Merely an automaton

[Bebop]

10 minutes ago, Thanatos13 said:

Stripping it all alway doesn’t get you truth or the absolute, just a different lens to look through. But we are so convinced that the lens is correct instead of seeing it for what it is. 

Speak for yourself, you haven't gone far enough down the rabbit hole yet

[Thanatos13]

6 minutes ago, StephenK said:

This is just utter narcissism on your part. You've dropped reasoning things through and are now just appealing to your illusory personal authority on the matter, no different to a self proclaimed guru. Your game is transparent and everyone can see it. Wake up man.

That’s the case with any “spiritual experience”. Ultimately they prove nothing.

 

1 minute ago, Bebop said:

Speak for yourself, you haven't gone far enough down the rabbit hole yet

Perhaps you are convinced there even is a rabbit hole. Perhaps you think there is more , but you can’t see that it’s just a different lens. 

 

7 minutes ago, Mighty Mouse said:

Is that what you did?

Are you swimming in nothingness without fear?

Once the initial terror is over.

[Bebop]

2 minutes ago, Thanatos13 said:

Perhaps you are convinced there even is a rabbit hole. Perhaps you think there is more , but you can’t see that it’s just a different lens. 

I've glimpsed the absolute before but there is no way anyone can convince you of it unless you see it for yourself. Remember, existence is paradoxical.

[Thanatos13]

Just now, Mighty Mouse said:

So the terror isn't over yet, but you're saying it will be, right?

What exactly do you mean by nothingness? You equated it with the terror before. But what about when the terror is gone?

I'm trying to get clear about your terminology.

Btw. I agree that there is never any more or less truth to the view, no matter how it may change.

Once the terror is over there is this sort of swimming sense. But during that time I realized that it wasn’t truth but just a view from changing the lens. I’d like it to how stripping paint from a canvas Doesn’t yield truth

[StephenK]

15 minutes ago, Thanatos13 said:

That’s the case with any “spiritual experience”. Ultimately they prove nothing.

Bingo! So stop appealing to your illusory personal authority on the matter. No one is buying it, nor should they. Until you can demonstrate why your experience is anything other than fear simply running amok in your mind (your amygdala going haywire), stop making metaphysical claims about reality and existence. 

[Cjaryo]

Realize how arrogant you're being. We all live in this world with so much power, beauty, and potential. All you need do is develop your awareness of this beauty, and maybe yes, your life is meaningless, so develop some hobbies and passions, design your personality and grow your friendly and familial relationships.

[Thanatos13]

4 minutes ago, StephenK said:

Bingo! So stop appealing to your illusory personal authority on the matter. No one is buying it, nor should they. Until you can demonstrate why your experience is anything other than fear simply running amok in your mind (your amygdala going haywire), stop making metaphysical claims about reality and existence. 

Not fear, no. 

But it’s a spiritual experience, it can’t be explained. You just “know”.

[Thanatos13]

2 minutes ago, Cjaryo said:

Realize how arrogant you're being. We all live in this world with so much power, beauty, and potential. All you need do is develop your awareness of this beauty, and maybe yes, your life is meaningless, so develop some hobbies and passions, design your personality and grow your friendly and familial relationships.

Rather banal and meaningless comment. It’s arrogant and presumptuous to say that about the world.

[StephenK]

4 minutes ago, Thanatos13 said:

Not fear, no. 

But it’s a spiritual experience, it can’t be explained. You just “know”.

Wow, you've really convinced me.  Nice argument there.

[Cjaryo]

@Thanatos13 I'm confused. Are you now depressed, do you want help, or just what is it that you are looking for here?

[Thanatos13]

24 minutes ago, StephenK said:

Wow, you've really convinced me.  Nice argument there.

I was being snarky but also making a point. 

[Faceless]

1 hour ago, Thanatos13 said:

Unfortunately emptiness and “no self” isn’t truth. It never was. That’s just a trick we tell ourselves. We attempt to strip everything away to get to “truth” because we think that is what truth is. But it’s not. 

