Breaking out of materialism/physicalism

[liamnewsom202]

Really got into Leo in 2020, did the thing where I basically took everything he said with faith (unconsciously) cause it felt like he was the only one who got me lol.

Fast forward a few years, digging deeper into nonduality, some subtle awakening experiences here and there, very active mind trying to conceptualize and model everything out into a way that makes sense. Feel like ive been hitting a wall, everything ive ever assumed and taken on about this thing seems to be utter unknown bullshit that I dont really get. 

I feel like im at a stage now where my models and ideas cannot get me any further and im just bypassing important aspects of my life.

Ive been cracking into philosophy and metaphysics much more and I find it hard to hold all of that aswell as a direct groundless grounding in the absolute unknowability of this thing. Bit of a mind addiction, dont want to put the learning and taking on of things down. Can talk up a whole storm about consciousness is this, the mind is that blah blah, but it all just feels like a distraction from the real thing and im insecure.

 My mind will have a tendency to get frustrated looking for answers and just default back to materialism even though every ounce of my being knows its gotta be BS. 

Any tips for breaking out of materialism for good? Really getting this directly without needing to continuously hold it all so tightly? Im tired 

[Shambhu]

I will share a few personal suggestions with you.

So long as you have doubts, you will always revert to seeing your self as an object among other objects.  This is the human condition.  Instead of approaching this in a haphazard way, try to systematically inquire into your experience until you can conclusively see that there is only pure consciousness.  I won't go into details here, but Greg Goode has written several books about self-inquiry that you might find helpful.  The first is "Standing as Awareness," which will be a good introduction, but more importantly is his book "The Direct Path: A User's Guide."  It presents experiments covering the whole gamut of phenomena where you can verify for yourself that there is only awareness.

My other suggestion is to take up meditation, but here again, be methodical.  Meditate every day, preferably in the same place at the same time so that you can establish a routine.  Spend 1-2 hours in meditation if possible, but if not, do whatever you can, just show up each day.  One of my teachers, Sri Ramakant Maharaj, always said that the mind rejects the truth, and that is why you fail to grasp it or maintain a hold on it.  That is the reason for meditation; it trains your mind to accept reality.

Good luck!

[Nahm]

Insecurity is an emotion.
Emotion is guidance in regard to what you’re thinking & attracting.
You attracted, and were attracted to, people who were also addicted to conceptually bypassing important aspects of their life. 
The opposite of addiction, conceptualizing & bypassing is meditation.
If you willingly recognize your experience of jealousy, that someone else had something you want (security), you’ll feel more aligned via the clarity.

Frustration is an emotion.
People who are thinking like you’ve been, are also feeling the very same frustration, but choose to suppress it with conceptualizing & bypassing, and presenting themself to you as if this was not the case. 
Not seeing this leaves you frustrated, not understanding what you’re missing. 
If you willingly recognize your experience of pessimism, that someone else presented themself in a way to you which would lead to feeling secure, but does not, you’ll feel more aligned via the clarity. 

The emotional scale. 

 

[Terell Kirby]

1 hour ago, liamnewsom202 said:

Any tips for breaking out of materialism for good?

Deconstruct science. Leo has a 3 part series on this subject.

[liamnewsom202]

thanks you guys, all good suggestions. appreciate it. a commitment to a proper meditation practice i think will be helpful in many aspects.

 

[dearleo123]

@Terell Kirby Leo's done a shirty job at deconstructing anything, where anyone with a Bachelor's degree can easily dismantle his points. All he does is strawman, whilst misunderstanding the incompleteness theorum and relates it to his naive understanding of science whilst barely incorporating Popper's initial viewpoints on hypotheses anyway. 

What qualifications does Leo have in the subjects again?  Oh that's right, he dropped out of engineering in the first year and completed a philosophy degree (an arts degree BTW) that has naught to do with it.

But I guess thinking hard enough about it and having an impressionable naive audience is sufficient. Don't give advice if you have no education or idea on the background on it.

As to OP: incorporate materialism as a valid part of your lifestyle, as anything else is a delusion. If not, next time you get sick, break your arms, get an infection or some sort of organ malfunction, just if ignore it bro, it's all just illusory anyway. 

And really, don't let the life fly by in pursuit of some mystical ideation that does naught but malnourish the life you already have.

Whatever you are seeking for, it is something you have already 

[Shambhu]

@dearleo123 What evidence do you have for an objective, physical reality? 

[liamnewsom202]

@dearleo123 cool man, i guess im just curious what your even doing on here if you think leo is just some sham bullshitting whos misinformed lmao.

