Skeptical about Awakening

[The0Self]

On 9/5/2021 at 7:02 PM, Leo Gura said:

Awakening/Enlightenment is the realization that EVERYTHING is imagination.

Your mistake is assuming there is anything outside imagination. This is false.

True

But awakening/enlightenment as you call it is a realization of the emptiness and freedom of self and phenomena -- what I'd term a profound enlightenment experience, insight, or awakening, or realization that you are God imagining your birth, time, and everything else.

But the final enlightenment (liberation) is not exactly a realization... Even though it is the end of mystery, it is only as such because it's the end of knowing, it is the end of the energetic filter of separation, and the sudden surprise that this is perfection already, because there's nothing else -- the end of right and wrong (and indeed all duality), and the end of the journeyer or experiencer of real circumstances happening in time as part of a path to happiness/truth/beauty/freedom. It is not within the purview of experience, and thus has no connection to any insights or realizations -- the seeker of enlightenment never actually "gets there."

It is said that awakening is seeing the emptiness of the void, and enlightenment/liberation is seeing the fullness of the void. The former can be experienced as a profound gain. The latter cannot be experienced at all (as it's utterly paradoxical... fullness=emptiness), and certainly not as a gain -- in fact, it's an utterly, unimaginably complete, total loss; everything=nothing.

Although "before" enlightenment occurs -- before I AM falls away (a story, as there's nothing happening in the first place) -- it is, as you say, recognized that everything is imagination (story). And "then" there is no before or after... Or inside/outside; etc.

Edited September 7, 2021 by The0Self

[Guru Fat Bastard]

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Skeptical about Awakening

As you should be ?. Mystical experiences can be infinite in variety , just as no two people have the same dream experience every night.
However, Self realization or Truth, if it is legitimate, will be the same for anyone who realizes it. It is no more exclusive to the Buddha or Jesus than it would be for you or your next door neighbor. The same consciousness in them is the same exact consciousness in all.  What they realized, anyone can realize.

Putting all the "spiritual" linguistic,mumbo jumbo aside, what this all boils down to, is that a human being has the conditioned belief that he/she is separate from everything/everyone else, and because of this belief,violence,anger, suffering,fear,grief etc.,etc., are a result. Human beings above all else desire happiness,and happiness is to be free from the aforesaid condition in which they seem to be perpetually bound. Not knowing that their true nature is unremitting peace, happiness an unbound freedom, they seek it in "outward" objects and experiences, which at best, is occasional and fleeting.

This is the "illusion" or "dream".

The aim of the spiritual traditions is to point out that a human being has within it an ultimate and eternal nature and realizing this ultimate nature is peace, happiness and freedom from suffering.

This is the "Reality","God","Consciousness", "Truth" and the other bazillion "special" names given to it. ?



 

Edited September 8, 2021 by Guru Fat Bastard

[Loving Radiance]

21 hours ago, caelanb said:

Personally I feel that my mind just does not want to focus on my breath when I meditate. I usually start to think of random stuff without being aware of it, and because of this I have not had any consistent experiences of a silent mind. Possibly because my mind gets bored of like a focused concentration that is not stimulating., so it decides to go off and do other stuff. Are there any tips you have for dealing with this?

Keeping going

Also, there are active kinds of meditation that you personally might find more enjoyable. More active for example is vipassana meditation which is basically a body scan. However, even that requires a focused mind. So, at every beginning of vipassana meditation I'd do focus on breath or counting numbers. And even if you do that active technique, it gets boring after some time. Boredom is something you are getting confronted with in every meditation technique. Notice every arising feeling or emotion and come back to the thing you focus on. It's a never ending coming back to the thing you focus on (except for jhanas, but I have just conceptual understanding about that). Boredom is just another form arising that reminds you to refocus.

For me personally what resonates is letting myself fall into comfy consciousness. Letting go from everything - just resting in awareness. It's like letting yourself drift in salt water and becoming one with the calm ocean. Things like thoughts & sensations may arise from the undifferentiated formless water and crystallize into form. They fall back into the water eventually.

The benefits of meditation are very subtle in that you notice just a general sense of wellbeing & clear-headedness. When you stop meditation for months you will notice the difference.

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Truth reveals itself to be self-evidence is very far fetched to me, shouldn't you have to validate that whatever it was, was indeed truth?

Hehe, you know it was truth. It requires no evidence because you personally verified it. You can try to validate it with perspectives from others. However, language can communicate just so much. What the perspective tells in language points you to truth and you can say "Yeah I know that personally". And still, you don't know the meaning/interpretation of what the perspectives really meant. And that's ok, you still imagine that we mean that same things and we speak of the same things in language.