When all is gone and you swim in nothingness without fear you see it isn’t the truth, it’s just another view. The same thing with ego, just another view. We seek “it” but there is no guarantee of finding it or knowing what it looks like. We use our sense but even that is flawed. 

Mots like looking at a video game and seeing colored lights blinking, or at a movie and just seeing actors, you don’t see the reality. 

Stripping it all alway doesn’t get you truth or the absolute, just a different lens to look through. But we are so convinced that the lens is correct instead of seeing it for what it is. 

To say reality is empty is wrong. Whatever “reality” really is, we won’t ever see it, just different views of it.

Your not seeing the significance friend. This is not some romantic idea. When you see, understand, comprehend the whole of thought by seeing its limits and negating all that it has put together by thought there becomes freedom from the self/thought. As I said we can’t know truth. I said a mind/consciousness with the Essence/quality of truth. Thought that runs true. Very different. It’s a quality of thought that isn’t disorderly by illusions and deceptions in the pursuit of psychological becoming. When conciousness is filled with this ambition to achieve/attain then that I is not within the field of measure any longer. That seeking, wanting to attain, looking towards the future to bring about a sense of security ceases. Only when there is order of thought is reality free of illusion and deception. Only then is thought orderly and healthy. 

Drop the whole absolute bs to. Drop the immeasurable as well. As long as your thought is in disorder your conciousness is still working under the conditioned brain. When that conditioned brain is still in movement that conciousness is still full of all its fears, sorrows, beliefs, and so on. It’s simple, when you see that seeking leads to only to more disorder then you are free from the movement of volition, the me who wants to escape to fulfil a sense of security. When this freedom from the me and becoming ceases then only can you investigate whether or not there is this immeasurable state or not. 

See for yourself. Don’t just say no I disagree and that’s it. Investigate. Skepticism is great but not without following it up with an thourough objective observation.  What I have stated here is not difficult. But it takes a freedom from our limited structure of thought to inquire without any bias and prejudices to be objective. 

If you want to explore this in depth look into scientist David Bohm theoretical physicist and quantum mechanics and J. Krishnamurti. They go into this in dialog in depth my friend. Check it out if you are willing to investigate without your own bias and prejudices. What they go into is rational, logical, and reasonable. Not no hocus pokus. 

Freedom from the know by J. Krishnamurti is a great one and thought as a system by David Bohm is also a great one. 

Then there’s also one by both of them called “the ending of time” 

by far the most interesting revolutionary readings or listening you will ever get Involved with. They explain this immeasurable and the limits of thought quite well. Better than I could explain to you. Plus there’s a lot to go into that I could not explain over this post lol. 

Check it out 

Edited February 3, 2018 by Faceless

[Truth]

@Thanatos13

[Staples]

Not really sure what you're expecting from anonymous strangers on the web with no real qualifications or experience in serious emotional problems.

See a professional.

[Faceless]

See a professional Lolol.. another system, routine, method based on concepts, ideas, beliefs?? Nah 

Knowone is going to solve your problems. Especially someone with a mc Donald’s education on concepts of psychology. There’s no intellectual knowledge that’s going to help you friends. 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Faceless

[alyra]

@Thanatos13   

here I will give many words of advice... please notice that necessarily I am responding to what I can give advice on... and even in that, it is the case... that... see... you already have so much you have worked on and found, to not need advice... there is depth to that that is hinted at in many ways in your words... I do not try to deny you.... all I can say is to build upon you, from what I myself have to offer... there is no criticism I have of you in this post. advice is not disagreement, nor is it truth, nor is it the path you must take; it is only words - symbols which frame what could be, or what is. 

