Moral Reservations About Enlightenment

[Nahm]

@StrangerWatch Sweet movie.  Gnosticism & Buddhism, what’s not to love!  Lol. Matrix wise, in terms of you, and your life....who is the architect? What is attempted to be conveyed with his role in the movie? And much more pertinent to this post... what is the Oracle? ?

 

[Nahm]

@Faceless Same root as everything else. ❤️

[Leo Gura]

10 hours ago, StrangerWatch said:

I don’t doubt you’re having a great time down in the depths of existence, Leo. Greater than any of us can imagine. And you’ll openly admit that you have cast aside all concepts of good, bad and meaning. You’re a nihilist. You don’t believe that suffering is real and should be avoided, except superficially. To you, it really doesn’t matter if Africa is suffering with negligence of their most basic human rights, or if Asia still has countries akin to WWII Germany and the Soviet Union, or if Western civilization is converted to extreme religious dogma which it helped propogate.

Seems to me you’re no better than the nihilistic solipsism growing out of the New Age movement, based on what you’re saying here. As I suspected. Through your Enlightenment work, you’ve created a religion out of your own subjective and impulsive observations, and as such you’ve cast aside any responsibility for the world you’ve now left. You may call it higher existence — I call it egotistical cowardice.

And BTW, I’ve had ego death experiences. Yes, it feels amazing. Yes, you lose all attachement. And no, I don’t believe it’s the right way to view the world all the time. Because there is no meaning in the universe outside the meaning conscious creatures create for themselves, and that biased meaning is not to be thrown away because IT’S THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS.

This work takes a certain kind of maturity. You're not ready for the full implications of nonduality yet.

What you call nihilism is just a fear of becoming groundless.

Yes, reality is meaningless, but what you fail to understand is that nihilism goes full-circle into divinity and infinite love. It's precisely because everything is meaningless, that it can be unconditionally loved.

Drop your ideological positions and petty personal needs. Then the true beauty of reality will be revealed to you.

Or don't, and stay stuck in your egoic, contracted paradigm. Either way is fine.

[abrakamowse]

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

What you call nihilism is just a fear of becoming groundless.

Nihilism needs a person who is a nihilist. But, there's no person.

 

The ego needs to have a "meaning" because it wants objects of the world, it can be money, power, or something that is valuable for it. Awareness doesn't want anything, it doesn't need any purpose, its purpose is just to BE. That's the most important purpose in life. IMO.

:-)

[Heart of Space]

Man, some really great and insightful posts in here.  Very intelligent and self-aware people on this forum.  Honestly, I've got nothing to add after reading a lot of the posts.  

[Shin]

2 minutes ago, Heart of Space said:

Man, some really great and insightful posts in here.  Very intelligent and self-aware people on this forum.  Honestly, I've got nothing to add after reading a lot of the posts.  

Then why are you answering ?

Don't become an arrogant jackass like this Shin dude, it's not worth it dude.

[Joseph Maynor]

Stay on the path.  I was like you 1 year ago.  Enlightenment — especially the seeking phase is a long, arduous process.  But it’s worth it.  The most important thing in this work is to keep doing it.  You just keep on keeping on no matter what.  What you work on is what you improve.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[Heart of Space]

11 minutes ago, Shin said:

Then why are you answering ?

Don't become an arrogant jackass like this Shin dude, it's not worth it dude.

I just wanted to compliment people on their thoughtful posts.  

I don't know, I kinda like that Shin dude, he's the apple of my eye.  

Edited January 31, 2018 by Heart of Space

[Joseph Maynor]

Here’s a good question for contemplation:  to what extent are my morals MY morals.

[Nahm]

@Heart of Space Man you are in a good place. ❤️ 

......what was this thing I said?

[StrangerWatch]

19 minutes ago, Mighty Mouse said:

You can't separate morality from ego, it's a human survival mechanism. Morality is not what it says on the tin. It actually has nothing to do with what's supposedly "good", just with what's "good for me/us" (where us is always some group that you align with, never some other group).

