Leo What Difference Does it Make if Reality is Imaginary or Not?

[SQAAD]

Leo Why Does it Matter if Reality is Imaginary or not?  Isn't this just a word game??

Let's say someone tortures me to death. Even if that is imaginary or not it doesn't make any difference to my suffering and pain.If i starve to death it doesn't make any difference to me if it is imaginary or real.

And since  Real=Imaginary i don't really see any way that this understanding could change my life. Who cares if the suffering is imaginary when it feels real and causes me all this pain?

Any responses from anyone are highly appreciated.

[Forestluv]

Notice how everything you wrote is oriented toward “me”. 

You are imagining “me”. 

[Eph75]

What if you try looking at it from a psychologial perspective, and not from a stance where it is about physical pain of or destruction of the you-body.

Emotions, perspectives, anything that may be psychologically harmful completely changes meaning. E.g. all the suffering or toxicity you see people having on this forum. It's all in your head. 

Do you have to detach from the idea of living within that imagination? No you don't, it is up to you. 

Word-play? Maybe. Have you had an insight, sure. If not, maybe just another dogma is at play.

It is just imagination that it "should matter". It doesn't. It just is. 

[seeking_brilliance]

I have nightmares where I'm really scared, or suffering... and for all intents and purposes, yes its REAL. But.... then I wake up and poof, nothing but a bitter memory.  The dream self who was suffering was not me, and no longer exists (although of course when we recall dreams we consider that to be ourselves.) All of the things which that dream self endured was self inflicted and I should probably feel a little bad about that but... well, the nightmare is already over. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, SQAAD said:

Who cares if the suffering is imaginary when it feels real and causes me all this pain?

The point is precisely that if you were conscious that suffering is imaginary, it would stop being painful.

But you're not conscious of that, so it is still painful for you.

There is a big difference between believing that suffering is imaginary vs actually being conscious of it at the moment of the torture. This work is not done at the level of belief.

So you're right in that there is no point in believing that reality is imaginary.

But you're wrong in that that's not what I'm suggesting you to do. I'm suggesting you to become CONSCIOUS of it. Which is a totally different thing. You are not anywhere near being conscious of it yet. This seems like a word game because for you it IS only a word game. But I am telling you there is something beyond the word game which you are not yet aware of. If you ever go beyond the word game, that's where you'll feel the difference.

Imagine becoming so conscious that you can no longer be physically killed. That's what we're talking about here. Obviously this cannot happen as a matter of belief. You must actually become physically unkillable. How is such a thing possible? Well, if you knew how, you'd already be immortal. So of course it won't make much sense from your current vantage point. You have to be willing to go radically outside the box of what you consider reality to be.

You have to appreciate that your ego will try to keep all of these teachings safely at the level of word games. Because then the ego is never threatened. The challenge in this work is to make sure you're actually doing the work, not just thinking about it. Thinking about doing the work is not the same as doing the work. Talking about enlightenment is not enlightenment. Thinking about reality being an illusion is not the same as experiencing it as such in every moment.

It is the difference between talking about having a million dollars vs actually having one million in cash in your closet.

[Lento]

Actually, if you believed that the suffering is imaginary, it would stop being real. Not only that, you can turn things upside down. You can believe that the suffering is a good thing, and that it will pay off in the future, and it will certainly become as you imagined. You will literally turn the suffering into bliss. You just need to truly believe.

Belief is a shortcut for consciousness. That's how powerful imagination is. Imagination is a superpower. God creates through imagination.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Lento

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Lento said:

Actually, if you believed that the suffering is imaginary, it would stop being real.

Suffering sits deeper than belief.

When the suffering gets strong enough, all your pretty beliefs will fly out the window. Then only consciousness can prevail. And even that will flag and wane for most people. Only training of consciousness can overcome that.

[Lento]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Suffering sits deeper than belief.

When the suffering gets strong enough, all your pretty beliefs will fly out the window. Then only consciousness can prevail.

I don't believe that ?

[cetus]

@Leo Gura The torture scene from Casino Royal "To the right-to the right" 

[Eph75]

 

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Lento said:

I don't believe that ?

We can always put your beliefs to the test with a hammer

The hammer will win.

[Lento]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

We can always put your belief to the test with a hammer

As we can do to your consciousness ?

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Lento said:

As we can do to your consciousness ?

Yes, which is why I said serious training of consciousness is necessary.

[Lento]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The hammer will win.

If it wins, then my belief isn't a true belief. A true belief is stronger than anything.

There are many stories of people getting tortured merely for the sake of having certain beliefs, and they refused to change despite all the pain and suffering.

The Pharaoh of Moses threw people in boiled water, and they still wouldn't go back on what they believed.

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, which is why I said serious training of consciousness is necessary.