 

 

 

 

you say you have no desires. I will list the desires that I have seen evidence that you might hold: desire for community, intrinsically for coming where there is community; desire for meaning, as you consistently express a loss of it; desire to persist until the end; desire to be a part of infinity; desire for some kind of big picture passion or dream or goal; desire to numb your experience of the weight and of being crushed; the desire to match your body experience to your spirit experience; or vice versa; desire for help; desire for what is external, beyond your internal; desire for truth; the desire for things to make sense - or what I say to denote that, desire for clarity; desire for the empirical; desire for objectiveness, which is in fact not-empirical; the desire to have desire to pursue; desire to remember, and to resist loss; the desire to escape biases; desire for snarkiness and making a point; as well as blunt clarity; and you have expressed a link from the void to despair, which is meaning, which implies desire, but does not inherently reveal what that desire is - despair exists because desire is denied, this is the nature of despair, and the nature of desire.... 

see, all that desire there is desire you could find right now within yourself but naturally there is more desire that comes from within too - oh -

let me give you a suggestion regarding passion/meaning/desire, something I heard myself, something which I have found quite meaningful in pursuit of desire and dream and passion - for I have felt many times without any meaning, without any passion, lost and worthless...

It is that every tiny teeniest of desire can be worked with to bloom into huge flowing energy, given consistent practice of it, given time to grow - and even if none of them quite make a big splash on your life, searching there to start is always a great way to stumble upon something big and flowing. You speak of habitual behavior, but there is nothing lost in habit, in fact habit is exactly what is needed to obtain deep passion, perhaps you only simply need to introduce new habit into your toolbox of habits! 

perhaps in your experience of the void and despair, naturally this divorces yourself from your desires, and belittles them; this is actually okay in and of itself. there is many reason to be without desire, many reason to be with desire. many reason to be in despair, but even the strongest gravity of despair will never consume you.

 

 

 

you say you have experienced void. if you experience it, then it is not void. even leo makes this mistake, he speaks of some kind of transcendant to experience and has named it in the past as "direct experience" - but even that is still an experience.... every time we witness a glimpse of void or infinity, it still remains limited, an experience - even when we claim it is "it" it is everything there is nothing more... see, our experience is the existence of limit, and in truth there is nothing beyond that experience - everything which we claim to be beyond our experience is necessarily within its reach. but it is out of reach too... oh... here:

You have experienced void. but there is always a deeper void you have not experienced. some folk, find meaning in pursuing that void, or perhaps they call it infinity, or perhaps they call it god, but the more they discover it, the more life has meaning, and loses meaning, oh I am making no sense sorry. ...

but you speak of the void as if it the absence of meaning. but, therein lies the truth! the absence of meaning is itself meaning; and as well the absence of meaning reveals all meaning. 

you even say, we can frame the concept of void but then that is not what is experienced. Very true! well said in fact. I encourage you then notice further, that by saying you have experienced the void first hand - you have framed a concept of it. And even if you had not said anything of your experience in words, you still remain with concept, for concept while it can be divorced from what it describes, from other concept - well, when you are at the core of experience it is synonymous with concept. you can derive or extrapolate or interpret that concept/experience/truth/reality into more concept, but at the core of it all, it is still just concept.

you even say meaninglessness is not subjective...  but inherently it is subjective to all meaning. and so as subjective as meaninglessness necessarily is, so too is all meaning objective as well - both are true, there are both facets to all meaning and all meaningless. what is subjective cannot be without what is objective; what is objective cannot be without what is subjective. 

I guess here what I am trying to say ultimately... is that your experience of the void will continually remain to be a reference point, an experience, it will never truly be nothing, for "nothing" is synonymous with "something". 

 

 

 

you reference free will a few times. the thing about free will that i take notice of - some may fall for the trick to think that there is no free will, but wait let us presume that there is no free will. all that that changes, is it changes the meaning of what free will really is - it changes the meaning to: "the experience of what we call free will" (yes, even tho it is illusion by this presumption of its lack). But when free will is nothing but a fantasy experience - it is still experienced - and what is but what is experienced? when free will ceases to be true to reality; it still remains that it is experienced; and with that experience, returns to truth, to reality...... free will cannot be denied. for in its denial it rebirths itself. 

