How do you know if a feeling is good or bad

[Salvijus]

14 minutes ago, 4201 said:

If that duality is "baked into the body" then I'm quite curious about the biology of it.

Mechanics are very simple. If one is in lign with the truth, natural joy is there. If one is in delusion and ignorance, suffering and disharmony is there.

Ultimately there's only harmony and love. Love has no opposite really. But it appears that there is an opposite because of ignorance. Ignorance has a power to cause suffering and disharmony. 

[Mason Riggle]

@4201 maybe it's just me, but it all seems straight forward and direct.  

If I consider my organism to be a system, I can compare it to how other systems function.  I can, for instance, consider a rock to be a system, albeit a rather simple and slowly changing one, and recognize it as a relationship between it's internal makeup, and external forces.  If I push on a rock, it reacts to this push.  If I heat a rock, it might explode or melt... but the rock also 'resists' exploding or melting or moving.  It 'wants' or 'prefers' (for lack of better terms) to be in the state it is in, and will 'resist' being 'pushed away' from this state.  

There is a state that 'you' prefer, and you 'desire' to be in that state, and when external forces try to move you away from that state, this is 'not preferred'.. it is 'suffering'.. it 'feels bad'.   

Granted.. human organisms are very complex systems compared to rocks.  The brain has powerful abilities to observe what is causing it to be not how it prefers to be, and complex systems for determining how best to return to how it prefers to be. 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[Salvijus]

19 minutes ago, 4201 said:

Yes, but why does most thoughts have a feeling associated to it when the thought isn't itself about feeling? "Being mad at an asshole" is not a thought about feeling, it's just a thought. Why does it feel? Doesn't it mean there's also a secondary thought, which is about feeling, associated to the first thought? (Otherwise there would be no interpretation of feeling)

There are feelings and interpretations of feelings. A state of mind that does not interpret anything sees everything as pure love and beauty. It's called samadhi.

A mind that interprets things is always wrong. All interpretations are distortions of reality. Thus disharmony comes into being. (Apparant disharmony) 

Ultimately there's only nondual love and harmony. Ego-mind's interpretations of reality is a distortion that causes suffering and appareat disharmony which is not real ultimately.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Salvijus

[mandyjw]

13 minutes ago, 4201 said:

Yes, but why does most thoughts have a feeling associated to it when the thought isn't itself about feeling? "Being mad at an asshole" is not a thought about feeling, it's just a thought. Why does it feel? Doesn't it mean there's also a secondary thought, which is about feeling, associated to the first thought? (Otherwise there would be no interpretation of feeling)

Again, because feeling isn't a thought. No secondary thought, it's direct. 

13 minutes ago, 4201 said:

Alternatively, why can't I think negative things without feeling bad? Isn't the idea of a feeling "being bad" a totally different idea from the thoughts about other things?

You totally can think negative things without feeling bad. You can think anything you want. I can call you some ridiculous insulting thing and you'll know I'm joking. Note how often the most fun people to be with tease and can take teasing. Your belief is calling the shots to how emotion interprets the current thought. 

"I am miserable at parcheesi." Neutral, kind of amusing. I've never played it, never known anyone who did, I'd have to google it to know what it is. I have NO beliefs about it regarding a sense of self. 

"I am miserable at that thing I really, reeeeeally want to excel at but often doubt myself in." feels bad. I have many beliefs behind it and sense of self behind it. 

There is no such thing as objective negativity. 

Edited December 23, 2021 by mandyjw

[4201]

6 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

Again, because feeling isn't a thought. No secondary thought, it's direct. 

Do you recognize that "I suck" and "this feeling is bad" are separate ideas? Or are they the same? The first is a thought and the second is an opinion of the first thought, a thought about the first thought. 

23 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

You totally can think negative things without feeling bad. You can think anything you want. I can call you some ridiculous insulting thing and you'll know I'm joking. Note how often the most fun people to be with tease and can take teasing. Your belief is calling the shots to how emotion interprets the current thought. 

"I am miserable at parcheesi." Neutral, kind of amusing. 

"I am miserable at that thing I really, reeeeeally want to excel at but often doubt myself in." feels bad. I have beliefs behind it and sense of self behind it. 

There is no such thing as objective negativity. 

