There's No World To Save

[PepperBlossoms]

When we realize that there is no world to save, that it has been here and has always been here forever (or imagine that it is the case and even imagine that there is a world and imagine that we are the world), then everything done seems temporary, problems seem imagined/constructed, and what is imagined at the current status for now I am imagining will eventually get overthrown, destroyed, forgotten, changed, evolved - the infinite shapeshifting.

How have you changed when you had that realization?  Do you just plan on forgetting and pretending there is something to save?  When someone else acts like the world needs to be saved, how do you respond?

It's one thing to be conscious to want to fight climate change, be vegan, etc. - it is another to realize that everything lasts forever anyway and see how even though I won't eat meat, it doesn't make a huge difference if I try to get all the other humans to stop eating meat because relative to all the creatures alive just on Earth - there are so many that are eating each other - - life is eating itself.

It is like we all go on pretending there is a world to save because that is what gets us money via the jobs we work and drives our "survival" as humans.

Edited October 17, 2021 by PepperBlossoms

[tuckerwphotography]

@PepperBlossoms What do you mean by "everything lasts forever anyway"? Is that not also just a thought? If it's all an illusion, there is no "thing" to "last" nor a "forever." There's just what Is. 

Anywho, regarding your main question, I've contemplated this a lot over the past year. I now see "saving the world" as a game/mission/purpose that allows me to open my heart deeper and deeper in order to feel more and more Love for all the beautiful dream characters arising and falling in This, including myself as one of those characters. Here I am, in this incarnation and in this moment with these thoughts arising, so I mine as well play with them and create a reality that enables greater joy, meaning, integration and expansion. If I was God writing an epic story, the current state of humanity is a pretty fascinating one! Mine as well help to cowrite that story and to do so in a way that is a win-win for all the dream characters involved. It certainly beats lying in bed feeling bored, lonely and isolated from the rest of society. 

I'll probably have a different opinion about all of this is 10 minutes from now, fyi. It's a big topic

[HypnoticMagician]

Of course, all this survival game is an illusion but that doesn't mean you should surrender to the the external conditions. I don't know. Going staying in a cave like a mad hermit monk or even worse, becoming a people pleasing doormat. These sounds quite awkward. By the way, life is not all about "survival". You could make it more interesting by creating your own utopia. You even have no limitations. You are creating this reality by just believing in it.

[PepperBlossoms]

Lets say I go along with the scientific version that the universe is 13.77 billion years old - well in that game, the time started at the big bang and eventually there will be the effect of heat death where the heat in the universe is the same everywhere and hence no life - - so then all this stuff we are doing will just die out anyway.

Lets say we go with the infinite version that there is no beginning or end and the universe has been around for infinity and will always be around for infinity.  In that one, infinity is forever which is so long - whatever we have now will change over and over again an infinite amount of times and via that transformation, stuff is "lost" and "gained" - hence any ideas we have will be lost and forgotten, any projects we work on will be ruined - but also could keep on coming back in terms of infinity and stuff we have now can be the seed for growth of future stuff but yet again also get ruined but then built up, ruined, and built up.

Lets say we go with the imagined version that I am imagining that I am the universe and I am imagining that there even is a universe and I am imagining the idea of infinity and forever.  In that version, I am imagining that I am a person, imagining that there are problems, imagining that I am imagining that there are problems... 

I guess there's really nothing to do other that what we imagine so (as we will never have absolute affirmation on anything) - - so yes I would prefer to imagine myself saving the imagined dream characters instead of imagining myself hurting the imagined dream characters and imagining beauty/fun/curiosity - - and as my imagined self imagines more things about consciousness/awareness, I could integrate those on a more holistic imagined level......

Yeah being in bed or being in a cave could be imagined to be boring but also could be imagined to have lots of possibilities in the realm of finding things to explore - - or not.. hehe.

[Tancrede Pouyat]

How many times do I have to hear this "there's no world to save", "we're not killing the planet, just humans!", "there's no you to enlighten", "consciousness cannot be raised, it's already everything" ....

If you were more conscious, your circle of concern would be larger and you would care about other people's lives and the suffering and misery they endure, whether from climate change or anywhere else.

[PepperBlossoms]

@Tancrede Pouyat That is the idea that is focused on the notion that we need to save the world.  Mine is from the perspective that goes meta of that and looks at the imagining/construction of the notion of the problems we have said are problems in the first place as well as the looking at the thinking of the thinking.  Looking at the notion of the idea that we are imagining everything imagining everything.

1 - thinks there are problems

2- comes up with models to explain the problems (Meta)

3 - questions the reasoning/imagination/delusions/beliefs behind the creation of the models as well as self as part of the model (Meta of the meta)

4 - questions the model of levels 1-3 that one just made

5 - questions the questioning done in 4

6 - questions 1-5

7 - questions the questioning done in 6

8 - questions how this response relates to the previous responses and what everyone's perspective/opinion is and how everyone sees everything differently and will interpret what everyone says as differently

9 - questions how we come up with what we come up with and why we decide to believe what we do

10 - questions what belief even is

11 - questions what is is

... could keep extrapolating more meta

Edited October 17, 2021 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

I can see though that one could be like - oh you are so selfish to spend your time exploring various ideas about reality while we have other animals/people/habitat over here dying... it is like a king in the castle getting to paint art while the peasants are dying of thirst and working all day everyday.

It still is a good point of - oh if I was more selfless, I would stop greedily letting my brain explore ideas and get to work on helping others and solving problems.

