The self-indulgence of spiritual work

[Adamq8]

@Cosmin_Visan Im all for finding out stuff and when you do find something interesting please share it with us =)

And im not going to argue about anything with you

Im interested in what you found just so u know

[Chris365]

@Cosmin_VisanI see you're pretty much stuck in physicality, most of us still are. You're trying to get at the 'physical reality laws', 'real reality' etc.

Have you considered that physicality is the tail end of Consciousness, the reflection of your state of being? No point in trying to modify your state of being by manipulating the reflection

19 minutes ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

That's a dangerous thought to have. With such a thought you can start killing people and justify to yourself that they were all just concepts in your imagination. Be careful entertaining such ideas!

People keep bringing these type of 'what ifs' that are just concepts. If you feel killing people excites you, by all means go for it, don't let a few beliefs stop you. You probably won't, because these 'what ifs' are just concepts, they have no actuality.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Chris365

[Cosmin_Visan]

1 minute ago, Adamq8 said:

@Cosmin_Visan Im all for finding out stuff and when you do find something interesting please share it with us =)

You can check my papers to see how things should be done: https://philpeople.org/profiles/cosmin-visan

Let's just take the problem of time. On psychedelics you might experience timelessness and then say that time doesn't exist. Ok, so far so good. But what more can you say about this ? And at this point you have nothing more to say. That piece of information is quite disconnected from other things that you can learn about consciousness. But if you read my paper "The Quale of Time", you will see that through reason you can learn so much more. You can see in a rational way why time is just a quale in consciousness, you can then describe it, mention its properties, explain its properties, learn about the Self, and so much more. You then connect this with other phenomena, like evoution, and you develop yourself a much broader view of what is going on. This is what awakening looks like. Not just feeling fluffy stuff.

[Breakingthewall]

@Cosmin_Visan one conciousness, many, no time, etc doesn't matter. The only valid thing is the direct experience. All those concepts are tools to help to open the mind, transcend the ego and see the truth, that can't be explained, only perceived. If you have better ideas or concepts for that, are welcome

[Adamq8]

@Cosmin_Visan What individual?

How can different points of view within conciousness interact with eachother? Cause they are conciousness ?

And quantum mechanics and so forth, you recognize when you awake that it is a imagination!!! Hello??

This is relative truth you are speaking about.

How does the dream world function?

That I do not know.

The observer is causing the wave function to collapse.

There is no science without the observer.

We are creating reality as we go.

But I have become directly concious of conciousness imagining everything into existence, how? I don't know but it makes sense that it is like how your mind creates a dream.

Like I said im not going to argue with you.

Sometimes I feel like this world had already been created and now we are experiencing it.

[Cosmin_Visan]

4 minutes ago, Chris365 said:

@Cosmin_VisanI see you're pretty much stuck in physicality, most of us still are. You're trying to get at the 'physical reality laws', 'real reality' etc.

I'm idealist. But only because consciousness is all there is, we cannot just ignore everything else. This is not an honest attitude. Is just intellectual laziness. Once we realize that consciousness is all there is, we still have to recover what we know from science, we need to recover the laws of physics, we need to recover biology and evolution, we need to integrate psi phenomena. There is so much work to do.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Cosmin_Visan

[Breakingthewall]

5 minutes ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

that through reason you can learn so much more.

You must to leave the reason away during the spiritual work to trascend the mind level. You are in love of the mind, that at the end is the ego. It's a way without exit

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Breakingthewall

[Adamq8]

@Cosmin_Visan It is good that you want to evolve science! 

We need people like you in the community.

But awakening is not relative to science at all I would say, ive had such radical experiences that my mind just died it felt like, it was fucked up.

Awakening is when you see the Truth.

Conciousness is infinite and unlimited and can imagine ANYTHING.

But how thoose imaginings work is why we need someone like you!

This is interesting ?

[Origins]

@Adamq8 If consciousness is all there is Adam, are you conscious of what you do, how you do it and why you do it, including why you believe your ideas? I asked you a question that you never got back to me on regarding my last thread, which was pointed at why you believed what you believe.