Fair enough, there's no good and bad feelings it's just my own opinion. But then who is having that opinion, "me"? The higher self is absolute an has no opinion while the "regular self" may be literally anything that was identified with. How can feeling guide you out of identification if whether a feeling is good or bad is a matter of that same identification?

If somehow someone were to identify with liking insanity, would insane thoughts be judged as "good"?

[4201]

34 minutes ago, Mason Riggle said:

There is a state that 'you' prefer, and you 'desire' to be in that state, and when external forces try to move you away from that state, this is 'not preferred'.. it is 'suffering'.. it 'feels bad'.   

But isn't "me" and "what I desire" just identifications and thus could be literally anything?

[Mason Riggle]

15 minutes ago, 4201 said:

But isn't "me" and "what I desire" just identifications and thus could be literally anything?

sort of??  I'm not sure I understand the question.  

How does a lightning bolt 'choose' it's path through the atmosphere?  Well, it doesn't really choose in the normal sense.. it simply, 'takes the path of least resistance'.. another way to say this, lightning behaves exactly as it prefers to behave, according to it's structure, and the forces acting upon it. 

This is how you behave.  You always do exactly what your organism prefers to do, and the only way it could do otherwise, is if it preferred some other way of being more.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[mandyjw]

33 minutes ago, 4201 said:

Do you recognize that "I suck" and "this feeling is bad" are separate ideas? Or are they the same? The first is a thought and the second is an opinion of the first thought, a thought about the first thought. 

"This feeling is bad" could be a thought of recognition. If I see a cardinal at the bird feeder, the thought "cardinal" doesn't need to arise for me to appreciate it. If the thought "cardinal" arises, it's just a secondary neutral notation of what I'm aware of. Now I can communicate to someone that I saw a cardinal. If however, the feeling response to the thought "this feeling is bad" IS itself bad, it could be spinning an idea of itself as a depressed one, or something like that. The thought is not simply noting something it is aware of, it's dragging itself into it. 

It's really hard to explain this out without making a whole lot of assumptions, because in our direct experience it's nothing like we think it to be, that's the entire point of looking to see. We assume that we know what anger or jealousy feel like, but thought knows nothing of feeling.

33 minutes ago, 4201 said:

Fair enough, there's no good and bad feelings it's just my own opinion. But then who is having that opinion, "me"? The higher self is absolute an has no opinion while the "regular self" may be literally anything that was identified with. How can feeling guide you out of identification if whether a feeling is good or bad is a matter of that same identification?

Awareness is what you really are, always now. You may have had a lot of thought activity about being a someone but all those thoughts have ever been is awareness, aware of thoughts. Because feeling is direct, always now, it is our link to how aligned with now and awareness our thoughts are. In fact if you find that razors edge of now, there aren't any thoughts. They are periphery. But again, it seems you get to explore and be the prodigal son. When you're directly feeling, you are already out, you are that non existent razor's edge. If you do this to avoid this, you're thinking, and thinking is the only way that avoidance happens, and you'll know by how it feels. 

33 minutes ago, 4201 said:

If somehow someone were to identify with liking insanity, would insane thoughts be judged as "good"?

What actually IS insanity? What do you think? 

Do you understand the total difference between a judgement of a thought after the fact, the judgement of what you think someone else's thoughts are, and the direct feeling awareness of the thought? 

Edited December 23, 2021 by mandyjw

[Zigzag Idiot]

In the Fourth Way the process of disentangling the four Jungian functions is stressed. From my perspective it seems this process is prioritized differently among lineages. I took a snippet from the following article written by Ralph Losey. This is pertaining to the feeling function. If it interests you, I think you'll enjoy the full article and maybe some of the adjoining links found in it.

https://schoolofwisdom.com/laws-of-wisdom/laws-of-human-consciousness/

Our ability to feel is also stunted for much the same reasons as our senses. There is little or no place for our feelings in the adult world we are trained to enter. Very few feelings are acceptable in western culture. We are taught to turn off our feelings, the boy children especially. Some sedate feelings may be permitted, but the palate is quite limited. In general strong emotions of all kinds are suspect and forbidden. The subconscious, instinctual world is considered dangerous, especially feelings related to sex. Some children are abused, physically or mentally. They are subjected to strong negative emotions, deeply hurt feelings, and do not know what to do or how to handle them. Many cannot endure the pain and so turn from all feelings, becoming dry robots, autistic or schizophrenic. Even in the best of families we acquire complexes or neuroses of one kind or another. In today’s culture we all leave childhood psycho-traumatized to a certain degree.

