What is happiness?

[Someone here]

7 hours ago, xxxx said:

God, in the ultimate sense is peace

God is no more peace than it is anguish.. Stress.. Pain..sickness.. Death.. Murderer.. Rape.. Theft.. Cancer.. Sorrow...depression.. Madness.. Loneliness.. Disability.. Disasters.. Chaos.. Hell.   Before we move further in this conversation (if you wish to)... Justify why and how is "peace" being cherry picked here as the essence of God and not infinite other horrible stuff. 

Edited January 20, 2021 by Someone here

[Someone here]

9 hours ago, Snader said:

That's what spiritual practices and growing your consciousness is about.

You don't have to take it to the extreme. Practice it. Next time you drop and break the coffee pan while making coffee in the morning, accept it and smile while picking up the shards from the floor.

Why are you sounding like my dad or something lol? ?Jk 

Good advice and surely helps with positive living. Thanks! 

 

[VeganAwake]

The end of the need for things to be one way or the other ❤

[Snader]

17 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Why are you sounding like my dad or something lol? ?Jk 

Good advice and surely helps with positive living. Thanks! 

 

Haha just recalling how it's been with myself and trying to put it in the frames of wisdom. Of course I tend to avoid pain and discomfort as much as anybody else. I know the shit waves can sometimes hit really hard and when they do it's hard to avoid falling to victim mindset.

Remember, ultimately I am your dad  

[Javfly33]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

I have to disagree with the entirety of this. 

I literally asked if pain and suffering are part of what undoubtedly must be considered part of my "true" nature and you are denying that by actually admitting that it's "known by me as me"...????  So you are saying no because yes? 

He is right.

You need an awakening to get it. You must "remember" what you really are.

Although I´d say happiness as always is not the best word. I would say peace. A peace so deep and untouched that goes beyond language. 

[Mu_]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

I have to disagree with the entirety of this. 

I literally asked if pain and suffering are part of what undoubtedly must be considered part of my "true" nature and you are denying that by actually admitting that it's "known by me as me"...????  So you are saying no because yes? 

this is a very subtle message, and will take a radical openness to perhaps see.  Lets start with suffering. 

You said "God is no more peace than it is anguish.. Stress.. Pain..sickness.. Death.. Murderer.. Rape.. Theft.. Cancer.. Sorrow...depression.. Madness.. Loneliness.. Disability.. Disasters.. Chaos.. Hell.   Before we move further in this conversation (if you wish to)... Justify why and how is "peace" being cherry picked here as the essence of God and not infinite other horrible stuff. "

What I'm about to say may sound very humanly detatched, but it makes the point more clear for you to hopefully see the point more easily.

For starters death, murder, rape, cancer, disability are event's and the others are responses or experiences of such events.  Yes from "one angle" these issues as you feel them are very much on a spectrum of potential heaviness or suffering, "for humans".  This doesn't mean these issues are that way objectively.  They may not even be that much of a big deal to some humans going through them as well.  Yes they can be, but not always.  You also live knowing these go on so to say all the time on earth, yet they don't each weigh you down each time they happen.  They only impact you when they happen to you or you think about them.

It may start to dawn on you that there is a "inmaterialness" or a non-exactness or inherency to these so called believed negative events.  Perhaps it may seem that meaning is only applied to such matters, by you or mind.  While this may not be ultimately true, its a healthy stepping stone in many traditions to go forward with such wisdom until you see with deeper subtlety what I'm pointing towards.  Also, I'm not talking about a clever re-rationalization of murder, rape, cancer from the belief/feeling that they are already negative, but a radical understanding that they aren't those from the get go.  This may require more "awakening" to see innately the truth of what I speak, but one could say that as One awakens, to Oneness, or "The only thing/non-thing" such event's/happenings are seen as ones own unfolding or body.

When such a awakening happens questions such as does anything really happen to Only Thing There is, when a murder happens, a dog dies, a monkey rapes another monkey, a meteor hits a planet, when a galaxy fades......Again these are all just appearances of Oneness and in such the already convinced beliefs of pain/wrongness/suffering of such believed actualities, can be understood in new dimensions.  You may also weep like you've never weeped before from the impact of such insights.  But either way, One could say the Heart is freed in new ways, to feel, understand, love, embrace suffering, pain, sorrow, joy, non-attachment, and as such a growing or more constant happiness or peace can be ever present, while such currently regarded horrors, are no longer taken as such from their original assumption, but again from a new dimension of understanding.