I asked it matter of factly, skipping over the fact that you never really addressed my thread you just sort of posted randomly but that was okay I just decided to respond with a simple question.

How much have you questioned your ideas, do you need others to validate your belief and why do you feel the need to confront others about their beliefs in a passive aggressive and condescending way towards @Cosmin_Visan? If you understood consciousness, which contains an aspect of not knowing, how could you be so confident that the reality you're living in wasn't the opposite to a dream? Lastly, if everything is just simply imaginary, how can you know what the truth is? 

To me I'm noticing patterns in this narrative where you're highly motivated to contextualise Comin_Visan's initial raising here in both a shallow inclusive "welcome to the community" but dismissive "If you knew what consciousness was you would not post in this thread" way, seeing you know consciousness so much, why are you so motivated to post at all?

Honestly, in light of what I've viewed in this thread combined with your response to my thread I'm sensing a lot of disingenuousness, a lot of flag waving without a sincere desire to explore truth, the main point that I believe Cosmin_Visan's created here.

Personally I'm of the belief that no one should be allowed to hide behind ideas without introspection if they're operating under the assumption that they're discussing things as openly and critically as possible, however if these last two sentiments are not applicable then there's really no need to address what I've stated here (all good here then) so that things can instead be concluded that you're either discussing things:
(1) unopenly and uncritically,
(2) unopenly but critically,
(3) openly but uncritically.

I'd probably go with the last choice combined with only a slight amount of the first.

If anything, I'd prefer not to discuss this at all any further because I can tell where this might lead, as is the case with anyone that has passionate beliefs, though maybe there's something to learn here beyond potential dismissal of someones valid perspective (something that I've cited here with respect to what's been directed so far towards Cosmic_visan)

For example there are many people that are misled and even if they're on the right path, they're not thinking well enough on that path and need to do greater introspective work, this is the mature perspective and I'm happy to elaborate on that further if needed.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Origins

[Adamq8]

@Origins @Cosmin_Visan 

Sorry for tagging you cosmin but can't seem to erase the tag.

First off.

This is not a belief a dogma or anything else.

This is direct experience. 

For you to even be able to respond or be alive, you need awareness.

So in your entire life you think that you have been a seperate entity with a body and a mind and everything outside of you is not you.

But if we really look into your experience you will notice that awareness is actually the Truth,

Between your thoughts what is there?

If you still ur mind you notice what is always there, it is awareness, and notice that all of ur life you have been experiencing objective stuff so awareness has been in the background, but when the mind "ceases" the nature of conciousness shines forth,  total emptyness and its "qualites" is awareness and awareness is knowing.

You know thanks to awareness itself.

And you have not experienced something outside of awareness and you never will.

No one will.

Like I said, my own direct experiences have been a knowing into what consciousness is.

So we can conclude that to know existence is to know awareness, they are ONE.

And the mind, aka perception feeling sensing thinking is at the ultimate level awareness itself.

I have become directly concious of what consciousness is.

It is unlimited infinite empty of anything. But it creates the mind in order to experience objectivity. 

So no this is not a belief.

Look for yourself instead of coming and arguing about beliefs.

There is nothing outside of awareness, you can believe it is something outside, but see this, everything you think is outside of it, is actually inside of it.

And btw, this is not something im thinking up.

This is purely direct experience through meditation and psychedelics. 

Meditation btw is ur original state as awareness.

Awareness contains all.

This is not an idea.

Look at ur experience and stop mental masturbation to sound clever. 

 

[Adamq8]

@Origins And when you have an awakening experience,  the YOU is gone and it is awareness becoming aware of its very nature.

Infinite awareness which includes infinite mind aka GOD the creator.

 

[Origins]

@Adamq8 "Look at ur experience and stop mental masturbation to sound clever" this is what I'm talking about.

I've arrived at my own conclusion and I also believe that all there is is consciousness, if you actually took a look at my dang signature you'd be able to register this rather than being so stuck in your own head about what you think is and isn't.

