveInTheOcean

[WaveInTheOcean]

9 hours ago, Maxx said:

@Leo Gura all the people who say that reality is just a hallucination don't act like it. They all act like the hallucination was very real and not hallucinatory at all. Btw including you I presume. 

If you observe the people who say reality is just a hallucination in everyday life you will find that they they don't believe in that at all. Some fear the possible consequences of almost everything, like taking a plane, because it could crash, taking a ride on a certain rollercoaster because it might be dangerous, doing online-banking not very carefully, because you could transfer too much money and so on and so forth. I could probably give thousands of examples. Why do they behave like that if reality is just a hallucination?

If you and I play chess (or any other board game) against each other, what fun would it be (for both of us) if I just trolled around not caring about slaying your king or protecting my own king? The joy lies in playing the game "sincerely", while still knowing it's a game;) The pain lies in playing the game "seriously", not knowing it's an actual game/(hallucination).

[WaveInTheOcean]

Saying that reality is a hallucination implies that there exist another reality which isn't a hallucination, which seems unlikely:D 
OR it implies that reality is both a hallucination and not-a-hallucination ; i.e. real, at the same time ... Because if reality was either strictly "REAL" or "AN HALLUCINATION" that would cause  the "substance of reality" to be dualistic, which it isn't... reality appears dualistic, but truly is non-dual, which means that it's neither real or an hallucination (and therefore both); it just is what it is; the works, it's You, the Tao, itself!

bla bla bla  

[Heart of Space]

35 minutes ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

Saying that reality is a hallucination implies that there exist another reality which isn't a hallucination, which seems unlikely:D 
OR it implies that reality is both a hallucination and not-a-hallucination ; i.e. real, at the same time ... Because if reality was either strictly "REAL" or "AN HALLUCINATION" that would cause  the "substance of reality" to be dualistic, which it isn't... reality appears dualistic, but truly is non-dual, which means that it's neither real or an hallucination (and therefore both); it just is what it is; the works, it's You, the Tao, itself!

bla bla bla  

Yea, hallucination is kind of a weird word to use.  I understand what people mean by it when they use it, but I feel like its use is a bit dismissive.  

[Real Eyes]

1 hour ago, unknownworld said:

 

No you don't have to wear a clown hat or run around naked, but your demeanor and attitude would not be this serious, nor would you be chasing "enlightenment" or anything else for that matter. You would also care less about everything.

 

I'm curious about how you seem to have access to the inside of somebody else's head, to be able to judge how "serious" somebody is about life.

Edited August 17, 2017 by Real Eyes

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

@WaveInTheOcean maybe he is Neo and dodge some bullets like a boss... Who knows 

[Dodo]

4 minutes ago, Shiva said:

Now guys reflect:

What was your initial reaction when you first read the title?

Mine was something like: "Fuck Leo... Trolls?... are you serious? ... come on man..."

I find this is a great test of open-mindedness. And it seems that I could be a bit more open minded

Mine was : "Is anything real"  

[Joseph Maynor]

2 hours ago, Dodo said:

Mine was : "Is anything real"  

Real and not real is an egoic conceptual distinction, not part of non-dual awareness.  What is is notwithstanding our thoughts about it.  To answer one way or the other would be existentially false.  All conceptual judgments about what is is a piece of reality trying to judge the entire thing.  Like a Yelp review trying to judge Paris has no effect on Paris. Paris will survive long after Yelp will.  But even this is merely egoic story.  Be the Truth, that's it.  Knowing the Truth by chin-wagging about it *can* lead to augmenting reality with storytelling (It depends on how the beliefs are clung to).  Of course we need belief scaffolding about reality, but scaffolding is humble.  Scaffolding would never claim to be the building it surrounds.  No map is the territory, and this statement and judgment needs to eat itself too.  All of these statements need to eat themselves existentially as they are all egoic distinctions overlaid on top of non-dual awareness.

Edited August 17, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Azrael]

2 hours ago, unknownworld said:

And that's the difference in our views, as I think this journey is not about being able to see things and do things which other people can't, those are all egoic desires if you investigate closely. All it is, is waking up and realizing that you are god, and then living life according to how you would enjoy. So to me, non-duality is the only thing in question here.

I've talked to Leo about his last trip because I had a trip a few weeks ago that was very similar and I'd like to make a distinction (that I will illustrate further in my trip report that is hopefully coming soon):

There is a difference in having a trip getting into an enlightened high + having some very cool realizations and visions / mentally dying, leaving everything behind, surrendering completely, becoming god and opting out of your current frame of reference. These experiences are totally distinct. The first one is as you said in a lot of cases an egoic high because it feels so good and looks so cool and it's all well, blah blah blah. The second is going to the margin of dualistic (conscious / unconscious) experience, breaking through that (and out of your life / dying) and being introduced firstly to what we call God (the axiomatic principle that implicates your current frame of reference - your life) and secondly the world around that. Just a brief distinction that I will further discuss in my post. But there is a very great difference between the both in my personal experience. And there is way more to it.