Warning, this is not a full picture, but a pointer, this isn't a message to believe there's nothing going on or one should not feel or care, or to go out and do what ever you want since there is no consequences.

[Gesundheit]

I always say it's easy to talk philosophy as long as you're living a comfortable life. But what happens when someone comes and rapes and tortures you? All of the sudden, you'll be suffering and in pain. All of these unicornical ideas about happiness and peace of mind will fly out of the window. And you will be left with hatred towards life and God and everything. Hippies on drugs won't understand, because the high effect is stronger. But drugs don't last forever.

[xxxx]

5 hours ago, Someone here said:

God is no more peace than it is anguish.. Stress.. Pain..sickness.. Death.. Murderer.. Rape.. Theft.. Cancer.. Sorrow...depression.. Madness.. Loneliness.. Disability.. Disasters.. Chaos.. Hell.   Before we move further in this conversation (if you wish to)... Justify why and how is "peace" being cherry picked here as the essence of God and not infinite other horrible stuff. 

@Mu_ has pointed out the things I wanted to say.

However, I'll add a few things here:

This is a healthy discussion, and I shall be glad to hear your insights.

When you said that God is no more peace than it is anguish, etc., - I am not talking about peace as an emotion here --- it is a constant state of being akin to death. You asked what happiness it --- and this, manifestation of peace, according to me, is eternal happiness; conversely, we are all immersed in a rather fragile physical body, so we have limits. Most of these aforementioned 'negative' states of being scream of the limits of our existence, and we, end up catering to what we know best about, that is going to help alleviate the pressures of life, and term it happiness, through the process of gain and loss; in the sense that we try to constantly seek something above us, in a search for hope, that will serve as an emollient to these wounds that the society inflicts upon us. 

I am not telling that suffering, pain, etc., is not a manifestation of God. Of course, it exists, and in the meta perspective, it is God that is responsible for this --- but we are the limited expression of God --- the true nature that I was talking about is devoid of humanness --- for there's an infinite amount of existence that isn't human. We are just specks here --- albeit, it is very real for us. 

Imagine a sage sitting atop a mountain, having retired from the morbid constraints of everyday life --- they have chosen to let go of these attachments, and if the suffering arises, anyway - they are going to live with it, and even die with it, in peace, happily. (Check this article out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/04/the-curious-tale-of-the-200-year-old-mummified-monk-reportedly-frozen-in-a-lotus-position/)

I think, suffering arises out of our reluctance to accept the reality; that can be very difficult, too. I am not telling that I will not fall into the clutches of adversity, if they are presented to me while I am embedded in this finite form --- I am very much likely to fall prey to it. I cannot exist within the society and not expect the society to royally fuck me up. 

Nonetheless, it is definitely possible to experience that eternal happiness; the criteria being that you have to be completely detached from your humanness, and get into, quite literally, the God-mode. 

.

For example: After meditating, does it have an effect on your overall well-being; at least for a short span of time, wherein, post that feeling of nothingness or peace, the emotional manifestation of it, i.e., happiness, pervades throughout, slightly nudging you into the state of complete acceptance, giving rise to a feeling of joy?

Yes, this may be ephemeral.

However, this can very much be eternal, too.

.

Also, just tell me, if it were not for other humans influencing us, would these exist, at all --- stress, murder, rape, theft, etc.

Then, in terms of disasters --- would it matter to you if there's a crazy tsunami on some exoplanet, then? To what degree would this affect you? 

Cancer --- correct me if I am wrong here: how much of a human doing is this, owing to our lifestyles, etc.?

Disability --- what if you see a dog that is blind or without any limbs? Do you think that dog is always in the mode of suffering?

Hell --- who makes life hell? How do you define hell? If something threatens your egoic survival, is it hell?

What I am trying to say is that these are our limits, not the complete picture. God exists in it, and very much, infinitely, out of it, as well. Yes, this understanding might be termed a utopia, but tell me, what about God isn’t a utopia? 