@Cosmin_Visan never even argued against those ideas, if you re-read his initial post you'll clearly see that he's pointing at the shallowness of peoples thinking not necessarily at the validity of those ideas. 

Shallow thinking leads people astray. 

It just comes across as ranting because you're going from one point to the next like a bunch of fortune cookies being thrown into a bowl and unwrapped randomly. 

What are you trying to prove exactly? You're not proving anything because you've got no reasoning. I have my direct experience of consciousness as the is but I have no desire to go ranting about it on the forum or at anyone, Cosmin has brought up a very valuable perspective here that needs to be thought about deeply if people are going to be properly encouraged to think for themselves.

[Adamq8]

@Origins Where does thinking lead you but around in circles? Mind dont know anything about itself,  awareness knows all.

Im sorry if I offended you or if I sounded harsch.

But this is from my own experiences and Truth is so raaaaaadical. 

And the only thing I actually pointed out to cosmin was that conciousness is all and so forth is not an idea or flower power concept.

It is the Truth.

And I told him that we need people like him. 

 

[Adamq8]

@Origins And im not trying to be rude either mate.

I think we can have good discussions about this things.

But ultimately the truth is the truth.

And I agree that we can talk about alot of other stuff aswell.

And maybe im coming out a bit arrogant in the way i write.

And for that iam sorry.

One love

[Adamq8]

@Origins And I will say that you make alot of valid points

Ofcourse i still got my ego who gets triggered sometimes, and the ego wants to take the Credit of things.

Im just trying to shine the light of awareness into my ego traps and im working on it.

I appreciate your honesty.

[Origins]

@Adamq8 the only person I'm noticing going round in circles here is your communication to date. If you can't agree that we can get beyond going round in circles, why on earth would you:

(1) post at all, and you've now posted 3 times might in the last 17 minutes (from last post - about). Might I suggest simply taking a step back and reflecting first which is what this whole discussion is all about, Cosmin is calling out people who aren't doing such combined with at least on my end noticing the importance of that to ensure people aren't led astray.
(2) post with any intention that contained the belief that I would agree with you
(3) try to state your "direct experiences" as you've personally posited them for any reason other than to influence another person towards being at the very least intrigued to explore those ideas?

This isn't how to have a healthy discussion, a healthy discussion moves forward, not backwards or around in circles. If you wish to participate in a healthy discussion share such and we can discard the idea of moving around in circles, I for one mastered the art of walking from crawling to hobbling and beyond rather than chasing my own feet and I'm sure you eventually did as well. Progressive discussion by definition operates in a similar way, crawling around on the floor like a toddler at the beginning but then slowly moving towards becoming a marathon runner. This involves thinking, shared understanding and open-mindedness. Here we move slowly, we don't need to shoot quickly at the beast in the bushes which may only be the wind. This is an important point by the way, analogously, direct experience is to say I can see that I'm seeing but to the point of what we're or at least what I'm discussing, I know I'm seeing and I have the direct experience of that but if I never questioned my sight I'd be less probable rather than more probable to become a person that invented something analogous to an fMRI machine or infrared vision.

Please, if we can just keep this one post at a time I'd appreciate it. Its a better use of my time and its a better use of your time. Thanks. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Origins

[Adamq8]

@Origins Im unfortuneatly not that impressive with english as you so my vocabulary is not that impressive as yours as of yet.

One thing I noticed is that you in a subtle way is trying to outsmart or dumb me down, which is not really a nice quality imo.

This is thr feeling i get but I could be projecting as well. 

And I def agree that this thread is great and it is an investigation into reality which is nice.

And ive might have rushed to conclusion without proper reading into what this thread was about.

And im intrigued with science as well.

Im open to hear your opinions and everyone elses aswell.

But a serious and long conversation takes time and I was at work hence multiple posts. 

But I want to say that I enjoy ur writing style and I actually enjoy reading it even tho i can feel my ego get slightly triggered lol

 

[Origins]

@Adamq8 please stop trying to make this about you or about what projections you have about my character and just try to keep this to the points made by Cosmin at the larger scale. This is his thread and you've done a great job at hijacking and derailing what could still be an interesting discussion on how to relay interesting ideas to people of various backgrounds. 