 

 

 

 

regarding trips, you say "because they feel something they think that means something" - hah you catch it on the nose right there! that is exactly the truth. meaning is as meaning is. some folk just need a little boost in their experience to realize the depth to what meaning can be; for it is unlimited. 

you say later that trips are not reality - oh, but reality is eternal! trip is reality, unicorns exist, god exists, in every belief of him; or perhaps in the belief of many gods; or no god; trips are reality. void is reality. meaning is reality. despair is reality. everything experienced is reality; and reality extends beyond the limit of our experience, even beyond the sum of all our experiences; for if you can sum up all that is reality and separate it from something which is not reality. then you have not yet summed reality. and even if you sum up everything and stop and say, there, I've finished, I have found every boundary to reality! then you have simply reached the limit of what you can be. but reality is unlimited, so you have not reached its limit for there is none to find. 

one does not need to find all of reality; one needs only to find presence within their own limits and accept it and trust in it. 

 

 

oh, I should comment on your pattern to say that the void brings despair. You do not trust us when we say that the void to use brings meaning; yet you expect us to trust you in your claim that we don't know the despair of the void....

I wholly do empathize with your experience of despair, and while I can never have any proof that I have found your despair in my experience, I trust that you have found despair, and know that I have found despair. and I know that I was able to wade through the misery and find hope and meaning and passion and growth and glimpses of the unfathomable infinity of it all, not in despair but rather in such a way that inspires - I trust that you too can find such inspirations, given time. for me, I was in despair for 4 long years and sometimes return to it. one could say I was in despair for 19 long years instead; but the despair of those 4 set them so far apart from the other despair that I felt dead without hope to a whole different level... but even that depth of it did not kill my desire to press forward. and that desire ruled over the  void I experienced, and got me here where I am now. 

there are many times when I feel pain and sorrow, when I feel lost or beyond hope, when I get another glimpse of that void-despair... at least the amount of it that I do experience; but now, now I have more strength than before, more strength to resist its pulling weight, and if needed the resilience to flow with that weight as it sinks me down, and that indulgence in it I do with trust and with my resiliance and strength and diving into it only allows the anchor of the void-despair to slip away from me again and I bubble right back to the surface. 

 

 

 

you've stated that spirituality is biased - and wow  I've been realizing the same thing for some time now, brewing it over, and idk for me that has brought some passion into my life. for, spirituality is exactly bias; existence is exactly bias; our life is exactly bias; it cannot be escaped, and should we believe that death is the escape -even that fails to be true, for the imprint of our bias will always have its notch in the infinite; infinity is composed of endless bias; even what is unbiased exists within the infinite as bias, out of our reach but existent somewhere in the infinity of absolute reality. infinity itself is its own absolute bias.

you mention that the assumption that "spirituality leads to good" taints what is found. So why not assume that spirituality leads to evil? do you trust yourself to see where that leads you? and similarly, why do you not trust the bias of good some of us see in spirituality? and likewise, there is the deeper option, to seek the unbiased angle of spirituality; and naturally there is finally the last option to not seek spirituality at all. those are the four extremes of what path you can take in relation to spirituality - so - Which path do you trust yourself to follow? or perhaps you follow one path without trust, or perhaps you cannot keep ahold of any of those paths. this is all just what I ask, to try to ask you to find that answer. oh... I hope my point is self-evident here... 

you say that the case with any spiritual experience proves nothing. very precise again, right on the nose, you've got it; yet, you seem not to have it.... hmm... it is as if you need proof to believe. perhaps you need to find the value in the lack of proof. or perhaps find the proof that you experience everyday. or perhaps you are trying to rid yourself of the mechanism of need for proof at all; wait, I just said this already, I I am repeating myself. 

 

 

 in one post you take many angles on truth. you are framing truth from many angles, but yet you do not see truth, you see only falsehoods; but that is not the nature of truth. what is limited is true. and you are right; that truth is unlimited and so what is limited isn't truth. but they are both the same statement. yin and yang. etc... idk there is not much to say. oh.... you frame truths and toss them asside as deceit. how ironic this is... yet how novel... what to really say... 