.

Let me know what you think about this. Shall be happy to learn. 

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by xxxx

[Zigzag Idiot]

I read this in the past from Arnold Keyserlings writings,,,, I think

Happiness = the perpetual willingness to fall

[Snader]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

I always say it's easy to talk philosophy as long as you're living a comfortable life. But what happens when someone comes and rapes and tortures you? All of the sudden, you'll be suffering and in pain. All of these unicornical ideas about happiness and peace of mind will fly out of the window. And you will be left with hatred towards life and God and everything. Hippies on drugs won't understand, because the high effect is stronger. But drugs don't last forever.

You sound like you think philosophizing is a bad thing. If you do real philosophy you know the difference between philosophy and practice well enough. You know how to use philosophy as a tool and not turn it into an ideology.

[Breakingthewall]

7 hours ago, Someone here said:

literally asked if pain and suffering are part of what undoubtedly must be considered part of my "true" nature

 

 

Pain and suffering are fundamental parts of the dance of karma. If you see it as a complete mosaic, they have beauty, we have to face them sportingly. the problem is when you're immersed in them, it's not fun. Seeing love in black suffering is the challenge. God is severe with himself. I recently saw a relative in his last days, hopelessness, horror. the black part of reality, some have to be the actors of that part of the play. it seems that reality needs that terrible darkness, Jesus on the cross

Edited January 20, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[Gesundheit]

2 hours ago, Snader said:

You sound like you think philosophizing is a bad thing.

Lol I sure don't. But perhaps you think philosophizing is a good thing? I don't hold a value judgement on philosophy. It's just what it is, and it happens.

2 hours ago, Snader said:

If you do real philosophy you know the difference between philosophy and practice well enough. You know how to use philosophy as a tool and not turn it into an ideology.

Well, then, explain some of the naive replies here. And explain infinite love in practice, outside of philosophy.

[allislove]

8 hours ago, Someone here said:

I have to disagree with the entirety of this. 

I literally asked if pain and suffering are part of what undoubtedly must be considered part of my "true" nature and you are denying that by actually admitting that it's "known by me as me"...????  So you are saying no because yes? 

That's fine to disagree. Yet nothing strengthens the monkey mind more than the desire to be right.

Imagine you have a dream, in the middle of the night you realize that this is just a dream.
What is your dream made of? It's made of your imagination, or simply you.
Are you limited by the dream? Do you lack something or will you die when the dream appearance disappear?

Imagine, someone comes to your dream character and cries because they suffer. Is suffering real? It's real in a sense that it has underlying reality of your imagination. If you put the limits on yourself by identification with the body-mind it's very likely you won't show the compassion to the other dream character because you believe you are separate entity. On the contrary, if you're lucid dreaming you may show compassion when someone suffers because you know they are literally you. When there is a self realization there is no you anymore, just a dream, unconditional love.
 

[Snader]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

Lol I sure don't. But perhaps you think philosophizing is a good thing? I don't hold a value judgement on philosophy. It's just what it is, and it happens.

Well, then, explain some of the naive replies here. And explain infinite love in practice, outside of philosophy.

It's funny you call other people's advises naive, when all you have to give to this topic is your notions of dangers of hippies philosophizing, which is a solid point with truth in it, but irrelevant to the question asked. 

You can't give anyone a practical step by step guide on how to embody infinite love or how to be happy per se. The best you can do is point one to right direction, which is raising one's consciousness, which is what all those ''naive and philosophical'' advises are for.

 

[Nahm]

What, like all ‘other’ vibration, is happiness. Appears to be a ‘thought’ as well. 

[Gesundheit]

@Snader

These people don't think they're giving practical advice. They think it's absolute truth, which is what I'm disagreeing with here. Otherwise, have at it. I have no problems with practical advice whatsoever.

Btw, I don't recall OP asking for advice.

[Mu_]

16 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

I always say it's easy to talk philosophy as long as you're living a comfortable life. But what happens when someone comes and rapes and tortures you? All of the sudden, you'll be suffering and in pain. All of these unicornical ideas about happiness and peace of mind will fly out of the window. And you will be left with hatred towards life and God and everything. Hippies on drugs won't understand, because the high effect is stronger. But drugs don't last forever.