It's like going hiking in a nature reserve and seeing a rock shaped like a duck. You go back to the camp and ask the rangers for this particular kind of rock. They say, yes of course, many people discovered this one. You can take the pointing of that and validate that other people have discovered the rock. However, you still can have discovered a completely new rock shaped like a duck. The way you can verify that this is a new rock is to ask the rangers if they come back with you. Then you go together back and verify that this rock indeed a new one or not. With meditation you cannot ask other people to go back with you to validate that. You can only take the words and assume that's what they meant. This makes the practice tricky and you rediscover new dimensions of what people said even after you thought you discovered it already. It's like being a child and thinking to grasp what someone has told you. Then you rediscover it as an adult and you see the extent of it being broader & more complicated than you assumed as a kid.

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What is Shamanic breathing exactly, have their been studies on it's benefits and drawbacks? Some weird way of manipulating your breath I'm assuming?

It's basically hyperventilating. The oxygen levels in your blood rise and the CO2 level go down. I also think the pH of the blood changes. There are no real drawbacks: you get ego-backlashes and there can be complications when you have heart problems or are pregnant. If you have heavy deep-seated trauma, it can come into your awareness and overwhelm you. Then it's better to do with a professional specializing in breathwork.

Otherwise it is a good spiritual practice like meditation. A meditative calm mind certainly helps when emotions or memories arise and get expressed in the body as twitches, laughter, crying, tingles on the skin...

These bodily sensations also certainly arise when being in trance or meditation.

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How do I know that I am actually understanding myself better by introspection and the like

Meditation makes the mind clear (as in not attaching to thoughts etc). Introspection is shining the light of awareness on certain parts and recognizing truth and falsehood. The light of awareness can only illuminate just so much. That's why it's important to have a broad range of experiences. Experiences (even when you don't remember them anymore) shape the light to illuminate more parts or illuminate in other ways. Introspection leads to more insights. Insights lead to recontextualization of experiences. The experiences viewed from the new light are broader by nature and enable deeper introspection. And so on it goes.

In introspecting you will see illuminated parts that are false. It hurts to recognize these parts (because you assumed them to be true) and the tendency is there to look away. Look at it and realize that it makes you more authentic, real and self-honest to be able to see and accept it. It doesn't have to change, rather continuing to be aware of it leads inevitably to transformation.

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and not just thinking thoughts that I want to be like or feel that I am?

Thoughts are the tools to create the life you want to have. Meditation or expanded states of consciousness in general increasingly show you that thoughts are not saying anything about you. Thoughts and the mind are there to create the life you want. Believing thoughts about yourself is conditioning.

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If there is no basis of facts that you know about yourself, how do you know whether you are going into delusion or not?

The basis is how you feel.

Delusion is only when you believe reality to be a certain way. Open-mindedness and a pull towards truth/self-honesty come into play here. You delude yourself constantly without noticing. Curiosity and introspection get you to know yourself.

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All I can really do is 'feel', what I like and don't like.

Do you think feeling is limited?

Edit:

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Isn't the no self synonymous to the self, which is a collection of thoughts feelings emotions, perceptions and memories? Thus, not one thing, but a collection of things?

Experience the death of identity in an expanded state of consciousness. Then you will know it.

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It is hard for me to see how materialism is just a paradigm.

And yet you begin to describe what it is. It is a world that you constructed to function better in society & the world. It is about deconstructing what you think the world is and then putting it together again. You will know it is illusory and at the same time you continue because you know you constructed it. It is about constructing your worldview consciously rather than getting it unconsciously from upbringing.

Having a unconsciously constructed worldview is like having one pair of shoes for all kinds of situations. Sometimes another pair of shoes is needed for mountain climbing or living with a tribe in the amazon forest. Dropping the shoes and putting on others is effortless when you constructed them consciously. It is effortful when you attach to your unconscious paradigm.

It is about having lots of differently coloured glasses for all kind of situations. You can drop the lens of material objective reality and put on and wear a magical-mystical lens for some time. And then another... They all distort, constract and magnify certain aspects of reality.

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because, in New York for example, everyone living there has an awareness and perceptions of their own, which I have no access to from where I am. I can think thoughts about the reality there but I would have to go ask another individual person about New York's reality if I truly want to know. I don't think that means that New York does not exist out of my awareness, just that I'm not physically there to see it's reality

It is about recognizing that you imagine New York and don't have direct experience of it. And yet, there is the Universal Mind that imagines New York and you as caeland. More on Mind later.

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the reality I have woken to has been consistent everyday

Consistency is saying something about how you view the world, not how the world is (assuming the world is independent of you). Imagine that the world is entirely different and that you interpret it just in a consistent homeostatic way. Homeostasis is functional. Consider that what is functional is not always true.

