Did the past really happen?

[FrgttnDeer]

Only the experience of the pen is real. 

And the past didn't didn't happen. At least that's what I think/intuit.

But also the pas in like 0.0001 millisecond ago and the same for 0.000001 in the future, it will never exist.

So the present is so infinitely small that all you left with is nothing.

Experience only exist in relationship to time and time is illusion.

 

[dorg]

4 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

@Keanu your belief doesn’t change reality

It does if the new belief does not violate a prior belief.

5 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

When I’m looking at a pen, in the moment I’m seeing it, it’s definitely true because I can see it. Is your experience different?  

In direct experience there are no things, there is just experience. When you touch a table top with your finger, in direct experience there is no finger nor table there is just 'sensation'. The thought (a sensation) of finger or table arise after the touch sensation.

The existence of things (objects) cannot be proved one way or the other as the only 'tool' available is direct experience, and experience never locates nor touches any thing.

The entire world that we think exists, exists only in thought/belief.

[Forestluv]

On 3/23/2018 at 4:10 PM, How to be wise said:

And yet, I wonder, did yesterday actually happen? I mean, I remember waking up and doing things yesterday. But now, all that remains are images in my mind about yesterday. I have no proof of yesterday. All evidence of yesterday are memories in my head. 

Really? You observe no other evidence that yesterday happened?

I gave an exam to students yesterday. Today there is a stack of ungraded exams on my desk and 20 students that can confirm the story. . . 

[Nahm]

@How to be wise yeah. 

[Keanu]

5 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@Keanu your belief doesn’t change reality

Say you were outside and had a thought you wanted to write down, if you believe without a doubt that you have a pen and paper inside that you can use to write down such a thought, that is the shape of your reality, and of you go inside to write it down, your belief confirmed once your thought is on paper

Now say you went outside again and had another thought you wanted to write down, but this time you were miles away, and unknowning to you your house just burnt down from a candle you left burning, reducing everything to ash, yet of you go on the long trek home, to write down your thought, your conviction that it will be there unwavering, your shape of reality unchanged, although wrong

And now you’re standing in the rubble of your house, in shock your life took such a turn, thought, pen and paper completely forgotten, your shape of reality now changed

But what would have happened if you never turned back towards your house, and the thought you wanted to write down was one of action, not study, and you never returned to your house, life left behind forever, you would believe that one day someone would discover the house abandoned, everything as you left it, pen and paper waiting for someone to deal with once found, never knowing it has burnt to the ground 

Edited March 27, 2018 by Keanu

[Neo]

Aren't some people confusing the question whether yesterday exists at the ultimate layer of reality with just plain old does yesterday exist to you?

 

Alan Watts describes the past as seen from the "present" as if you were a boat, stationary, with the waves of water left behind in your wake rippling, and heading off out from you.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Neo

[How to be wise]

@Serotoninluv all evidence of yesterday is in your mind. The papers or your students can’t prove what doesn’t exist.

@Keanu the thought didn’t change reality. Your actions did.

‘But what if you didn’t have that thought’ is an illusion. In reality, if you had that thought, it couldn’t have possibly been any other way. Because you don’t have free will to choose an alternative path. 

@Outer nothing is changing. Notice that ‘change’ is only your mind comparing your thoughts about a few seconds ago to the present. In your direct experience, there is no change at all.  

[Nahm]

@How to be wise Give up “true”. The actual Truth is unbelievable, unthinkable.

Perception of reality in that there are physical things which are seperate, random, and decay, and are all relative to each other, and had a ‘starting point’, and have an ‘ending point’, etc, is not possible. With just the science available today on YouTube, it is also not a rational view. It ends up being very funny, as it is only possible that all that is, is all that is in your awareness, now. It becomes hilariously obvious. At a point, you will find it funny that you “believed” it. Your investigating is on the right path. 

Thinking “if I’m all powerful, why is this experience so limited?” Needs to be categorized as “Thinking”. All thinking reinforces illusion. Aim to Be. Without thinking. Perhaps consider thinking is the projector which keeps you watching an illusion, believing it’s real. 

Tell me if this resonates at all...but...it’s not enough to do the practices, take trips, learn the theory - you also have to create it. Consider - you’re dropping all beliefs to simplify and reduce complexity in experience down to being - AND - how could you be in proximity to the creator that you are, without being a creator? Make sense? 

Be skeptical, but not cynical.

Realize with awareness the conditions arising in you, which filter your giving of love. Question those conditions, given it is you who gets to experience the love, wether it is given or received. 

[Neo]

Nahm, where does faith come into this creating?