Otherwise I'm glad you've acknowledged the other points it shows self awareness but again please let's just keep things objective here, this isn't about you, this isn't about me, this is about the points raised and the truth versus falseness of those ideas and what we can do to reinforce either perspective there in the context of its potential problems, the latter here being of social relevance here in this particular situation.

I get its how our brains are conditioned as well as inclined towards a negativity bias when it comes to interpreting feedback that runs contrary to our own ideas, so I have no judgement towards you there, I'm just bringing things to your attention so that we can progress forward as productively as possible.

This isn't about you or me, its about the discussion. Best Adam  .

Edited November 17, 2020 by Origins

[Adamq8]

@Origins Was thinking the same actually! 

Lets stop hijacking the thread =)

Wish you all the best,  perhaps you can elaborate on what Cosmin said?

[Origins]

4 hours ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

I see people interested in spirituality only repeating a handful of ideas, like: consciousness is all there is, world is an illusion, time doesn't exist, we are God, etc. And that's pretty much all they say and they seem satisfied with these few ideas. Why do they stop there ? There are millions of philosophy pages written by thousands of philosophers that really do deep work into such problems. Why nobody read those philosophers and instead become self-satisfied with just a handful of flower-power sounding ideas ?

@Adamq8 I'd be happy to:

There are a few different categories we need to consider here, the main category I'd like to raise concerns peoples potential psychological problems in the context of the spiritual ideas raised in the above quote and spirituality in general. The second category I'd like to talk about is the relationship that this site has with psychedelic's in the context of spirituality and the lack of responsibility so far taken as it concerns promoting a shared critical investigation into the nature of the experiences pre, during and post use and the ramifications this has on not only the investigation into the nature of truth but group think and the myriad of biases that can arise from that.

These two categories are in large part how I would describe the problematic nature of what Cosmin_Visan has raised here. 

(1) Many people are attracted to spiritual ideas or rather ideas that have been created from the perspective of spirituality, directly experienced or not, this can be problematic when the people who have had direct experiences are communicating with those that have not, in particular there's boundary issues when said persons they're communicating with may have pre-existing problems. This site has a forum category where people can discuss, and I quote, "Serious Emotional Issues", which means this site not only implicitly but explicitly welcomes people with serious mental issues (as per the description underneath the main title), therefore people who could take spiritual ideas the wrong way, to this site. This makes this site responsible, and dare I say it in this instance when you're trying to communicate your ideas with another person it also makes you as a communicator responsible. We may not be responsible for the site but we're responsible for what we communicate.

Spiritual ideas of various kinds like the ones noted in the quote and I'd be happy to elaborate with examples are particularly troublesome with the following mental illnesses:

• schizophrenia
• biopolar
• depersonalisation
• dissociative identity disorder
• depression (a spirituality is often used as a form of escapism for many people here --- colloquially terms as spiritual bypassing)
• identity formation --- for many people, they replace healthy identity formation with an identity around spirituality in order to have the feeling of something say like truth without the actual practice of truth discernment
• other sorts of problems especially people who have problems distinguishing between self and other ---> Boundary issues

Many of the symptoms exhibited in the above disorders can lead people to being highly, highly impressionable, meaning they lack critical thinking so when they take in these ideas they're not going to be able to properly integrate them into their psyche. Meaning, they may actually end up with some of those mental illnesses or just symptoms therein if they don't tread lightly when it comes downloading some of the ideas and or trying to directly experience them themselves. 

(2) There is also the problem of the manner in which ideas are expressed. I know I have sight for example as I stated before, as well as many other senses, but what is the need to be running around telling everyone I have sight? We all have sight. So what?