Imagine a lunatic in an insane asylum waking up every day and claiming that because his way of viewing reality from his lunatic perspective is consistent that it has truth. Well, it has, but it also doesn't have truth. It's partial.

That doesn' answer it completely, but I hope is makes you ponder.

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I can't grasp that there is nothing outside of imagination. If all of it is imagination, reality couldn't possibly be so consistent, with laws and dictating how everything moves/preventing me from putting my hand through solid brick. From my awareness and experience it is too obvious that this isn't imagination. But, since your telling me it that it is, I'm not sure what to do if it actually were/found out that it is, or even how to go about proving it.

Consider that your state of consciousness has to be less functional and thus less human in a sense for you to recognize that.

Approaching the Absolute perspective (Mind) looks like denying reality. I mean, the rock in my hand is solid right? Physicality is somewhat explained here in the timestamped video. Watch till they speak about Donald Hoffmann.

Well, it is mind-bending and defies reality. Reality breaks down. And it is ok to not get that. It is ok to think that this is impossible and insane. It is a map you read and it is too far out there for you right now. Hehe, imagine going to calculus class before knowing algebra. Doesn't work out right?

Your ability to get this stuff gets better with time. Heck, when I read my first journaling entries, it's laughable how much stuff I assumed. And yet I stuck around and wrote in it persistently almost every day for months. There is a huge learning curve.

No hurry. You grasp it with time.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Loving Radiance
Further quotes, responses and video

[Mason Riggle]

17 hours ago, caelanb said:

I understand the simple awakening, but profound awakenings are less easy to understand. Isn't the no self synonymous to the self, which is a collection of thoughts feelings emotions, perceptions and memories? Thus, not one thing, but a collection of things?

Sure, but there are implications to this realization that can also be realized.. this 'collection of things' self is something which is 'happening' from moment to moment, and not something which 'does things' moment to moment, for example.  It can be noticed that this 'collection of things' has no boundaries.. it's actually 'everything in awareness'.. you are 'all of it'. 

 

 

17 hours ago, caelanb said:

It is hard for me to see how materialism is just a paradigm. The physical world around me is too obvious for me to question it at all; I can't go through walls anything like that. I also can't grasp that reality is only where your awareness is because, in New York for example, everyone living there has an awareness and perceptions of their own, which I have no access to from where I am. I can think thoughts about the reality there but I would have to go ask another individual person about New York's reality if I truly want to know. I don't think that means that New York does not exist out of my awareness, just that I'm not physically there to see it's reality.

Consider that 'infinite mind' is infinitely adept at creating a 'dream' that remains internally consistent.   Ask yourself, 'where is physical reality?' Where is the center of 'physical reality'? Are you closer to it, or am I? How big is 'physical reality'?  You think it's 'obvious' that physical reality is 'all around you', but I'm not sure you've ever deeply questioned this assumption, or what 'all around you' means in light of 'no self'.   You don't really know if there are 'really' people elsewhere having an experience any more than you know when you are dreaming that the characters in your dream are having an experience of their own.  In your dream you don't question it.  You don't question it now. 

Consider that when I say 'dream', this is a metaphor, and not a literal dream.. I could say 'hallucination', or 'simulation', or 'illusion', or 'imagination'.. 
The idea is that physical reality isn't 'rock bottom', some substrate from which consciousness springs.. but the other way around.. 'infinite mind' is source.. only it's pretending it's 'something separate from itself'.. this 'dream' of being an 'object/self' duality, so that 'infinity/nothing' can 'seem like' something at all.  

[caelanb]

@Loving Radiance

Thank you very for effort trying to explain what seems like belief to me, but I guess until I do more introspection, I'll never be aware of it, if that's the right word to use. What you said sounds very much like semantics at this point. Leo, talks about contemplation, self-enquiry, and introspection from what I'm aware of, are all those pretty much the same? with slight differences? The big thing for when I meditate, is my mind going off and thinking random stuff, and I sometimes strain the muscles on my face in order to try to 'stop' the mind from going off, because it eventually gets bored. I'll try to start just notice myself getting distracted in thoughts, and calmly bring myself back.

It's funny how if you ask a biologist, or physicist or scientist that studies the world, what they think about what you wrote, they would probably say, 'that's nonsense, BS and semantics to confuse people into thinking the real physical objective reality is not that', I know that's what my parents would say lol (they aren't actually scientists though.

I forgot to say the body as being part of the self.