 

IDK. I hope I could have helped with these words. At the very least I hope I could show I have listened to your words. I dunno, I am no good at this lol... best regards and good luck. 

 

 

 

[Sri Ramana Maharshi]

6 hours ago, StephenK said:

Bingo! So stop appealing to your illusory personal authority on the matter. No one is buying it, nor should they. Until you can demonstrate why your experience is anything other than fear simply running amok in your mind (your amygdala going haywire), stop making metaphysical claims about reality and existence. 

Uh, meet the flatlander. Hi flatlander.

You are correct that no one should take someone's anecdotal account of extinction as Truth and then stop there. Do the work yourself, then run your mouth - hence:

Consider that the scope and framework of reality is created by and totally subservient to what is manifesting as life itself, and not the other way around. Your mind even in your little "skeptical" attempt is forgetting this and acting as authority again to whoever told you there was an amygdala. In this capacity, as Mystics, the only real skepticism that is of value is that which is 100% self-directed. Otherwise, you are a seeker and have not yet found your vehicle, so why not be studying and practicing and not talking. Your ignorance preceeds your unskillful arrogance.

I don't even know there is a body, or an "organism"...whatever there is that is life and universe, was totally made up by "me", and keeps doing it every tick. Kensho reveals all your knowledge to be anecdotal, and reality to be open ended to the point of infinity -- simultaneously. Feel free to maintain a staunch closed position and never know anything about reality ever. Nobody gives a damn. Of course you can't learn anything from his glimpse, or my direct consciousness. Only yours. And you don't seem to want to know. That's fine too, and a valid choice. 

The Buddha didn't claim any personal authority here, he simply said to try the practice and see, if you are curious. If you do, and do it right, you will see.

When fear "runs amok" as you say, without an object...this can be due to the fact that the sense of "mind" has stumbled on the inimitable fact that there is no sensory activity and separate sentience witnessing...but rather just sensory activity. Next the thing starts to segfault and freak out wanting the comfort of separation and dualism and familiar good old burn of suffering again. Once it comes back, along with the bull sense of deceptive security, then the person recovers back to the "bondage" of the previous abidance. 

Damn, most of the people on here are really really talking out their ass. Why such scientifically and mystically ignorant folks would be attracted to a forum like this is beyond me, but this is pretty disappointing. The only valid source for your Insight is what has been won on the zafu and agreed upon by your learned realized teacher(s). Direct Consciousness #1 source here. This isn't the laboratory and you aren't a dead corpus of data.........or are you?

M

[StephenK]

7 hours ago, Sri Ramana Maharshi said:

Uh, meet the flatlander. Hi flatlander.

You are correct that no one should take someone's anecdotal account of extinction as Truth and then stop there. Do the work yourself, then run your mouth - hence:

Consider that the scope and framework of reality is created by and totally subservient to what is manifesting as life itself, and not the other way around. Your mind even in your little "skeptical" attempt is forgetting this and acting as authority again to whoever told you there was an amygdala. In this capacity, as Mystics, the only real skepticism that is of value is that which is 100% self-directed. Otherwise, you are a seeker and have not yet found your vehicle, so why not be studying and practicing and not talking. Your ignorance preceeds your unskillful arrogance.

I don't even know there is a body, or an "organism"...whatever there is that is life and universe, was totally made up by "me", and keeps doing it every tick. Kensho reveals all your knowledge to be anecdotal, and reality to be open ended to the point of infinity -- simultaneously. Feel free to maintain a staunch closed position and never know anything about reality ever. Nobody gives a damn. Of course you can't learn anything from his glimpse, or my direct consciousness. Only yours. And you don't seem to want to know. That's fine too, and a valid choice. 

The Buddha didn't claim any personal authority here, he simply said to try the practice and see, if you are curious. If you do, and do it right, you will see.

When fear "runs amok" as you say, without an object...this can be due to the fact that the sense of "mind" has stumbled on the inimitable fact that there is no sensory activity and separate sentience witnessing...but rather just sensory activity. Next the thing starts to segfault and freak out wanting the comfort of separation and dualism and familiar good old burn of suffering again. Once it comes back, along with the bull sense of deceptive security, then the person recovers back to the "bondage" of the previous abidance. 