Yes it is easier when you have a comfortable life, but no one said it is easy taming the ox.  Your examples are extreme cases so to say and have merit, however they are also partial and I think in that new partial space there may be possible growth for you.  I'm not going to say rape or torture won't cause pain and discomfort.  They "can".  I've been sexually abused, but didn't feel much about it and still have no pain about it.  Pretty much a none event for me.  Same with a couple of ex's I've met who've gone through something similar.  AND I've met people who are in great knots of pain and suffering from the same things.  Torture is most likely going to be painful in the moment, but the hatred with life, god, and everything afterwards is another matter which my whole previous paragraph was addressing, and one can become much freer so to say in relation to such matters.  Sure some tortures of the worse kind may leave a person in a forever bodily pained state, but even here there may be possible transcendence of such pains possible.

There was a guy named Nick Yarris, look him up, wrongfully prisoned, tortured, and yet still has a great attitude towards life.

Also many monks and yogis and normal every day people have demonstrated what they call mind over pain with horrific body mutations, cold plunges for periods that will kill the average person, dehydration practices that would kill the average person, physical stunts that would kill the average person.  The list is large in this one.  This again points to the notion that the physical being damaged or pushed to its limits wont in and of itself cause a person to hate and suffer, sure maybe discomfort and pains, but not ones that traumitize or cause a person to look poorly on life because of.

[Gesundheit]

27 minutes ago, Mu_ said:

I'm not going to say rape or torture won't cause pain and discomfort.  They "can".

See, this is exactly what I'm disagreeing with.

They "can"? Seriously, dude, WTF? Pain and discomfort here are not a possibility. They're an inevitability. Rape and torture don't feel good in the moment, and there's no way I can agree that they do. Unless you're in a certain temporary high state, you will suffer severely in the process. What you do afterwards is none of my concerns here. What I'm talking about is the actual uncomfortable situations that don't feel good to the body.

Let the mind out of the equation for now and focus on the body for a moment. Where's happiness as my true nature when I'm depressed? Where's infinite love as God's true nature when I'm suffering? You see, these things are unicornical because even if you don't think about the pain, they'll still be painful. In fact, I would argue that pain is the biggest source of thoughts, which adds more suffering on top of the original pain.

The thing y'all don't seem to understand is that it's not because you're somehow special that you were able to overcome your sexual abuse/traumatic past/whatever. It's probably because you have a comfortable life right now that you would be a fool to suffer otherwise. Because what's the point of suffering a traumatic past when you can simply move past it and enjoy yourself in the moment? Enlightenment work helps, granted. I myself have transcended a lot of my unnecessary suffering through awakening. I don't see a point in whining or complaining about past suffering. But again, I am not talking about a past suffering, nor about a future concern. I am talking about suffering in the present moment. My grandma used to have multiple illnesses that would make her cry every single day for nearly a decade, and there was nothing we could do about it except giving her pointless medications, until she died. She would always cry and scream what did I do to deserve all that? I do realize that part of her suffering was psychological, but dude what about the physical? Why should anyone go through that?

If that still doesn't cut it for you, I'm sure if you were her, you would be the same. Your circumstances might have lead you to realize the power of the mind, while hers didn't. So I can't really blame her for the unnecessary suffering she was causing to herself. She wasn't enlightened in any way, but she didn't know any better. However, my point still stands that if it wasn't for her malfunctioning body, then she would have suffered a lot less. And that's the whole point. If all suffering was invented, then it would have been a lot easier. But some of it is inherent in reality, which makes reality not happiness, and not love.

[Mu_]

1 hour ago, Gesundheit said:

See, this is exactly what I'm disagreeing with.

They "can"? Seriously, dude, WTF? Pain and discomfort here are not a possibility. They're an inevitability. Rape and torture don't feel good in the moment, and there's no way I can agree that they do. Unless you're in a certain temporary high state, you will suffer severely in the process. What you do afterwards is none of my concerns here. What I'm talking about is the actual uncomfortable situations that don't feel good to the body.