On 2021-09-08 at 7:36 AM, Loving Radiance said:

It is about recognizing that you imagine New York and don't have direct experience of it. And yet, there is the Universal Mind that imagines New York and you as caeland. More on Mind later.

So are you saying that, New York only exists if you have direct experience of it? Isn't it the case that New York and where am for example are both real, because the New York experience is experiencing New York, thus, it is within his or her experience. And with an aggregate of the different experiencers around the world, all those different parts of the world exists too? In in the middle of the desert where there is nobody, no experiencer is there to experience it, doesn't mean it isn't real though, their is just no one in that location to experience everything? I guess this is similar to the philosophical question, if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

On 2021-09-08 at 7:36 AM, Loving Radiance said:

Do you think feeling is limited?

So far, in my life, my experience tells me that feeling (emotional) is limited to sensations within the body, either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral that are triggered my biochemical mechanisms, sometimes triggered by the external environment or internal environment, such as thoughts. Or maybe only by thoughts, which are triggered by many different things. I have a wheel of emotions displaying a large variety of emotions on it, which even myself I have not experienced. There are also feelings the body, or you could say sensations, like getting hit by a tennis ball, will produce a sensation, which is triggered by the tennis ball, and a bunch of biochemical mechanisms that happen within the body allowing you to feel this ball hitting you.

I hear Leo talking about love a lot, which he seems to interchange the emotions of love with Love (or infinity) as he like to call it. When he says love is not a human emotions, but maybe he refers to the Love (which I don't have experience of that, whatever it is), it kinda confuses me. He has also said that, for example love is necessary for human development, I'm assuming he means the love not Love, but idk, all seems like word games.

@Mason Riggle

On 2021-09-08 at 10:21 AM, Mason Riggle said:

Consider that 'infinite mind' is infinitely adept at creating a 'dream' that remains internally consistent.   Ask yourself, 'where is physical reality?' Where is the center of 'physical reality'? Are you closer to it, or am I? How big is 'physical reality'?  You think it's 'obvious' that physical reality is 'all around you', but I'm not sure you've ever deeply questioned this assumption, or what 'all around you' means in light of 'no self'.   You don't really know if there are 'really' people elsewhere having an experience any more than you know when you are dreaming that the characters in your dream are having an experience of their own.  In your dream you don't question it.  You don't question it now. 

Consider that when I say 'dream', this is a metaphor, and not a literal dream.. I could say 'hallucination', or 'simulation', or 'illusion', or 'imagination'.. 
The idea is that physical reality isn't 'rock bottom', some substrate from which consciousness springs.. but the other way around.. 'infinite mind' is source.. only it's pretending it's 'something separate from itself'.. this 'dream' of being an 'object/self' duality, so that 'infinity/nothing' can 'seem like' something at all. 

Well, ever since I remember, reality is explainable, with laws and atoms, which I learned in science class, along with proof for it (in demonstrations), thus questioning it didn't and doesn't seem necessary, because it was already proven. I don't think I'm assuming it, because it has already been proven, with the uncountable amount of times scientists have used the scientific method on reality, in order to understand facts about it. From what I am aware of, the deepest science has gone into the 'rock bottom' is quark (or quarks, idk if it's plural or singular), and everything within the field of quantum mechanics, which is too complex for to understand. That is the limit of human knowledge from what I have been told. And if we discover something wrong about our system of investigation, then we change it, or we get another one. Consciousness is a little harder to study because it's more elusive, but that's what Cognitive Science is for; to understand the mind. Eventually we'll hopefully get to understanding reality. That's my view, which feels objective, because I or anyone that follows the proper method of investigation can test/reproduce them themselves, with chemistry, physics, or biology experiments.

@Mason Riggle @Loving Radiance I guess the biggest thing for my right now is questioning reality, ever since I discovered Leo, and his enlightenment stuff, it made reality seem way more fantastical as Leo likes to say. And because I knew that we have not solved everything about reality (because we are still doing research in order to learn about it), It seemed quite appealing. So I am open to these new ideas if you will, however, personally have not had any direct experience of it all being a dream or illusion or imagination. The only thing I have experienced from what I remember (which could be completely wrong from what actually happened) is a moment of calmer mind during meditation along with what felt like a subtle expansion in my awareness. I am pretty sure this is accurate due to the fact that I remember feeling pretty good after the sessions was over (which it ended shortly after this). It could just be a calmer mind, however, allowing me to be more present with the sounds of what was happening around me, however, even thoughts themselves are in the present. I did do a little bit of what I think was contemplating about what is anger, but idk if I was actually contemplating or doing something that seemed like it. I'm just a little skeptical of this awakening, enlightenment, god stuff, because if am wrong, I would be a fool for thinking this is true, and would be considered deluded by others as well. At the end of the day, I'm thinking, but what if this is just non-sense and people trying to convince me of airy fairy things about reality, that don't have any factual evidence within reality.