I guess I am noticing though that it can be beneficial to study reality before jumping in to fix/save/help it.  There can be value in asking, what is the most pressing issue here on the most macro level.  The answer to that question will vary on based on perspective/value/need/etc.   Who am I trying to help and in doing so, what will I be hurting?  Why am I picking that thing to help and that thing to hurt?  Why am I saying that this needs attention?

Yes to just sit back and let animals get killed and forests burned - how dare I do nothing.  But how to pick?  And what exactly do I do?  The forests are HUGE.  I am one person.  The number of meat selling restaurants and grocery stores could be in the hundred thousands or millions.  How do I stop all of these places?  What about how all the animals are eating other animals and all the bugs are eating other bugs?  How do I communicate to the animals and bugs to stop eating each other?  How do I communicate to the microbacteria to stop eating other microbacteria?  Or how do I tell the volcano to not blow up because it will destroy everything around it or tell the hurricane to not come? 

If they actually do understand me, what will they eat?  How will the grass feel if it starts to get eaten?  Am I prioritizing animals and bugs over grass?  Does grass feel pain and how do I know if it does?  What if animals cannot eat grass?  What if there is none?

How do I pick whether it is more important to stop the forest fires, work on clean energy, stop the killing of the animals, save poor people, etc.?  If the issues are all happening at the same time, how do I pick?

What about trying to get others to change their mind and just stop burning forests and stop killing animals and stop driving gasoline cars?  How do I get them to listen?  Do I put up 100000 billboards and 100000 adds?

How did I even decide that these were problems?  Someone else showed me.  Did they brainwash me?  Did I brainwash myself?

Is by saying all of this things that are problems are imaginary - is that cruel?  What is cruel other than what survival says cruel is?  But then am I being a selfish ego to justify to not do anything?  Am I justifying my cruelty?  Is it cruel to do nothing just as to be the one with the knife killing the whatever?

I can't do 50 things at once so if I do 1 thing, am I still being cruel in not addressing the other 49?

If we are all collectively doing nothing and that is leading to nothing getting fixed, then we are collectively creating the problem?  I just decided to be vegan a few weeks ago - that is almost nothing in the dent of the billions who still eat meat so in a way, I might as well still eat meat..

Ahhhh..

The problem is so big - it feels that to even not drive oil and gas car will do nothing as there are billions that still do as are the cruise ships, tanker ships, etc.

But again, if we look at everything - is the universe imagined?  Am I imagined?  What is real and what is not real?  What is okay?  Everything will die anyway right?  Or am I imagining that?  Some stuff seems futile and then you scratch your head and then after that question if you actually ever scratched you head or imagined you did so...

And then you see how you are parrotting what everyone else is saying and how you can't escape that and feel trapped.  And then if you think in non-duality terms - oh maybe I am everyone - but I am having to imagine that. 

So futile I just want to close my eyes and pretend nothing is happening.  But then is anything even happening at all or am I imagining it?  When I die, will it be like nothing happened?

....................

[PepperBlossoms]

But then to say - why am I preferring the savior of the world like this over the world being like that?

Why am I preferring for the hurricane to not come?  How will that impact everything else if I stop the hurricane from coming?

If I look at evolution and see - hey the world has not always been like this - it used to not even have humans or animals or even bacteria - - but even to say that - who knows I am just believing on blind faith and/or imagining it to be the case...

Why have preference for the human world when I can prefer the world where there are no more humans and just rocks and gasses?

But yet I deep down still want the creatures to live.  But I want to live.  But I as a human will die and my death will allow for other things to eat me and be able to use me as their nutrients.

But what if this is like the matrix and I am hooked up to a machine and there is no world?

.........

If I want to build solar panels but I need 50 million dollars and I have just a scratch, how, what, who?  If I apply to all the companies that are doing solar panels but no one hires me, then what? 

MEH

idk...

The ego wants to be right - so the ego feels good when it talks bad to people for eating meat or polluting the environment.

But then the ego may feel better when it says all that is imagination.

But then the ego may say - look the ego is just doing whatever makes it feel the best.

But then one may say - the ego is imagined.

But then what is imagination?

[PepperBlossoms]

The futility... tell the hurricane to not come - but then the plants need that hurricane for more water and to fill up the reservoirs  - the flooding adds more to the groundwater - - but the people say no as their homes will flood.  so we say, how about we bring in dirt to raise your homes and then let the hurricane flood?  but then the place we get the dirt from has lots of bugs in it and by transporting them to another place and then compacting the soil, we kill 1000000 trillion bugs and microorganisms just to serve 500 thousand humans.  So then what do you do?  Do you save the human homes or aid the plants and bugs?  But the humans are the ones that can stop climate change more so than the bugs or plants can so you pick the humans to save and destroy the plants and bugs.  But then those plants and bugs you destroyed made climate change even worse as there are less plants taking in CO2 and less bugs which is then less animals which then the bacteria has less things that it is scared of so the bacteria takes off and gets into the water and then gets to the humans and creates a virus that kills the humans.. (i just made that up)

put up solar panels and destroy habitat in the process. put up wind turbines and destroy birds and some habitat and some bugs in the process.

what if you are destroying a trillion trillion bugs/animals to save a few billion humans?

what if everything dies by a meteor anyway?

IDK - it is tricky. I think we can go for trying to do the most holistic, sustainable thing that does the most to let everyone/thing live in harmony- - AND have fun exploring reality - - even if this reality is imagined anyway

[tuckerwphotography]

@PepperBlossoms Perhaps what we should “do” cannot he conceptualized via rational thought rather we can be moved via the spirit/heart/love into action, as if we are an empty vessel for something larger than our individual body/minds with an infinite intelligence that created the very idea of there being an us and an infinite intelligence.