[How to be wise]

@Nahm yes, these days I wonder what ‘true’ means. Does it mean something is see. What does ‘exist’ mean? What does ‘happened’ mean? These words start losing their meanings with inquiry. 

[Nahm]

@How to be wise Yeah. Awesome. It’s a nice experience when “alive” crumbles. It’s a funny thing, how realizing a dream, is waking up. Counterintuitive, until the memory of the material self, who was so surely awake, feels counterintuitive. 

[Keanu]

@How to be wise

What is the difference between thought and reality? 

[Nahm]

12 hours ago, Neo said:

Nahm, where does faith come into this creating?

That’s a very interesting question. The word faith has always been in flux, always in change. 20 years ago - a word someone uses because they don’t understand the word dogma yet. 10 years ago - a strong character trait for someone digging deep and making a better life, pushing through the adversity of their hardships. Nowadays, it seems like a deep knowing that people have forgotten, but sense it is there - and some seek the truth, and some keep the faith.  Maybe it’s following the root of Self / self, aware of it, but without information or theory.  I want to answer your question, - faith relative to creating, - but it keeps looping and making me laugh. 

[Forestluv]

14 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@Serotoninluv all evidence of yesterday is in your mind. The papers or your students can’t prove what doesn’t exist.

@Keanu

I don’t use the term “prove” since I don’t have 100% certainty of anything.

Of course, yesterday does not exist in the present moment. The papers are evidence that the exam took place in a previous moment.

I’m into nonduality, yet humans have evolved the perception of a timeline. Acknowledging that timeline is part of The Game I’m willing to play. My character is not attracted to living solo in the woods. 

[Neo]

That’s a very interesting question. The word faith has always been in flux, always in change. 20 years ago - a word someone uses because they don’t understand the word dogma yet. 10 years ago - a strong character trait for someone digging deep and making a better life, pushing through the adversity of their hardships. Nowadays, it seems like a deep knowing that people have forgotten, but sense it is there - and some seek the truth, and some keep the faith.  Maybe it’s following the root of Self / self, aware of it, but without information or theory.  I want to answer your question, - faith relative to creating, - but it keeps looping and making me laugh.

Yes faith is different to knowledge for sure. There must be something that keeps beginners like me on this path, keeps them coming back for more. We know we have to drop all the words and knowledge, like at the last minute I guess. And yet we "keep the faith"? You are believers in a sense. But what if what you believe in is slightly misguided, over ambitious, or just plain wrong, maybe we need to drop that too. You would think that the death of an ego does indeed mean loosing every last ounce of belief too, or not. I really don't know. On the other hand, belief to me is everything.

 

[How to be wise]

@Keanu thoughts are the mental pictures and sounds in your head. Reality is what you see and hear ‘externally’. Be sure not to confuse the both. 

[How to be wise]

@Serotoninluv ‘the papers are evidence that the exam took place in a previous moment.’ Is that true. Can you absolutely know that that’s true. 

[blazed]

Yes and no.

As long as you play in the game of illusions and can use the recollection of memory and results to make connections and logical sense the past does actually exist.

Now contemplate your death, imagine your about to die right now. There will no longer be a working body and mind,  no you for self reflection.

If there is no you in the future who can self reflect then how could you ever have existed in the first place?

How can you be here right in the moment when ultimately there is no you in the future?

Only the mind can think,  make logical sense,  use time of past, present,  and future,  but you're not the mind.

To say you're the mind is no different to say you are sight, or sound. Just another sense.

 

[Nahm]

Call it a substance, superposition, God, whatever ya like, but it appears now. Papers are appearing now. “Yesterday” was not somewhere or sometime, it’s the now you’re in, now. The now is changing like a freakin constantly perfect magic trick. With the direct experience of seeing this, it’s easy and funny. Without the direct experience, it’s pretty dang hard to grasp mentally, because it seems to never miss a detail, never buffers. Quite amazing. After initial direct experience, reality does not follow the consistency. But tell that to someone who has not experienced it directly, and you sound like a fool, or a liar. What a mindfuck we’re in. (I’m in)

[i am I AM]

vanish.....I don't know how old you are, but as you've noticed, suicide attempts are not helping this situation...also, you don't have to trust your parents.

Life is not black and white. The self-construction vs. destruction. There's no vs. You could take things from the construction to destruction, or vice versa and follow either, and they would be equally valid. And you are valid. So you need to live.

Another suggestion is, find a "great teacher" and/or "guardian" who doesn't criticize others and has the wisdom to be thankful for correction.....