Thank you.

[Mason Riggle]

@caelanb notice that everything you think of as 'objective' only exists 'subjectively'. 

"well, ever since I remember"... your subjective experience of remembering. 

"which I learned in science class".. your subjective experience of learning in science class. 

'it's already been proven".. this has been your subjective experience, but you can't say this is 'objectively true'. 

The only thing you are 100% sure of is 'something seems to be occurring'.. your subjective experience is 'self evident'.. all other 'evidence' for anything 'objective' exists within your subjective experience. (you could be totally confused about what is occurring... you could be a brain in a vat hallucinating all of this, and you are vastly underestimating just how 'immersive and convincing' the hallucination can be) An entirely convincing dream would be indistinguishable to you from 'not dreaming', until you 'wake up'. 


 

Edited September 9, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[Adamq8]

@caelanb I suggest you read Bernardo Kastrup's books.

Begin with the book, Why materialism is baloney.

If you need a scientific and logic path towards what Leo is talking about, i can not stress enough how important Bernardo's books is.

He will show you that what you take for proofs in science is not at all necessarily materialistic at all, thats the worldview and metaphysics of the scientists.

Science studies behaviours and it can not tell you what nature is in itself.

So Science is neutral in that way.

Materialism does not make sense at all if you really understod what it really entails.

[Loving Radiance]

@caelanb  You can always come back after 6 months or a year to reread the comments here. You will lokk at it from another perspective.

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Leo, talks about contemplation, self-enquiry, and introspection from what I'm aware of, are all those pretty much the same? with slight differences?

Leo made videos about them.

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The big thing for when I meditate, is my mind going off and thinking random stuff, and I sometimes strain the muscles on my face in order to try to 'stop' the mind from going off, because it eventually gets bored. I'll try to start just notice myself getting distracted in thoughts, and calmly bring myself back.

Try letting go of stopping your mind. Rather focus on breathing, counting, mantra, scanning, awareness etc.

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'that's nonsense, BS and semantics to confuse people into thinking the real physical objective reality is not that', I know that's what my parents would say lol

Mine too Being open-minded and yet sceptic about these topics is can help you because you can learn so much and drop it at any time.

Other perspectives beyond society's common knowledge are always seen as woo. The nonsense, BS and semantics point you to something you can experience and validate for yourself.

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So are you saying that, New York only exists if you have direct experience of it? Isn't it the case that New York and where am for example are both real, because the New York experience is experiencing New York, thus, it is within his or her experience. And with an aggregate of the different experiencers around the world, all those different parts of the world exists too?

Yes, you imagine that others experience New York. Of course imagining is functional for survival. That's why we can do it.

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So far, in my life, my experience tells me that feeling (emotional) is limited to sensations within the body, either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral that are triggered my biochemical mechanisms, sometimes triggered by the external environment or internal environment, such as thoughts. Or maybe only by thoughts, which are triggered by many different things. I have a wheel of emotions displaying a large variety of emotions on it, which even myself I have not experienced. There are also feelings the body, or you could say sensations, like getting hit by a tennis ball, will produce a sensation, which is triggered by the tennis ball, and a bunch of biochemical mechanisms that happen within the body allowing you to feel this ball hitting you.

I hear Leo talking about love a lot, which he seems to interchange the emotions of love with Love (or infinity) as he like to call it. When he says love is not a human emotions, but maybe he refers to the Love (which I don't have experience of that, whatever it is), it kinda confuses me. He has also said that, for example love is necessary for human development, I'm assuming he means the love not Love, but idk, all seems like word games.

No, feeling is something you know deeply that it's true. It is not rational, it involves your whole being. Being is much more intelligent and wise than the mind. Well, it's intelligence beyond the mind.

There is self-love which is a very functional thing for humans. It grows you. There is Leo's video on love, radical Love and self-love. Better watch them too.

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uncountable amount of times scientists have used the scientific method on reality, in order to understand facts about it.

Science is conceptual. There might be something you see. However, it is important to realize that what you see and what you think about it is not it. Meaning is constructed. Facts are constructed. Can you realize that? Because they are constructed they are functional for survival. Again, consider that what is functional is not really what's true...

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I'm thinking, but what if this is just non-sense and people trying to convince me of airy fairy things about reality, that don't have any factual evidence within reality.

Always take it with a grain of salt. Realize that what all people talk about is a map and it is up to you to go out and see the territory for yourself.

 

@Nahm Can you give your stance on feeling for caelanb?