The home of feelings, the dream world, is a forgotten area. It is given little importance by most of the adults who raise us. After some indulgence, we are encouraged to grow up, to put our fantasies and play behind us. Imagination is “kids stuff”, dreams are unreal or unimportant. So the indoctrination-education-program goes. We lose all touch with our dream world, our deepest desires and wishes. In today’s world of advertising, subliminal fill our feelings with new, acceptable desires and goals. In the United States for instance many of us actually come to believe that our deepest desires in life involve material consumption of one form or another. The pursuit of happiness becomes the pursuit of money and thrills. We find pseudo-happiness in consumption and entertainment, in movies and television. Our emotional needs come to be filled from the outside by observing the actor’s feelings. On the inside we become dead, hollow – the juices of our own feelings dry out. The function atrophies, and for some dies.

Again, this process can be reversed, feelings can be resurrected. The joy of play and imagination we knew in childhood can be regained. There are many procedures for this reawakening, you have only to find the one you like. For some it may be music, for some acting, for some martial arts, for others loving and hugs, for others sex. For many there are powerful traumatic events in their childhood which must be worked through. There is deep pain and emotional hurt in their past which must be overcome before their feelings can develop and grow, or before they can mature sexually. Many different psychological therapies have been developed to overcome this pain, including the pain of birth itself with which we all enter this world.

As we face and overcome the traumas and hang ups of the past, our feelings naturally strengthen, and our overall energy grows with the increased capacity to feel. Our dream world starts to communicate better with our waking selves. We start to transcend the advertising propaganda, to get in touch with our own desires. We start to find out what we really want out of life. We learn what we really love, what gives us real happiness and fulfillment. We learn from both our suffering and our joy. The dry sensations become charged. We awaken to art, to beauty, to sex. Our whole lives become filled with a new fire, with intensity and new feelings of all kinds. The purified feelings give our thinking a whole new dimension, our will a new power and force.

[Nahm]

@mandyjw

Grace & clarity like a damn nonja. 

[4201]

9 hours ago, mandyjw said:

"This feeling is bad" could be a thought of recognition. If I see a cardinal at the bird feeder, the thought "cardinal" doesn't need to arise for me to appreciate it. If the thought "cardinal" arises, it's just a secondary neutral notation of what I'm aware of. Now I can communicate to someone that I saw a cardinal.

Fair enough but "under" this thought of recognition there's a thought of identification. "THIS is a cardinal" is a very "visual" identification of a piece of your field of view and is a thought. Likewise that there's a bad feeling is an identification of "how" is a feeling even before it is recognized/conceptualized into language.

9 hours ago, mandyjw said:

 If however, the feeling response to the thought "this feeling is bad" IS itself bad, it could be spinning an idea of itself as a depressed one, or something like that. The thought is not simply noting something it is aware of, it's dragging itself into it. 

Isn't saying the a feeling response is bad a thought? (A way to see/interpret the "feeling response"). In the absolute, wouldn't the feeling response be uncharacterizable, since any characterization or property of the feeling response is thought? Is there even really such a thing as a "feeling response"? Or is it just idea about feeling that changes?

 

9 hours ago, mandyjw said:

It's really hard to explain this out without making a whole lot of assumptions, because in our direct experience it's nothing like we think it to be, that's the entire point of looking to see. We assume that we know what anger or jealousy feel like, but thought knows nothing of feeling.

Certainly, having a solid conceptual understanding of feeling in a mind-body system is not required to follow feeling. But I'm personally curious in what makes feeling "work". As I doubt feeling again and again, what is it that makes feeling failproof? To me, this idea that "feeling guides" or "feeling is a quality validator for thought" is basically hearsay. It feels nice to say indeed and I said it myself in the past, it's a nice way to look at feeling, but what really makes it true absolutely?