Now, of course you can still argue that everything you perceive is illusionary and through that all Maya, yes. But this illusion follows certain patterns and what we would call rules and it's the journey of spirituality to experience the very nature of this happening and how it interacts. One little subset of this is knowing who you are - "getting enlightened". I say little because I think it's much harder to grasp what a "door" really is then getting enlightened. Let alone what we call sentient beings like humans, dogs etc. Understanding the nature of these things is another enlightenment over enlightenment over enlightenment. It's an endless chain of enlightenments you can have with this. And Leo just let you in on the fact that he is progressing in that respect and from what I know myself it sounded like he knows what he talks about - just because I have seen it and you can tell if someone else sees it. That's my take on that.

Now lastly, it shall be said that it is fine however you design your own journey and what enlightenments you'll have in this life. Because we all start in completely different worlds a criminal might have an enlightenment that leads him to never be violent in his life again because he truly saw some day that this is not the way (for him). I think that enlightenment for him might be exactly what he needs and for someone else it's something different. The fact that not every seeker will know who he truly is let's you in on the secret that not everyone should experience this right away. Think about that.

Personally, I've been astounded how less I cared about spirituality and all that stuff after my enlightenment on who I truly am. I wouldn't think about it at all because it is now resolved. There is nothing more to dig there. So I go into other stuff like exploring other facets of reality that'll enlighten me on that. (What is way harder as I said)

So whatever you do with your journey, is fine. It's just one step on a never ending stair that builds as you go along. That's why a good Zen student keeps the attitude of "Nothing special", because it isn't. It's just the way. (And of course that's another enlightenment that you first have to reckon.)

Cheers, Az

[Lord Bwyra]

@Leo Gura With all due respect, it sounds like you have fallen deeper into the clutches of your ego which can happen when you start tripping too much on your own kool-aid. Nothing seems real anymore except within the boundaries of some presumed hallucinatory existence. And you start thinking everything is possibly real (or not) and there is no objective reality anymore. I've also noticed you've adopted a very anti-rationalist outlook.

But I don't think you really believe that.

In fact I think you are projecting and it is you who cannot seem to escape the rationalist approach because however much you try and whatever you do, ultimately you comprehend with the reasoning capabilities of your brain in order to make sense of your experiences. And communicate them to others via social media. Yet you are trying so hard to grasp all this consciousness stuff and you have read somewhere these cool sounding things like there is much more to this "thing" than enlightenment. What the hell does that even mean?

When you get away from your computer and all this noise and close your eyes in stillness and silence, you know that this bullshit version of reality you have concocted is all just a game in your head. Yes we are all connected and everything is vibrating and we get some intense sensual shit happening with our trips but there is an ACTUAL world out there. No this is not some dream. That's the thing that happens when we sleep at night. Yes someone people do live in this world as if it is a dream but that's not the same thing as it actually being a dream. You know that's horse shit. So why do you pretend it's not? I don't get it. Trolls? Are you fucking kidding me? Cmon man.

I personally don't believe there is such a thing as a permanently enlightened person. That's total bullshit. It's all just temporary states that the brain produces. Yes we can get there more often when we learn to relax our bodies and brains more with yoga, meditation, meds, tantra, etc. This allows life to flow through us and not get stuck in this mental constipation (what most people are doing before they get on the self-actualization path) vs mental masturbation (what most people do when they start tripping too much and reading Castoneda and all this spiritual new age wuuwuu nonsense).

We still have to live in a world where we gotta pay for our lifestyles and eat and piss and do the gardening. So perhaps it's more useful to think of enlightened behavior instead of becoming some king of lalaland. I think most of these so-called enlightened gurus are just good writers and charismatic salesmen who have chosen vedanta (non-dual awareness) as their niche. They are just normal people like all of us. Why aren't they scanning their brains to see if something special is going on? Because they wouldn't do it. They have shit to sell.

Meanwhile children are starving.
Technology is progressing.
Wars are being fought.
People are living their lives, trying to understand love and how they messed up so bad.
Animals are in the wild looking for food and taking care of their young.

Me and you are using technology as we speak that was created by real people who don't spend most of their time playing video games or playing these enlightenment games (same shit). Everything you touch and use has been created by a big company with a really wealthy dude at the top. Think about it.