On 7.9.2021 at 10:06 PM, caelanb said:

How do I know that I am actually understanding myself better by introspection and the like, and not just thinking thoughts that I want to be like or feel that I am? If there is no basis of facts that you know about yourself, how do you know whether you are going into delusion or not? All I can really do is 'feel', what I like and don't like.

4 hours ago, caelanb said:

So far, in my life, my experience tells me that feeling (emotional) is limited to sensations within the body, either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral that are triggered my biochemical mechanisms, sometimes triggered by the external environment or internal environment, such as thoughts. Or maybe only by thoughts, which are triggered by many different things. I have a wheel of emotions displaying a large variety of emotions on it, which even myself I have not experienced. There are also feelings the body, or you could say sensations, like getting hit by a tennis ball, will produce a sensation, which is triggered by the tennis ball, and a bunch of biochemical mechanisms that happen within the body allowing you to feel this ball hitting you.

I hear Leo talking about love a lot, which he seems to interchange the emotions of love with Love (or infinity) as he like to call it. When he says love is not a human emotions, but maybe he refers to the Love (which I don't have experience of that, whatever it is), it kinda confuses me. He has also said that, for example love is necessary for human development, I'm assuming he means the love not Love, but idk, all seems like word games.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Loving Radiance

[Scholar]

@caelanb

You are lost in the conceptual. Forget about enlightenment, forget about Leo, forget about everything.

 

 

Your problem is not that you are too skeptical, your problem is that you are far too unskeptical. Right now, look at existence itself. The color of the screen that, according to the mind, you are looking at. Does this exist? What would it even mean to deny it exists? See, to deny something, you require it to exist, otherwise how could you possibly know what even it is that you are denying?

So, look at the pure isness of the color of the Screen. And now ask yourself: What is this? How is this possible?

 

If your mind comes up with a concept for an answer, recognize that the concept is it's own form of Existence. After all the Concept Exists, is that not so? How would you otherwise even know of any such concept? If it exist, look at it clearly. And then look at it, at what it is. Then, return your attention back to that which your concept was supposed to describe. Are you aware that these two objects or substances of Existences are clearly not the same? That the purity of the colors you are experiencing is utterly foreign and different from the concepts which you thought would explain that color?

See, ask yourself: What even is explanation? What even is concept? What even is understanding? And then, clearly look at it. Look and see the difference between Understanding and the colors which you are seeing.

 

If you recognize this difference, you will notice that there will never be any kind of understanding, explanation or concept that could possibly explain, understand or conceptualize that which is not the conceptual, explanation or understanding.

 

 

Notice that all of this, the conceptual, the colors, every other substance which you call subjective, that all of those are made of Pure Existence. They are Existence itself. What else could they possibly be? The exist, so clearly they must be made of Existence. That's what they literally are. Nothing in existence could possibly be anything else.

 

This is everything you have. This is Existence. You never had anything. And now notice, anything that you will call outside of this existence, will necessarily be part of this Existence. Any possible concept, any possible substance, will necessarily be part of your existence.

 

 

But nevermind that. You can forget all of this. If you want to know the Nature of Existence, look at it. It's right here, you are made of it. Everything is made of it. Any philosophy, any evidence, any scientific model, any material, anything possibly will be made of existence.

The same existence which you are made from. So, simply look at it. Look closely enough and you will recognize the Nature of Existence, and that the Looking itself was nothing but one more Form within Existence itself.

 

[Nahm]

36 minutes ago, Loving Radiance said:

Can you give your stance on feeling for caelanb?

Lot of thread to catch up on… is there maybe a specific question or two?

@caelanb

[Loving Radiance]

29 minutes ago, Nahm said:

is there maybe a specific question or two?

From what I've read from caelanb:

• Feeling what we like and don't like is the only thing we can do - isn't that susceptible to delusion?
• In his experience, feeling is bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions which all can be explained by science. What in feeling is beyond that?

[Nahm]

39 minutes ago, Loving Radiance said:

From what I've read from caelanb:

• Feeling what we like and don't like is the only thing we can do - isn't that susceptible to delusion?

Really depends on one’s connotation of ‘do’. We can turn a light on, or kick a football for example. Maybe you mean do about something specific…? 

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• In his experience, feeling is bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions which all can be explained by science. What in feeling is beyond that?

Those are labels. Science can explain sex for example, but then when you experience sex it isn’t the connotation, or, the idea, or, labels. 

I wonder if what you’re really wondering is if believing thought labels in regard to feeling is delusional. In that case the label of ‘evidence’ could be let go, for the ‘real thing’. All labels are essentially delusional, yet no one is delusional. 