Okay so I've realised what I'm positing as the truth as, "I have sight", now its about how we can perhaps use the vision we've acquired for more creative purposes in our lives, just as we can for any other direct experience we believe we've had about reality, as opposed to trying to convince blind people that they ought to be trying to see the light. Maybe some people wish to be blind, and I don't mean that critically, there may actually be many benefits to being blind that we take for granted because we have sight, in fact I can elaborate on many instances in which that's the case if you like, scientifically and creatively speaking.

Moving on, imagine the thought experiment of a baby being taught to learn a book overtime, maybe a bible of the sorts about god and what not and how they know they've seen the light and now they should kill all them peeps because god told them, and now all they do everyday is jump online and talk about their god realisations in the most perfect of intentions while underneath they have a lot of resentment towards x group of people while on the surface telling themselves "no I love them in this way, no wait I love them in this way, no wait its for the greater good of love that I love them in this way! (whatever way that may be)".

This raises the issue of how do we discriminate between genuine direct insights into God, love, existence and so on with those that merely believe they have? Is psychedelic's the sole differentiator? What if someone who took psychedelic's, just as much as anyone else on the planet, and the result for them was merely more belief in their own religion and worse, greater reason for them to commit violence based on said assertions?

Every one of us is making assessments about reality based on our experiences, inclusive of direct experience, when they differ, what exactly gives us authority over how another being experiences reality or ought to experience it other than simply proclaiming that we have greater authority, "because we do" or "because we've done psychedelic's", "done more psychedelic's", "done psychedelic's in the right way not their bad way (even though they have no real idea here unless explicitly stated)".

I recommend looking into the idea of anthropomorphism. 

Like I mentioned, just as sight gives many benefits to someone, the sight someone believes they have or anyone has as a direct experience into God may come at many costs to perceiving many other things that a blind person can see, perhaps even an aspect of God they've neglected but remain irrefutably unconvinced of until the end of time because, in this example, they have the book of God written by God, not only that, they've taken all the psychedelic's to prove it, even though, perhaps in many other instances, other spiritual texts were written about God after the taking of psychedelic's of various kinds which revealed other ideas about God which ran contrary to the ideas about God _directly experienced_ as they put it after their psychedelic experience.  

Can't the commonality between peoples experiences be correlated with potential shared group think about what psychedelic's are meant to produce as well? This is in line with a placebo effect in part being at play with psychedelic's and what to expect, jumping onto someones site who's done a lot of psychedelic's one would assume that said person who thinks about doing or has done psychedelic's is probably psychologically influenced to believe in a similar narrative as the site creator. Given the sheer number of people talking about such it creates a shared group orientated confirmation bias and denial of not only evidence but just basic critical discussion about potential alternative interpretations that may, or may not, exist.

This forum in lieu of its name operates under the assumption that it exists to aid the human endeavour towards self actualisation, so wouldn't doing so involve being prudent about having a duty of care as opposed to someone making rigid assessments in relation to what is and isn't about reality? Shouldn't all of us users have, as a consequence of typing on this kind of site, as stated, also have a duty of care when we write what we write, acknowledging the experience and reality of another person before jumping too quickly to conclusions?

When you create a wall about what you believe or directly perceive as reality, however you wish to put it, you miss that foresight of empathy that allows you to destroy those walls and open up instead to the story of someone else's perception of existence that may be able to contribute to your own. And even if we don't wish to tear down those walls, we don't, after all we may have spent a great deal of time and intelligence constructing them, but at a minimum to aid our own building, we can at least build a ladder to see over our own walls or if we're super defensive about possible intrusion just build a tower (or see high from a castle) that allows us to see over them and in doing so, allowing us to see potential horizons in the future we may choose or not choose to travel to ourselves. 

I hope this simple post lays the background foundation to @Cosmin_Visan's good post now.

It's not only relevant as it concerns opening up degrees of introspection on the insights and the potential noted psychosocial problems, but also as it concerns expanding outwards from discussion as well, so that the realisation someone had which led them to the direct experience can be opened up again further to discover other direct experiences they can potentially have about reality rather than encouraging the silencing of any further investigation into either the questioning of direct insights or the discovery of further direct insight.

Thank you Adam, I'm glad we've been able to progress forward in our discussion now  .