My initial reasoning was that I was interested in this to doubt feeling less often. You may say that this is just a way in which I am doubting feeling right now (which would be fair enough) but my curiosity is picked now and I actually want to understand feeling, not just being told that "it works" or "it guides" without understanding why it does so.

 

9 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Awareness is what you really are, always now. You may have had a lot of thought activity about being a someone but all those thoughts have ever been is awareness, aware of thoughts. Because feeling is direct, always now, it is our link to how aligned with now and awareness our thoughts are. In fact if you find that razors edge of now, there aren't any thoughts. They are periphery. But again, it seems you get to explore and be the prodigal son. When you're directly feeling, you are already out, you are that non existent razor's edge. If you do this to avoid this, you're thinking, and thinking is the only way that avoidance happens, and you'll know by how it feels. 

How could anything be misaligned with awareness or the now? How could anything be misaligned with absolute infinity? It's like saying absolute infinity has preference on what "aligns with it" or "not". If it did, it wouldn't be absolute anymore.

9 hours ago, mandyjw said:

What actually IS insanity? What do you think? 

Thought of a self not being sane. One could argue any thought about the self is insane to some relative level. Those are the thoughts that block, prevent, limit us.

9 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Do you understand the total difference between a judgement of a thought after the fact, the judgement of what you think someone else's thoughts are, and the direct feeling awareness of the thought? 

I can see how judging a thought of the past is different than feeling whether a thought is good or bad right now. This difference is what I'm curious about here. Whether a thought is good or bad right now is still dualistic yet it doesn't seem like something I'm giving my opinion about (unlike the 2 other categories you mentionned).

[Guest EmptyVase]

I don't have a logical explanation, but ever since I'm putting feeling good first, life's going ridiculously well. I don't know how I didn't end up as a heroin junkie yet. Probably feels good too, to get that shot of heroin. Probably doesn't feel that good afterwards.

Idk, I just do what feels good to me. Might be a 'having the heart in the right place'-thing.

[Gregory1]

Feeling is neither good nor bad, feeling is feeling.

Feeling is your guidance system, your connection to the divine.

(ATTENTION: Be careful not to confuse your thoughts with feelings. A thought is not a feeling.

[mandyjw]

9 hours ago, 4201 said:

Fair enough but "under" this thought of recognition there's a thought of identification. "THIS is a cardinal" is a very "visual" identification of a piece of your field of view and is a thought. Likewise that there's a bad feeling is an identification of "how" is a feeling even before it is recognized/conceptualized into language.

Yes, but you're being a bit of an idealist here. You're pretending that you aren't the prodigal son.

If you are lifting weights and start to feel actual pain, like sharp pain, you know to stop lifting or decrease the weights. The difference between discomfort (it hurts so good) of pushing ones muscles and pain is one that someone has to tune in and feel and be present to tell. But it is a vast, vast difference between the two. Likewise I can feel "negative" emotions and have that kind of discomfort, or I can continue thinking and have that pain, that suffering. The pain is a calling to stop what you're doing. What you are doing, is thinking and interpreting. If you are used to finding all understanding and solutions and resolution in the realm of thought you will never "hear" that signal. You will be hell bent on continuing your feat. You will push through it as if it is simply discomfort and you will do damage. If you are not lifting weights at all, no need to care. if you aren't thinking at all, then no need for thoughts of notice of recognition. 

9 hours ago, 4201 said:

Isn't saying the a feeling response is bad a thought? (A way to see/interpret the "feeling response"). In the absolute, wouldn't the feeling response be uncharacterizable, since any characterization or property of the feeling response is thought? Is there even really such a thing as a "feeling response"? Or is it just idea about feeling that changes?

Of course it's a thought, in your direct experience, it's not gonna be like I say it is. It's still hookers and blow, or whatever it was that prodigal sons did in their day. When you are out there in thought and you start to feel and come home, there will often be thoughts of recognition because it's the recognition that you desire to go home and then you move there. Our desire is to feel good. The way home is to feel. We are already good. We didn't need to go out to prove it and find ourselves out "there". We already have a loving home. 

An insight is a thought of recognition. Insights and epiphanies FEEL amazing because they are aligned with awareness aligned with direct recognition. Then months later when you try to elicit the feeling from your insight from thinking the same thought, it's not going to happen. Because thought is the only thing that can make others, time and separation seem to be real. The direct feeling of it is the profoundly helpful tie to home. Why? Because feeling is always direct. It is now. 