Damn, most of the people on here are really really talking out their ass. Why such scientifically and mystically ignorant folks would be attracted to a forum like this is beyond me, but this is pretty disappointing. The only valid source for your Insight is what has been won on the zafu and agreed upon by your learned realized teacher(s). Direct Consciousness #1 source here. This isn't the laboratory and you aren't a dead corpus of data.........or are you?

M

Most people here are talking out of their ass, I agree. Yourself included. These constant attempts to negate the usefulness of logic while at the same time using logic to make arguments is laughable and ultimately self serving. The constant attempts to negate empirical evidence whilst appealing to empirical evidence (you assume that you're talking to another person on the internet, assuming your message is getting through to another 'person', assuming you didn't come into being 1 second ago, assuming your family exists, etc, etc.) Pure contradiction. I just call bullshit when someone is inauthentic and deliberately deceptive in declaring the paradigm(s) they're working from. Truly walking contradictions picking and choosing from different paradigms to validate their peak experiences. Just pure self deception. This incessant circle-jerk leads to anyone coming along and rambling off about why they 'have the truth', as is proved in this thread. I understand not-self because I have BOTH experienced it and have logically validated its truth through hard work and by having a basic understanding of how the human brain is conditioned and wired. I understand meaninglessness because it is logically self evident, but I am aware the self-construct naturally recoils at the idea (for very obvious evolutionary and sociological reasons). The attempts to selectively divorce logic from spirituality baffles me. The two speak the same language and are intricately tied together. They always have been. I suspect that the selective use of logic and what sometimes seems to be a real phobia to it, might reflect something far more sinister going on with the deceptive mind. People espousing their peak experiences as objective reality whilst selectively negating the use of empiricism and logic leads to the incessant hellhole of people saying 'It's all fear', 'It's all terror', 'It's all love', 'It's all (insert peak experience here)'. There is no bottom, just different layers of perception and until you see this, you're constantly lying to yourself that you're getting anywhere 'deeper' or have reached the 'base' -- whatever that may be. You are the kind of person that just sees someone with a contradictory idea to your own and lumps them into a box while screaching: "Flatlander! Flatlander! Materialist!' You do not see the nuance of positions. I do not believe the 'materialist paradigm' to be objectively true, but I see that it has incredible explanatory power. You've relegated everything to black and white boxes. Skeptics of all kinds are needed. As soon as they are removed from this forum, the spiral into self serving mental masturbation will reach its climax point -- but I guess climaxing was always the point of masturbating...

Edited February 4, 2018 by StephenK

[StephenK]

6 hours ago, Mighty Mouse said:

Rest of you fucknuts are way out of your league.

Wow, such great wisdom. I guess you should get that tattooed on your forehead. Truly profound stuff.

Edited February 4, 2018 by StephenK

[WaterfallMachine]

Guys, guys, I agree that Thanatos is mislead here, but geez, no need to be extremely insulting on a sucidal person. You can say your insights straightforwardly and honestly without making fun of the guy.

Thanatos, If you’re not willing to go through the enlightenment route, there are all kinds of other ways to heal as well. There’s exercise, journaling, a site with volunteer listeners called 7 cups of tea, CBT worksheets you can get online, and so on. 

People are giving you too many answers, Thanatos. But they don’t ask you questions — not enough info to know the root cause of your situation here. 

I won’t ask you to do some confusing spiritual thing right now. I just want you to answer — at least just in your mind — why are you feeling empty? Often it’s when people suppress their emotions that they lose their purpose. Was there a time in your life where you felt you had purpose but it disappeared? What thoughts are running through your head now? What are your intentions and feelings throughout your life — even the really tiny ones — starting with now? 

In a change, you can’t find the answers without finding the right questions. You can’t solve a problem in your life if you don’t understand it. 

.

Edited February 4, 2018 by WaterfallMachine