Let the mind out of the equation for now and focus on the body for a moment. Where's happiness as my true nature when I'm depressed? Where's infinite love as God's true nature when I'm suffering? You see, these things are unicornical because even if you don't think about the pain, they'll still be painful. In fact, I would argue that pain is the biggest source of thoughts, which adds more suffering on top of the original pain.

The thing y'all don't seem to understand is that it's not because you're somehow special that you were able to overcome your sexual abuse/traumatic past/whatever. It's probably because you have a comfortable life right now that you would be a fool to suffer otherwise. Because what's the point of suffering a traumatic past when you can simply move past it and enjoy yourself in the moment? Enlightenment work helps, granted. I myself have transcended a lot of my unnecessary suffering through awakening. I don't see a point in whining or complaining about past suffering. But again, I am not talking about a past suffering, nor about a future concern. I am talking about suffering in the present moment. My grandma used to have multiple illnesses that would make her cry every single day for nearly a decade, and there was nothing we could do about it except giving her pointless medications, until she died. She would always cry and scream what did I do to deserve all that? I do realize that part of her suffering was psychological, but dude what about the physical? Why should anyone go through that?

If that still doesn't cut it for you, I'm sure if you were her, you would be the same. Your circumstances might have lead you to realize the power of the mind, while hers didn't. So I can't really blame her for the unnecessary suffering she was causing to herself. She wasn't enlightened in any way, but she didn't know any better. However, my point still stands that if it wasn't for her malfunctioning body, then she would have suffered a lot less. And that's the whole point. If all suffering was invented, then it would have been a lot easier. But some of it is inherent in reality, which makes reality not happiness, and not love.

Can you summarize the point your making.  Is it that because there is suffering and or pain that happens in a body, like knife slicing through my leg will hurt, makes reality not happiness and not love?  And if so, does this frustrate you and/or make you want to counter statements of life being Love and Happiness?

Also I'm not saying Rape or torture feel good or not, and that its someones responsibility if they are suffering through it, or that they should just learn to like it if it happens.  Part of my point was that there are examples of pain from the body not being "from" the body, but of mind or unknown reasons why some feel pain and some dont through the same experience or situation.  And its in this point that there is a lot to maybe see and understand about your own belief of what is pain/suffering/cause/non-cause/the actuality of such.  Its a interesting investigation if so intrigued. 

Also there was no idea of me being special that I overcame my sexual trauma's and was uneffected by such, that wasn't the point.  It was to communicate that these circumstances which you objectively believe to be one way, are not objectively so.  I honestly think I was very fortunate to have the outcome that happened.  It could of been a lot more troubling. 

[Snader]

@Gesundheit I'm sorry about your grandma, that really sounds horrible.

I hope you don't get offended by me referring to that, but I think that the shit your grandma went through and the emotional pain that you and her loved ones suffered affect your judgment so that you can't be open-minded enough to consider the possibility of pain to be something else that it was for you and your loved ones. Can you be open-minded to agree that this self-bias could be the case?

I'm not to say that I know any better, I might be totally deluded and it could really be the case that pain is pain that's it. But In my life pain, sorrow and unhappiness has changed it's meaning and function so radically that few years back I wouldn't have believed is even possible. It wouldn't have made sense back then. As an example I now have a weird unknown skin condition which I've been fighting against for over 6 months now trying so many different methods and different medical specialists with no results. It causes me physical and mental pain every day and makes my life harder. I had the same condition 6 years ago for about 9 months and back then it made me really depressed and I kept blaming life and everything, I screamed and cried and I was really desperate. Today I suffer from same symptoms but I can say that I'm really happy and enjoying life anyway and the pain is really different than it was back then, even though I can say with pretty good accuracy that the nature and amount of the pain is exactly the same. Of course, if the pain became let's say 10 times more painful, I would most likely not handle it, but my point is to tell you that I myself -- because of other people's examples and my own experience -- believe that it is possible to transcend even physical pain, but is so rare that it seems impossible.

I remember reading from some of Peter Ralston's books how he realized pain to be just a feeling. Well, I don't blindly believe him, but that coming from a mouth of ''enlightened master'' again makes me open-minded to possibilities.

Edited January 20, 2021 by Snader