9 hours ago, 4201 said:

Certainly, having a solid conceptual understanding of feeling in a mind-body system is not required to follow feeling. But I'm personally curious in what makes feeling "work". As I doubt feeling again and again, what is it that makes feeling failproof? To me, this idea that "feeling guides" or "feeling is a quality validator for thought" is basically hearsay. It feels nice to say indeed and I said it myself in the past, it's a nice way to look at feeling, but what really makes it true absolutely?

If I stab myself in the arm, it's gonna hurt. Absolutely we can deny this, but that's numb. Numb is the best term for stupid anyone ever came up with. It's most direct. You know how diabetics have to be super careful of their feet because they can't feel them? You wouldn't want to be without that deeper intelligence, prior to your own thoughts. I can think against myself, I can create a self that awareness is aware of and say THAT has awareness. Then I can believe that THAT needs to suffer in order to secure peace and happiness by going out "there". It's self harm. 

There is no truth absolutely, Truth doesn't need to confirm itself to itself. How can it confirm itself? One way. Conform itself. By thinking it IS a form, separate from itself. Are there two of you, one that can confirm yourself to the other? Feeling is already guiding you. Why cause it's always HOME. It always knows right where home is. 

9 hours ago, 4201 said:

My initial reasoning was that I was interested in this to doubt feeling less often. You may say that this is just a way in which I am doubting feeling right now (which would be fair enough) but my curiosity is picked now and I actually want to understand feeling, not just being told that "it works" or "it guides" without understanding why it does so.

Again, if you're looking for understanding through thought, it's ultimately not gonna satisfy. Hookers and blow. As I said, even insight and epiphany is marked and known by a feeling of understanding. There is no logical understanding without feeling, feeling even marks it. 

9 hours ago, 4201 said:

How could anything be misaligned with awareness or the now? How could anything be misaligned with absolute infinity? It's like saying absolute infinity has preference on what "aligns with it" or "not". If it did, it wouldn't be absolute anymore.

Peace/love/happiness is a lack of thoughts trying to achieve and force into place. It is the direct acceptance of all. The father always accepts the son home. The son is free to squander his birthright of peace/love/happiness, all just to come home to another f-ing party. The father is always there waiting. 

10 hours ago, 4201 said:

Thought of a self not being sane.

?

Could we also say insanity is lifting those weights, hell bent on a future goal, hell bent on avoiding pain through suffering pain, numb to the damage we do to ourselves and others? 

10 hours ago, 4201 said:

I can see how judging a thought of the past is different than feeling whether a thought is good or bad right now. This difference is what I'm curious about here. Whether a thought is good or bad right now is still dualistic yet it doesn't seem like something I'm giving my opinion about (unlike the 2 other categories you mentionned).

Thought says it's dualistic, in that direct seeing, it never becomes separate. There's nothing I can do to make myself not dual. I'm already that. 

Duality is the indirect "how" of creation. Color is created by absorbing and rejecting different wavelengths. We have light and dark (absence of light). In the awareness OF creation, it is not dualistic. You are the light. There is no light, really, just Awareness, that's the light. Nonduality, does not exclude duality. Everything awareness is aware of is just its own light. Only ever now. 

When we hurt and do damage is when we say, "I am a color."  "I am a color, not the light that makes color possible, and so YOU are a color I don't like or am afraid of." "I am the genetic code my expression is filtered through. I am intelligent, therefore I am numb to anything that does not fit in with want I think. I cut myself off from the flow of light ever now, the real brilliance, so I can think of myself as only what it shines upon, separate from it. Because you're Brilliant intelligence itself only ever now, your being, is only EVER that light, when you think thoughts that say you are anything lesser than or other than that feeling (now) says, "nah dude." 

[Nahm]

@4201

In the bible, it is suggested when you find yourself eating the fruit of the knowledge of good & bad and feeling the burn, to listen to the sword (truth which cuts through all) which points you to the tree of life, of what you want, in your life. 

Grounding Meditation.

Dreamboard. 

(*only for kindergarteners!) 