I hear you though, i guess im just curious about the metaphysical basis for materialism. An objective world seperate from our perceptions and mind which exists and which conciousness apparently arrises from. made of atoms or wahtever the fuck. this is what im skeptical of but keep wanting to refer back to and intellectually pry my way out of lol when my own direct experiences try to point me away from it. I think were all indoctrinated into this.

your example of things being real and mattering or not is probably still compatible with other outlooks like idealism. if anything, from what i know of materialism it would be closer to things not actually being real, just chemicals in the brain man!! your not slicing your hand off! it doesnt matter! its all just fucking chemicals in ur damn head! chemical reductionism lmao. chemicals and brains all the way down!

Your point about integrating it I think is missing the mark of what im getting at, doesnt mean science and practical applications of making meanings out of things is useless or hasnt given us lovely relative advancements and survival benefit. agreed we need to integrate orange. orange as a metaphysical basis for whats going on here is pretty retarded though. it just doesnt feed my soul man! its not the truth! it doesnt bring us real happiness! 

[liamnewsom202]

11 hours ago, Shambhu said:

@dearleo123 What evidence do you have for an objective, physical reality? 

I'd play this game with you.

 

The most immediate proof I have is a shared experience which can be directly validated by others. I park my car in the garage at my house. Go up to my room, sleep, it's still there the next day. I point towards some phenomenon such as a cat, my dad can also point to it and recognize it's there.

 

I close my eyes, turn around, the cat phenomenon leaves the sensory perception. I have basis and proof to assume it is still there existing as reality, I have just blocked off my perception to it. It exists regardless of my perception of it.

 

It's physical in the sense it caries certain properties and which we can observe and reason with, we can break these properties down in various relative measurements which directly point to physical characteristics which we can derive from it.

[peanutspathtotruth]

@liamnewsom202 You yourself see that it's a mind addiction you're indulging in. And mapping all this out can be helpful. But truth is only found in silence, beyond the concepts. With the resolve that you might turn back to your mental "understanding" and learning later, maybe commit to forget it all and let reality teach you. Be here in truth and let it show you what it really is.

Meditate. Don't count breaths, don't do this or that, just sit with reality exactly as it is. Be in silence and surrender. Do this all the time you would normally study or watch videos about this stuff. Do this for a while, do it seriously, and you will see what you actually want to see but have been looking for in your mental models.

[Shambhu]

21 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

The most immediate proof I have is a shared experience which can be directly validated by others. I park my car in the garage at my house. Go up to my room, sleep, it's still there the next day. I point towards some phenomenon such as a cat, my dad can also point to it and recognize it's there.

I close my eyes, turn around, the cat phenomenon leaves the sensory perception. I have basis and proof to assume it is still there existing as reality, I have just blocked off my perception to it. It exists regardless of my perception of it.

It's physical in the sense it caries certain properties and which we can observe and reason with, we can break these properties down in various relative measurements which directly point to physical characteristics which we can derive from it.

@liamnewsom202 Everything that you just mentioned as "proofs" could be experienced in a dream, and a dream is obviously not physical.  If it is not proof in a dream, how is it proof while waking?

Every perception you experience is in the mind only.  It's all subjective.  How can a subjective experience ever prove the existence of something outside of it?

[liamnewsom202]

@peanutspathtotruth yeah man, i guess all of the remarkable "holy shit" moments have been in those spaces, its never a mental thing. 

 

its directly grasping that ungraspableness and how all the hand waving will never equate to what I want. mind is certainly a big addiction for me.

 

I just feel like I want it both, I want to get this but also be able to think about it, and use it pragmatically lol. Ive kind of made a new ground out of the groundless as a means to continually spin mental webs around and end up confusing myself. It gets uncomfortable and I lose sight with the obvious ungraspability of what im actually looking for. That space of pure being! Where what these tricky smarty pantses are saying seems to make some actual sense for once lol. It often just turns into desperate seeking for something to happen and trying to get somewhere in that silence rather than actually giving up to it. I feel like I cant hold my liquor (thought and mental masturbation). I have the insight and its like cool, cant actually know anything about anything, lets just continue to extrapolate that into more stuff to think about!

 

Its one thing to continue to think about this, telling yall lovely introspective self aware stories about it, its another to actually do it and commit to it. If I really want it I will need to actually follow through and take the advice seriously, which will be uncomfterable and "suck" until it hits me over the head again and im like oh right! "Ive been doing it again!". And that process as its happened the last year of "having it" telling stories about having it until im left suffering and bypassing until it apparently happens again. lol

 

I dont want to give up thinking but I dont want to be chained to it and suffer lol, ive seen that theres another way but then I get frusterated again and want to bypass and hold all these yummy ideas about things which are just more bs. It also just gives the mind much more force to fuck with me in other ways, focusing on all my insecurities, being attached to all sorts of relative survival fears and what not. A giant distraction from the real work here. Ugh

[liamnewsom202]

7 minutes ago, Shambhu said:

@liamnewsom202 Everything that you just mentioned as "proofs" could be experienced in a dream, and a dream is obviously not physical.  If it is not proof in a dream, how is it proof while waking?