Notice how morality immediately starts to break down the moment it stops aligning with people's interests. The moment you try to take those out of the equation, morality is shown for the hollow nonsensical farce that it is. Without ego there is no such thing as morality.

I see your point, but I would argue that even those who claim to be moral but are not in practice would still agree on the definition: That morality relates to the totality of well-being. Whether they stay true to this belief or not has nothing to do with the definition of said belief, just as the US government often claims to be democratic yet fails to meet those defined standards.

Instead of saying "without ego, there is no such thing as morality", I would say: Without experience, there is no such thing as morality. Ego death is a good experience, yet it is entirely without ego by definition.

16 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

Why is it more moral to have 100 people with 10 "well being", than to have 10 people with 100 "well being"?

I never said that, and indeed quality is better than quantity in my opinion. But again, that's just how I view it. What I think is undeniably objective is that it is more moral to have 100 people with "10 well being" than to have 10 people with "-100 well being".

1 hour ago, Mighty Mouse said:

Who gets to decide what the measure for subjective well-being should be? And how do you put a number to it?

Let's say we did a poll where we asked people if they were feeling good, bad or somewhere in between. Assuming they're not lying, this would give us an objective graph of well-being at three general levels (good, bad or somewhere in between). In addition, if we could accurately match up brain scans with the reports, we could create a pretty accurate measure of well-being, similar to how we measure physical health.

16 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

Matrix has relationships... As for truth it depends on what you mean by that, but if the prisoners can't distinguish their prison from "real life" in any way then it has no bearing on subjective well being at all. And in fact their bodies were much more safe and taken care of than any of them had ever imagined.

The Matrix is an exception when it comes to relationships, since the classic simulated prison thought experiment is more solipsistic in nature.

As for truth, I assume you're interested in maintaining your own right to freedom and truth? Why do you care about your rights, if not for your own well-being? Do you? If you don't, why are you so skeptical about the simulated prison? You're shifting the debate from "does the simulated prison prove that hedonism is wrong" into "does truth relate to well-being", which is another question entirely.

16 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

1- Mankind invents machine to improve their own subjective well-being (already I see no difference between egotism and morality).

Improving subjective experience is by definition moral as long as it doesn't conflict with any other subjective experience. Which brings us to...

16 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

2 - Nobody gives a shit about how many non-human organisms suffered for mankinds presence and proliferation on the planet.

3 - Machines turn against humans and humans decide to blot out the sun in a bid for survival. Oops, humans were wrong again when they thought they knew what's best for everyone.

What if Cypher, or someone else, went back to the matrix just because they felt betrayed by the immorality of their whole species? What obligation would they have to put less importance on their own well-being than on the well being of the creatures that caused this whole mess to begin with?

What you're raising here are ethical questions about whether or not humans were morally wrong in their actions. Funnily enough, you're arguing about it using objective facts and examples. This does not undermine my claim that morality is about the balance of well-being, and therefore objective.

16 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

If you say there is such a big difference between morality and egotism, and you say that people are egotists, then how is it moral to favor them at all?

Whether or not they are egotists has very little bearing. What matters is that as many subjective experiences as possible are good. That is the goal of morality.

[StrangerWatch]

14 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Here’s a good question for contemplation:  to what extent are my morals MY morals.

That question makes as much sense as: To what extent is my conception of physical health MY conception of physical health?

As long we agree that morality relates to the well-being of conscious creatures, I see no reason to make morality any less objective than health.

Edited February 1, 2018 by StrangerWatch

[lens]

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  15 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Here’s a good question for contemplation:  to what extent are my morals MY morals.

That question makes as much sense as: To what extent is my conception of physical health MY conception of physical health?

@StrangerWatch It's kind of you like this, do you OWN the morals? Think about this for a second, your whole "supposed" life you have been taught what is right and what is wrong, what you should and what you shouldn't do, did you choose to allign over any of the sides? No. Either something makes sense to you, or it doesn't, but notice that whatever comes to be right or wrong in the end it's not up to you. You don't get to decide what is going to have an affect "you"

"ashalahamim nokoruga dejabu" search this on google and you will see what i mean

how can any of this be yours if it is not yours to control? 