Right now I'm going through your Life Purpose course and starting to wonder if this guy even believes his own stuff anymore.

I hope you don't sabotage what you have created my friend. Your work is too important.
You have created this great place of gathering for people who want to live a new kind of life.
There are a lot of people on your forums looking for answers on basic shit.

Come back.

Or maybe I'm the one projecting

[TJ Reeves]

Everybody hold the fuck up. 

@Leo Gura Did you just troll us all with what's essentially a koan about the existence of trolls? 

I did some research on the nature of trolls and found Lyonel Perabo, an icelandic graduate student who focuses on Viking Culture. He had this to say about whether trolls exist:

"Originally, Trolls were not Ogre-like monsters living in the forest or the mountain. The word "Troll" referred to humanoid individuals who were seen as particularly removed from civilization, social norms and engaged in dark sorcery.

Basically, some king of supernatural social outcast, very often of foreign origin and different ethnic background with a tendency for being ugly, menacing, shifty and possessing rare abilities.

That's the more Medieval Troll for you and in that sense, I can tell you that I sometime walk in the streets of Norway and when I spot a particularly odd fellow, I sometimes think "Troll".

So in a way, they exist. Not just quite the way people think."

We're talking about a troll as simply the name for an 'ugly' sage living in solitude. Since 'ugly' or 'not-ugly' depends on subjective judgment, there's solid possibility that we're all trolls-in-training. I mean really, what are actualized.org followers if not "humanoid individuals who were seen as particularly removed from civilization, social norms and engaged in dark sorcery." 

Also, as Leo and I discussed earlier, you will see celtic/nordic/maori swirls on your skin as soon as you begin tripping. These swirls are pretty other worldly but can get horrifying if overdone. Open your mind up to the possibility that if you trip out and see yourself in the mirror you might look like what fits the definition of a troll, especially while also doing weird troll-like shit tripping on lichens/mushrooms in a forest.

So we can see several views to the nature of Troll:

• Trolls in the Internet Parlance of 'guy on the internet  a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion, often for the troll's amusement.
• Trolls in the modern parlance of 'wise forest goblin' do not appear in the perception of most sober people most of the time… except that this doesn’t matter because it is an illusion anyway.
• Trolls in the modern parlance of wise forest goblin' might appear in the perception of open-minded people who trip, get into an otherwise 'altered' state, or may lack certain filters on their perception especially if you look at an older person
• Trolls in the original parlance do exist as soon as someone who decides to live a life of solitude out in the forest or otherwise just do unusual stuff.
• Most importantly we can imagine trolls and we are imagination therefore trolls exist. 

So in Zen fashion, the true answer to the nature of Troll is: *wordlessly points finger at all of you then points away because you do and don't exist the same way trolls do and don't exist* 

As usual with koans, everybody failed by not contemplating, not being openminded (in this case to the nature of trolls), and not doing some basic goddamn research (in this case googling, I mean the answer literally appeared within the first two lines of a google search). 

Everybody also failed by seeing existence and non existence as mutually exclusive. 

The fact that we even argue about this is proof of the overall level of non-development. It shows how much work is necessary. 

We might want to consider weekly koans. 

Should next weeks Koan be about  whether dogs have Buddha nature? I bet we could get up to 10 pages of discussion about that one -- all of them wrong. 

"Trolls are silent and wise. They know all is illusion" - Leo Gura. 

Edited August 17, 2017 by TJ Reeves

[Real Eyes]

4 minutes ago, Lord Bwyra said:

I personally don't believe there is such a thing as a permanently enlightened person. That's total bullshit. It's all just temporary states that the brain produces. Yes we can get there more often when we learn to relax our bodies and brains more with yoga, meditation, meds, tantra, etc. This allows life to flow through us and not get stuck in this mental constipation (what most people are doing before they get on the self-actualization path) vs mental masturbation (what most people do when they start tripping too much and reading Castoneda and all this spiritual new age wuuwuu nonsense).

 

The problem here is that this is a completely groundless belief based off of nothing but your own hunch.  You have no way of knowing if somebody like the Buddha, or Jesus, or whoever was enlightened.  A more rational view would be to not take either side of the argument.  But to state matter-of-factly that there is no such thing as permanent enlightenment is a logical fallacy.

[Heart of Space]

6 minutes ago, Maxx said:

@Leo Gura unfortunately you haven't really answered the question, why all people who claim that reality is a hallucination (and these are apparently only solipsists and people who have consumed too much psychedelics) don't behave like this is true. Their whole behavior all day, week, month, year and decade is refuting them. They just don't believe it No matter if they have practiced for 10, 20, 40 or more years. Of course some might loose their fear of death, but that is for other reasons and not because they believe that reality is a hallucination. I assume you know that.