[mandyjw]

12 hours ago, Nahm said:

@mandyjw

Grace & clarity like a damn nonja. 

 It's just a nonja s-word. 

[Nahm]

? 
? 

[4201]

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Yes, but you're being a bit of an idealist here. You're pretending that you aren't the prodigal son.

If you are lifting weights and start to feel actual pain, like sharp pain, you know to stop lifting or decrease the weights. The difference between discomfort (it hurts so good) of pushing ones muscles and pain is one that someone has to tune in and feel and be present to tell. But it is a vast, vast difference between the two. Likewise I can feel "negative" emotions and have that kind of discomfort, or I can continue thinking and have that pain, that suffering. The pain is a calling to stop what you're doing. What you are doing, is thinking and interpreting. If you are used to finding all understanding and solutions and resolution in the realm of thought you will never "hear" that signal. You will be hell bent on continuing your feat. You will push through it as if it is simply discomfort and you will do damage. If you are not lifting weights at all, no need to care. if you aren't thinking at all, then no need for thoughts of notice of recognition. 

Let it be clear that while this post (and my forum usage in general) could be a distraction from feeling, I'm not saying here that I can't go back to feeling or that I'm not the prodigal son. I'm simply interested in a deeper understanding of feeling or feeling response without implying I need that understanding.

I agree about everything you say here about how the feeling response works. It responds to thoughts, it either hurts or not. Is this feeling response biological or conceptual in nature? This is more or less what I'm interested in. I know it will always work either way and I know about the traps of misinterpreting that feeling response to perpetuate a cycle of pain.

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Of course it's a thought, in your direct experience, it's not gonna be like I say it is. It's still hookers and blow, or whatever it was that prodigal sons did in their day. When you are out there in thought and you start to feel and come home, there will often be thoughts of recognition because it's the recognition that you desire to go home and then you move there. Our desire is to feel good. The way home is to feel. We are already good. We didn't need to go out to prove it and find ourselves out "there". We already have a loving home. 

An insight is a thought of recognition. Insights and epiphanies FEEL amazing because they are aligned with awareness aligned with direct recognition. Then months later when you try to elicit the feeling from your insight from thinking the same thought, it's not going to happen. Because thought is the only thing that can make others, time and separation seem to be real. The direct feeling of it is the profoundly helpful tie to home. Why? Because feeling is always direct. It is now. 

"The way home is to feel." Recognize that this is an interpretation, a way to look at how feeling works. It implies that there is such a thing as a feeling response and that it works. (Whether that feeling response is biological in nature or not). I'm not saying it isn't true but it feels shallow as an understanding. All it says it that "feeling works" but why? how?

Next time you happen to doubt feeling (happens every day for me), what is going to hold you back? This very surface level idea that "feeling is the way home and that's it". Perhaps like me you've been trying to beat this idea into your head that "feeling works", "following feeling leads to happiness" or "feeling guides". But in my case, beating ideas into my head doesn't work and all it does is create this notion of "what I should do" vs what I am doing, creating a lot of guilt and shame for not feeling.

I know that personally at least, understanding why and how something works is a big driver of motivation for me. When I was a kid my parents were telling me not to put the cutting boards in the dishwasher. Yet I wouldn't listen or even remember or think about it, since I didn't understand why I was supposed to not put cutting boards in the dish washer. When I learned that it damages the wood and can make it crack though, I didn't need to be told again. If I receive some random meaningless command from someone, the chances of me doing it are pretty low. But if I understand why that was asked and what's the issue behind it, chances of me doing it are pretty high. Feeling works, ok, but how and why? "Idk, it just works". To me when I'm in a state of doubt, this idea that "I should feel" is just some meaningless command, which come with absolutely no justification of why I should do it.

It isn't sufficient for me to have demonstrated that feeling-response work, I want to understand the mechanism behind it. Even if there's no mechanism and feeling-response are "made out of nothing", I want to see how that works too.

I think it'd be bullshitting hard to say that feeling can't be justified logically. (Not that this justification is necessary, just pleasant to have). After all I have justified Mediation from entirely a biological and logical standpoint. I don't see why it couldn't be done for feeling, especially if the feeling-response is a biological reaction of the body to what the brain is thinking (many teachers explain it this way, not that I believe this is exactly how this is happening biologically).