Edit: Just read some of the op… the issue at play is thought attachment. ‘Brain scanner’ isn’t a separate thing, it’s a thought, which believed, does seem like it is actually this separate thing, but of course… ‘separate thing’ is also just a thought. Without thought attachment it’s more readily realized one is believing ‘evidence’ which is really hearsay, and one is not actually ‘going out’ and checking the evidence for oneself so to speak. 

From a helpful, practical, useful standpoint… just literally label the hell out of everything on purpose. Doing so on purpose makes it clear it’s something one’s been doing all along. Similar to getting angry, or being serious on purpose. 

[Leo Gura]

Science cannot grasp that the world is a hallucination because science itself is a part of the world, which means science is a hallucination.

You are hallucinating science. Get that.

[Loving Radiance]

@Nahm Thank you for clearing that up.

@caelanb I think a daily meditation habit is the first thing for you right now. That being said, I am interested what comes up when you read that below.

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Feeling what we like and don't like is the only thing we can do - isn't that susceptible to delusion?

Really depends on one’s connotation of ‘do’. We can turn a light on, or kick a football for example. Maybe you mean do about something specific…? 

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In his experience, feeling is bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions which all can be explained by science. What in feeling is beyond that?

Those are labels. Science can explain sex for example, but then when you experience sex it isn’t the connotation, or, the idea, or, labels. 

I wonder if what you’re really wondering is if believing thought labels in regard to feeling is delusional. In that case the label of ‘evidence’ could be let go, for the ‘real thing’. All labels are essentially delusional, yet no one is delusional. 

Edit: Just read some of the op… the issue at play is thought attachment. ‘Brain scanner’ isn’t a separate thing, it’s a thought, which believed, does seem like it is actually this separate thing, but of course… ‘separate thing’ is also just a thought. 

From a helpful, practical, useful standpoint… just literally label the hell out of everything on purpose. Doing so on purpose makes it clear it’s something one’s been doing all along. Similar to getting angry, or being serious on purpose. 

[caelanb]

Thanks for the replies. This is kinda is tough to really grasp, it's all very abstract as I said before. About the contemplation @Loving Radiance I have seen Leo's videos on contemplation a while ago. And, I in fact contemplated, anger once (excuse my bad writing plz):

Keep in mind this was done a few years back when I had an eating disorder so, it's a little outdated. However, that was my first attempt at it, which I don't know if it is in the right direction or anything.

I cannot deny that everything that I have ever experienced is in my subjective experience, but that is the same for everyone else too. But it's hard to come to the conclusion that I am imagining everyone else because, for them, I am not imagining them (they would be imagining me). So I guess I don't want to discriminate against any other experience, because that would offend someone else (their experience is as true as mine is). But then if their experience is imaginary for me and mine is imaginary for them, then who's is not imaginary. There would have to be an external world for both experiences to be real. If no sentient being were alive on Earth, no one would be experiences this Earth, so according to perception, it wouldn't exist.

Isn't it possible to take 'landmarks' and put it on the territory, in order to explain it and understand it? The landmark is on the territory, you can dissect a chipmunk and put a stick in its brain to label it, and explain how it work and what it does, thus you are learning about the territory. Which from my  knowledge, is what science does. 

@Nahm When it comes to feelings/emotions, I have experienced intense emotions of anger, frustration, guilt, pleasure, and all of the, you can call basic emotions. Which I do indeed feel in my body, I don't exactly if it covered the entirety of it, but the stronger it is, the more it seems to feel that it covered. I also did watch Leo's videos on an advanced explanation of Love, both parts. I can grasp how absolute love is loving everything without any condition, that makes sense to me. But he also says, from what I can recall is that feeling of love (the lower one if you will), the 'petty little human love' as he says, is not actual love, which I find kinda hard to understand, because that's the only love I have ever experienced (from what I am aware of; love for family, friends, pets and so on). So, yeah, I guess he makes a distinction between, Absolute love of everything regardless of anything (God as he calls is), vs the 'petty little human feeling' love that is very condition (which, I guess is the only one I have ever experienced, and anyone that I know has every experienced). The human feeling is just a feeling within the body that you can experience.

If I go out and test all the scientific theories that I learned in HS for example, and find that they all a truth. Couldn't I say that those theories are true? Because I indeed tested them.

@Scholar I am not skeptical enough? I do see your point, I think you're saying that you cannot use something within existence to prove existence itself (which is all you can do, however). You would have to use something out of existence to prove existence, which is impossible to do, unless you stop existing. But aren't concepts even pure existence because they are within existence itself? I guess this is the self reference issue. Essentially you would have to become to understand existence itself. But, do you have to take non-existence into consideration too? Even though it would also be impossible to do that, because nothing can be non-existing, because because it would literally be nothing. And so we have a non existence and an existence.