I do not know where you have got the notion from, that Tibetan Buddhism says reality is a hallucination. I study Tibetan Buddhism and I have never come across such a statement. Believing that they do say it is a gross misinterpretation of what they're saying. Have you studied Madhyamaka? Have you studied Dzogchen and Mahamudra? Have you studied Tibetan Tantra? Do you know the difference between Sunyata and a hallucination? Can you give me a list of Tibetan Buddhist book authors who say that reality is a hallucination? If such authors exist, they must be pretty rare, that I can tell you.

Anyway, I am not here to convince you of anything. If someone wants to go on a troll hunting trip to Iceland, ok bye.

In the very least, it's bizarre that  they don't acknowledge the difference in the qualities of a dream versus ordinary reality.  They are very dismissive of the consistency and deterministic quality of ordinary reality when that's a pretty enormous difference.  In fact, it's the only difference that makes ordinary reality seem like it's not a hallucination.  It's what separates it from all other forms.  I'm still totally open minded to the idea that it's an illusion and in a lot of ways it is, but to totally dismiss it as a hallucination no more valid or different than a dream is a bit much in my opinion.  

Edited August 17, 2017 by Heart of Space

[Joyboy]

The man explain it all. Shall we stop blah blah blah and

[Dodo]

1. 21 minutes ago, Joyboy said:

   The man explain it all. Shall we stop blah blah blah and

   I wanna watch him for millenia

[Heart of Space]

 

11 minutes ago, unknownworld said:

Couldn't have said it any better. Terrance Mckenna did the same with machine elves, and in turn, he deluded and misled a lot of people. I think taking some time off psychedelics would be good in this case for LEO. Interestingly enough, he doesn't even use 5-MEO anymore(and he never smoked it, only snorted which is a big difference as well).

I've said on here before and I'll say it again.  Once you get the message from psychedelics you should quit immediately for the rest of your life.  It's easy to get caught up in how amazing they are, in fact it's almost impossible to not initially get caught up in them because of how profound the experiences are.  Just trust me on this, or find out the hard way yourself.  

[Joseph Maynor]

19 hours ago, Juan Cruz Giusto said:

There is more to reality than your personal perception. If you close your eyes and I pull out a gun, shoot you and kill you, you are for sure dead, whether you are a zen master or a homeless guy. That the gun, the zen master and the world they inhabit are made out of consciousness or mind is another matter. 

The difference between a dream and waking reality is that one is personal and the latter is shared by others. If we want to formulate metaphysical conclusions, saying that there is no difference between a dream and this reality, taking into account that other people's perspectives, is IPO nonsense. 

Notice that I'm not saying that there is a world outside of consciousness nor I'm a materialist. I think idealism makes much more sense but there is more to consciousness (or the world) than what our mind perceives. Rupert Spira is quite enlightened and have similar view, so does Bernardo Kastrup and so does Ken Wilber. 

Or we can say that everything is consciousness and me, others and the world don't exist, everything is just an illusion and we are just Maya and end of discussion. And it seems to be true to enlightened people. But if we want to make sense of our world this paradigm is just useless. 

Also any metaphysical conclusions we make are not non-dual awareness, they are made within the relative egoic human life, language, and theories -- in monkey-ville!  So, trolls cannot exist in non-dual awareness because that's an egoic distinction.  Whatever "trolls" could be in non-dual awareness is part-and-parcel of everything else that is real, and it is what is -- since reality is a-conceptual.  So, what is real would be something like the visuals of a troll but not trolls, but even that individuation would be egoic because you are piecing-out an image from non-dual reality thereby adding a little monkey-augmentation to non-dual awareness, super-imposing a little monkey individuation belief on non-dual awareness.  So, anything we say in language is within the relative egoic pragmatic truth, not absolute Truth.  All beliefs are existentially false.  This is a humbling insight.  Of course we can say a lot of relative things about non-duality, but they are all true with a lower-case t not true with an upper-case T if that makes sense.   So, again, we can say a lot of monkey-chatter about reality, but it ain't reality.  Reality is something that just is without distinction, and even this sentence has to eat itself.  This is why it is important to be the Truth not theorize about the Truth.  If you wanna theorize about reality, you're gonna be engaging in theory-scaffolding (which can be useful training-wheels to guide novices or those learning about enlightenment) or truth with a lower-case t -- relative human truth, a biased monkey-mind perspective on reality (or theory of reality) not reality itself.  For the purposes of my post here, you can consider a theory to be roughly a set of beliefs or proposed beliefs.

Edited August 17, 2017 by Joseph Maynor