Every perception you experience is in the mind only.  It's all subjective.  How can a subjective experience ever prove the existence of something outside of it?

Dream or not its a shared experience, its all we got here lol. Sure, all of it is relative to its own existence, whatever it is. Dream or not, (lovely way out of that one isnt it )

 

If its the mind only then why do we share interpretation across minds? Why are all living beings reacting and responding to some kind of shared world? Regardless of what it is. For example the cat in my room seems to be just as cognizant of other happenings as I am regardless of how we interpret them subjectively. 

 

Sure solipsistically we cannot empirically prove it, all we got is our direct immediate experience which seems to clearly point towards there being something out there which exists regardless of our perception of it. Are you claiming that if I go for general anesthesia at the dentist the rest of the room and operation doesnt happen in my time unaware of it?

[Shambhu]

31 minutes ago, liamnewsom202 said:

Dream or not its a shared experience, its all we got here lol. Sure, all of it is relative to its own existence, whatever it is. Dream or not, (lovely way out of that one isnt it )

If its the mind only then why do we share interpretation across minds? Why are all living beings reacting and responding to some kind of shared world? Regardless of what it is. For example the cat in my room seems to be just as cognizant of other happenings as I am regardless of how we interpret them subjectively. 

Sure solipsistically we cannot empirically prove it, all we got is our direct immediate experience which seems to clearly point towards there being something out there which exists regardless of our perception of it. Are you claiming that if I go for general anesthesia at the dentist the rest of the room and operation doesnt happen in my time unaware of it?

I'm asking how does any of your experience, shared or otherwise, give any valid proof that the nature of reality is physical?  You claim there is something "out there,"  but all you have is an experience "in here."  How do you know what's "in here" matches what is "out there?"  How do you even know for sure there is something out there at all?  You also feel certain the world is physical, but all you have is non-physical evidence (your own subjective experience which appears in your mind).

The question of one or many minds is problematic enough, so I suggest laying it aside for the moment.  Imagine you are the lone, surviving living being in the universe.  There are no other humans remaining.  There isn't even a cat, cockroach, or coronavirus left.  How do you prove that everything around you is material?

[peanutspathtotruth]

1 hour ago, liamnewsom202 said:

@peanutspathtotruth

I dont want to give up thinking

That's very apparent - but you'll have to give it up. Don't worry about any escapist routes of abandoning the mind you might have heard of that are dangerous. First give up your mind and decide later - not in 5 minutes, not in 5 months. Do the work first, then see. You don't need thought. And you yourself see how lost in it you are. We all are and that is our detriment. Bite the bullet, put the books down, shut off the computer and phone and do the work. Commit to it for a while. It's really that simple. All else will fall into place ??

Reading your reply really shows me you know this but are afraid. Allow the fear, it's okay. You won't be able to use any of this anyway. Give up the illusion now and be in peace.

Edited January 11, 2022 by peanutspathtotruth

[liamnewsom202]

7 hours ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

That's very apparent - but you'll have to give it up. Don't worry about any escapist routes of abandoning the mind you might have heard of that are dangerous. First give up your mind and decide later - not in 5 minutes, not in 5 months. Do the work first, then see. You don't need thought. And you yourself see how lost in it you are. We all are and that is our detriment. Bite the bullet, put the books down, shut off the computer and phone and do the work. Commit to it for a while. It's really that simple. All else will fall into place ??

Reading your reply really shows me you know this but are afraid. Allow the fear, it's okay. You won't be able to use any of this anyway. Give up the illusion now and be in peace.

Thanks for the reminder peanut bro. Was a nice read, thanks for your care and consideration. Made me feel good to read what you had to say, I feel satisfied with the replies to this thread.

 

7 hours ago, Shambhu said:

I'm asking how does any of your experience, shared or otherwise, give any valid proof that the nature of reality is physical?  You claim there is something "out there,"  but all you have is an experience "in here."  How do you know what's "in here" matches what is "out there?"  How do you even know for sure there is something out there at all?  You also feel certain the world is physical, but all you have is non-physical evidence (your own subjective experience which appears in your mind).

The question of one or many minds is problematic enough, so I suggest laying it aside for the moment.  Imagine you are the lone, surviving living being in the universe.  There are no other humans remaining.  There isn't even a cat, cockroach, or coronavirus left.  How do you prove that everything around you is material?

Lol man, it doesnt match whats out there its just like, you know.. a representation of it that our human minds which are like.. you know, generated by our brains are conceiving of. We know theres something out there cause what would all of this be if not the perception of it! How could it not be if we have this experience of it! Everything is material because, idk man. Its made of atoms or some shit, its made of something lol. 

This is pretty silly and its hard to take myself seriously  We could just drop it.

Edited January 11, 2022 by liamnewsom202