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Again, if you're looking for understanding through thought, it's ultimately not gonna satisfy. Hookers and blow. As I said, even insight and epiphany is marked and known by a feeling of understanding. There is no logical understanding without feeling, feeling even marks it. 

I mean if you are looking for ketchup and you find ketchup it's bound to satisfy you to some amount, even if temporary.  I'm on no way saying that this understanding replaces feeling, it just serves to reinforce the motivation toward feeling in situation of doubt.

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Could we also say insanity is lifting those weights, hell bent on a future goal, hell bent on avoiding pain through suffering pain, numb to the damage we do to ourselves and others? 

Indeed 

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Thought says it's dualistic, in that direct seeing, it never becomes separate. There's nothing I can do to make myself not dual. I'm already that. 

Isn't the duality between what you see and what you feel a duality you create? (And what you hear, touch, etc.) You interpret this as "the stuff you see" and feeling as the stuff you feel. Even if the feeling doesn't say "good or bad", it's existence implies "nah dude" as you said which is divided from "yes dude". Even if the yes/no is interpreted/added onto the feeling, the mere existence of that feeling at some location in the body is dualistic.

But then if all we receive in consciousness is the feeling at some location in the body then it's a biological process that evaluates our thoughts, not the mind directly. This feeling-response or body-reaction is thus then biological and within a materialistic paradigm (belief of a body) you can't control the functioning of the feeling-response. If that's the case then I should be able to find my proof through the study of neuroscience and the human body. If that's not the case (and feeling-response is conceptual) then I should be able to find my proof through the study of neural networks on a theorical level.

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Duality is the indirect "how" of creation. Color is created by absorbing and rejecting different wavelengths. We have light and dark (absence of light). In the awareness OF creation, it is not dualistic. You are the light. There is no light, really, just Awareness, that's the light. Nonduality, does not exclude duality. Everything awareness is aware of is just its own light. Only ever now. 

YES. I want the "how" of feeling-response. Awareness of creation is cool and all but neither is a replacement for the other.

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

When we hurt and do damage is when we say, "I am a color."  "I am a color, not the light that makes color possible, and so YOU are a color I don't like or am afraid of." "I am the genetic code my expression is filtered through. I am intelligent, therefore I am numb to anything that does not fit in with want I think. I cut myself off from the flow of light ever now, the real brilliance, so I can think of myself as only what it shines upon, separate from it. Because you're Brilliant intelligence itself only ever now, your being, is only EVER that light, when you think thoughts that say you are anything lesser than or other than that feeling (now) says, "nah dude." 

Yes I agree that feeling indicates self-identification.

2 hours ago, Nahm said:

@4201

In the bible, it is suggested when you find yourself eating the fruit of the knowledge of good & bad and feeling the burn, to listen to the sword (truth which cuts through all) which points you to the tree of life, of what you want, in your life. 

Grounding Meditation.

Dreamboard. 

(*only for kindergarteners!) 

My "knowledge" of the good IS meditation/feeling. (What I should do) Yet all it takes is one bad identification to deny that.

I've been doing meditation for a while and I can tell it works. But the situations in which I get stuck implies not getting off of the computer, not doing meditation, not feeling. I know that when I'm "stuck" meditation always works but it's a matter of actually doing it.

I could perhaps make meditation a bit more serious as right now I'm not really following a technique. I just breathe and focus entirely on my breathing. Eyes open, eyes close? Doesn't matter. Sometimes I try more to focus on my body or be aware of thought, but rarely I ever "officially decide" I'm doing one form of meditation over another and perhaps this lack of definitiveness hurts. But IMO meditation is going great, I should just be doing more.

I have a dreamboard although I don't feel particularly passionate about my dreams lately as the focus is to pay my rent.

Edited December 24, 2021 by 4201

[Nahm]

@4201

The technique sounds perfect. The rest is discordant conjecture and is basically a relentless molestation of meditation.

[4201]

18 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@4201

The technique sounds perfect. The rest is discordant conjecture and is basically a relentless molestation of meditation.

Not sure what you are referring to here. Are you saying not settling on one particular technique of meditation is "a relentless molestation of meditation"?