What I just said probably didn't make any sense. I was just trying to understand lol.

It's funny because I have just started a university Biology program (taking bio and chem), and all this deep philosophy stuff makes it all seem questionable, as though it is essentially a dream. I do find Biology fascinating, however, so I'll learn that, have to try to find a way to make sense of both at the same time, which would likely end in a paradox.

What would be the point in trying to understand anything at all (even survival itself is apparently just a dream), would it not matter? How would it be for an atheist, materialism, rationalist, who even if you told them that 'this is a dream' and they respond with 'even if it is, so what?', would react/respond to some spontaneous awakening experience. I would assume they would say something like, 'oh, well I guess I was wrong, my bad', or would it be different?

That's all I got, I hope that made sense.

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, caelanb said:

@Scholar I am not skeptical enough? I do see your point, I think you're saying that you cannot use something within existence to prove existence itself (which is all you can do, however). You would have to use something out of existence to prove existence, which is impossible to do, unless you stop existing. But aren't concepts even pure existence because they are within existence itself? I guess this is the self reference issue. Essentially you would have to become to understand existence itself. But, do you have to take non-existence into consideration too? Even though it would also be impossible to do that, because nothing can be non-existing, because because it would literally be nothing. And so we have a non existence and an existence.

What I just said probably didn't make any sense. I was just trying to understand lol.

It's funny because I have just started a university Biology program (taking bio and chem), and all this deep philosophy stuff makes it all seem questionable, as though it is essentially a dream. I do find Biology fascinating, however, so I'll learn that, have to try to find a way to make sense of both at the same time, which would likely end in a paradox.

What would be the point in trying to understand anything at all (even survival itself is apparently just a dream), would it not matter? How would it be for an atheist, materialism, rationalist, who even if you told them that 'this is a dream' and they respond with 'even if it is, so what?', would react/respond to some spontaneous awakening experience. I would assume they would say something like, 'oh, well I guess I was wrong, my bad', or would it be different?

That's all I got, I hope that made sense.

The entire problem is that you are trapped within one particular substance of existence, the conceptual, and you have created a delusion that it is all of existence, or fundamental to existence.

 

What you are doing is like trying to figure out what color existence is. That's how absurd this entire undertaking is. And once you realize it, you will laugh at it. "Is existence blue or is it red? Or maybe it's a yellow combined with a green?"

[caelanb]

On 2021-09-11 at 0:57 PM, Scholar said:

The entire problem is that you are trapped within one particular substance of existence, the conceptual, and you have created a delusion that it is all of existence, or fundamental to existence.

@Scholar I can grasp that, however, it's quite a twisted thing, requires you to go back and analyze your own experience. That the only place concepts can exist is in someones mind, there are no concepts out in the 'real world'. I've just had some conversations with friends and family about this, through asking the questions; "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears a sound, did it make a sound?" And they all said yes, because it makes sound waves (because all sound is is sound waves), and if you just go the next day, you would see the tree has fallen, therefore it must have made a sound, it's only that no one heard it; the regular scientific explanation.

My friend told me a theory of how children's minds works, I don't remember what it's called, however. It says that if a kid sees a person for a moment, and then no longer sees them, the kid literately thinks the person has disappears and no exists because the person is no longer in view. But adults know that the person is still there, just no longer in the kid's perception.

My brother said that it is obvious that the person is there just not in view, if you use science, you know that atoms cannot be created or, thus they are still there. But I guess the problem is that we do not realize that, our mind is working the same way as a child's is, we are just  more deceptive. In that we think we know, but we are only assuming that the the person is still there, because we cannot prove to ourselves that the person is still there no matter what we do.

I have been thinking about this stuff in the last few days and so I can sorta see, what you are saying. The thing that I am doing, however, which could be a problem, is trying to get other people to see this, by asking the tree question above, and they all use, the science, physics, and logic argument to give proof. As well as using the old "you're gonna use that philosophical argument (what if all of this is imaginary), to try to avoid the facts of science and the real world" to prove me wrong or something. Possibly the biggest problem for those people is that most people have got a paradigm lock, which makes them think that there is such thing as an outside world, and science and physics and whatever else.

So yeah, idk what do to with these ideas, however, it's quite a big paradigm shift. I guess another big question would; Can anything exist without perception? Most people would say yes to that I'm assuming. If I really think about it, this honestly makes me feel a little uneasy, because how do I know anyone or anything is real if it/they are no in my perception? I would have to assume the world is physical, and that I am in it, not part of it.

Thank you.