Belief also isn't built overnight. It requires a complex of stories, which is sealed by an unquestionable faith. Perhaps I was wrong about the shortcut thing, and perhaps my way is the other side of yours. Yours is done through deconstruction, and mine is done through construction.

[Forestluv]

11 minutes ago, Lento said:

There are many stories of people getting tortured merely for the sake of having certain beliefs, and they refused to change despite all the pain and suffering

The Pharaoh of Moses threw people in boiled water, and they still wouldn't go back on what they believed.

That involves attachment/identification to a belief. There is transcendence to that in which there is no "they" attached/identified to the belief. Transcendence is not beholden to any belief, phenomena, object, image, appearance, sensation, perception etc.  

[Leo Gura]

27 minutes ago, Lento said:

It requires a complex of stories, which is sealed by an unquestionable faith.

Lol, good luck with that.

Every story you construct will come crashing down on your head one day, because you are building castles in the sky.

And to defend those stories you will of course become a devil. Because the truth is, they are all fictions you've invented to suit your ego's survival.

[Lento]

15 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

That involves attachment/identification to a belief. There is transcendence to that in which there is no "they" attached/identified to the belief. Transcendence is not beholden to any belief, phenomena, object, image, appearance, sensation, perception etc.  

That's true when viewed from the consciousness paradigm. However, these labels don't really matter when viewed from the beliefs paradigm (religion).

The consciousness paradigm is more a paradigm designed for skeptics who only trust their direct experience. It's really just another belief system that is derived from direct experience. You believe whatever things to be true because your direct experience said so.

Religion, on the other hand, is designed for believers. The difference is that religion is built upon the direct experience of the "prophets", and then is transferred as beliefs to other people. Those people aren’t skeptics. They are believers. Stage Purple/Red/Blue, if you will. To a believer, attachment/identity is a precious thing, and transcendence means nothing.

Just different ways of viewing the world.

@Leo Gura There's a relativity here that you're dismissing. Your stories aren't the absolute truth (unless you believe so, which proves my point), they're just beliefs derived from your direct experience.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Lento

[Bill W]

@Lento Putting beliefs and direct experience in the same sentence causes problems in my experience.

EDIT removed the Lol shit list and karma reference as seems like a troll post otherwise Sorry! Just saying. Touchy subject. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Bill W

[Forestluv]

55 minutes ago, Lento said:

That's true when viewed from the consciousness paradigm. However, these labels don't really matter when viewed from the beliefs paradigm (religion).

The consciousness paradigm is more a paradigm designed for skeptics who only trust their direct experience. It's really just another belief system that is derived from direct experience. You believe whatever things to be true because your direct experience said so.

Religion, on the other hand, is designed for believers. The difference is that religion is built upon the direct experience of the "prophets", and then is transferred as beliefs to other people. Those people aren’t skeptics. They are believers. Stage Purple/Red/Blue, if you will. To a believer, attachment/identity is a precious thing, and transcendence means nothing.

Of course attachment/identification is contraction. That's not what is being pointed to. There is transcendence to all of those "paradigms". There is awareness that these paradigms are appearances that have no more relevance than the appearances of bird chirps. 

As well, "direct experience" is an ineffable pointer, distinct from personal "experience".  An "experience" is a contextualization that never happened, yet is held in the mind as a memory, as an experience. There is an infinite number of contextualizations to create an experience. That is not direct experience, yet is included within direct experience. Direct experience is not beholden to any idea, concept or belief. Similar to thought stories, there can be attachment/identification to experience, in which the experience is a form of belief - as you stated. Yet direct experience has no experiencer. It is not beholden to any belief. 

Another way to point is that "experience" involves a timeline. For example, I had an experience yesterday. Direct experience has no timeline. It is not confined to a linear timeline or contextualization.  

Most of the time people use the term "direct experience", they are referring to a contextualized experience within a timeline. 

There can be attachment/identification to thought stories / experience. For example, I had an experience tripping on shrooms in Guatemala. A nondual essence of Oneness was revealed and there was empathic connection to trees and humans. There was an awakening of singularity. These memories and images are a contextualized experience that is appearing Now. It never happened within a linear timeline. There can be attachment/identification that the experience happened and is part of "me". There can be a belief in the experience. This is part of humanness, yet is not what is being pointed to with "direct experience". There is something *prior* to the contextualization of "experience". One can point to this by adding in the term "direct", yet experience and direct experience are commonly conflated, just as relative and absolute are conflated. 

1 hour ago, Lento said:

Yours is done through deconstruction, and mine is done through construction.

If you take construction to it's terminal end, there is One construction and all separation collapses such that Full deconstruction = Full construction. . . Nothing = Everything. 

[Spiral Wizard]

@Leo Gura Man, you are dropping so much value on this forum, it is unbelievable.