As of this moment your brain is translating every word without "you" anywhere, you are mistaken the ego for yourself, none of the opnions you have are actually yours, really think about that, you don't have any knowledge of anything in this world, nobody does. we don't choose what to put in our heads and what not to, this is all processed by the brain, something you are not.

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As long we agree that morality relates to the well-being of conscious creatures, I see no reason to make morality any less objective than health

M8, fine, morality is objective, end of debate, congratulations you are winner. Dude There is no point in debating this with us because you can change the views of everyone in the world but your problems and worries are still going to be there, again, this is not about us, it's about YOU. Not external, Internal. Go do the work and don't stop until it literally kills you

[Nahm]

@lens and yet....there is no brain.

[lens]

@Nahm I know, i'm using symbols to explain that symbols aren't real...wait what?

[Nahm]

@lens lmao! ❤️

[Faceless]

Generally morals are taught, conditioned, programmed according to ones family, sub culture/culture, religion, nation, and so on. So if one is conditioned according to these patterns of thought that means those morals are part of there very identity. Therefore morality is subjective. They are based on ones past. Just like the self is a construction of ones past. So if this is so do we hold moral values or do they hold us? Do we create theses morals or do they create us, the me and the you’s. It’s obvious that these conditioned morals are subjective and influenced by ones cultural conditioning, therefore this type of moral action is not objective at all is it?

So it’s apperent that this “morality” that implies conformity, acceptance of authority, with its divisive nature are in fact totally immoral. Conformity, imitation, to any ideal, concept, theory’s, and other presuppositions is in fact an action of irresponsiblity and immorality.  Only when “morality” as generally accepted in society is negated because ones sees its irresponsiblity and immorality is there actualy a sense of genuine moral action. Moral action is only when one ceases to cling to ones past conditioning, which is the same as ceasing to react in accordance to that conditioning. And when these reactions according to one's past cease by negation due to the awareness of there destructive nature, is there a self acting at all? And when there is no self in reaction according to its past is this not the essence of moral action?

So understanding, observing, watching oursleves, as in our reactions in our relationship to one another without the conditioned biases and prejudices of our past, is the beginning and a ceasing of the self which is genuine moral action. 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by Faceless

[Heart of Space]

8 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Heart of Space Man you are in a good place. ❤️ 

......what was this thing I said?

It was many factors, one of them included you and many other members of this forum and this forum as a whole.  I can't help but randomly cry,  not cause I'm sad, but because I see how much beauty and love is in the world.  I was a bit of a blubbering mess even on my hour commute to work today.  I just can't help but have tears it because there's so much beauty in everything and it's so overwhelming.  

I used to be so angry and resentful of the world because I thought it was such a nasty place and that everything was against me.  I hurt myself and others in the process, because of my ignorance and blindness.  I'm just so appreciative of everything in my life that has lead me to where I am, where I'm supposed to be.  You, Leo, and this forum as a whole is something that I'm so incredibly grateful for.  I'm so lucky, so blessed.  Life is so incredibly precious.  

I know you probably weren't counting on such a long post as a response, but I think it's difficult to convey the incredible importance of a place of discussion like this and I want to at least attempt to convey my utter gratitude for what.  I can finally live my life and that means more than anyone  could imagine.  I'm going to live my life in love for others and help others connect to God, that's who I am now.  Love is all there is and I see that now.  But anyways,I wish you good luck on this journey in life as well as everyone else here.  I know this probably seems overly sentimental, I just can't help it man haha.  

[Nahm]

@Heart of Space ?❤️ 

What a beautiful place. 

[Forestluv]

@StrangerWatch “I understand the value of enlightenment”

There is no value of enlightenment. That notion is part of The Game we are conditioned to play.

And noone wants to acknowledge they don’t exist. It’s a hatd sell.