This Forum Is Becoming Less Curious

[Yimpa]

26 minutes ago, Moksha said:

It is direct realization, or it is false.

From my point of view, it’s also everything in between and beyond.

[Moksha]

1 minute ago, Yimpa said:

From my point of view, it’s also everything in between and beyond.

The absolute uses the mind to realize what it is not. That is as far as the mind can go. Beyond that, through the inner gate, the absolute begins to directly realize itself.

Sometimes enlightenment is cataclysmic, but usually it happens gradually like a sunrise.

When the dream ends, the entire adventure from ignorance to awakening to enlightenment is seen for the transient sequence of experiences that it is. The absolute never actually changes.

[r0ckyreed]

I think technology in many ways has made us less curious. It’s hard to be curious when you are distracted by work or entertainment. 

What has helped me is to admit that I don’t know and question everything I take for granted in solitude. 

[Yimpa]

34 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

I think technology in many ways has made us less curious. It’s hard to be curious when you are distracted by work or entertainment. 

Using AI tools like GPT-4 and DALL·E 2 has made me 100x more curious.

[r0ckyreed]

41 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

Using AI tools like GPT-4 and DALL·E 2 has made me 100x more curious.

It comes at a cost. The AI gives you quick answers and little time to contemplate. Back before I was before, if you wanted to know an answer to a question, you had to read through a ton of books and you would find fascinations and information you never thought would sparkle your interest.

AI and technology spoonfeeds you information, which is partly why todays society is so lazy and lacks self-discipline. Imagine doing your entire research studies in college without technology. That is difficult for me to imagine. I got this info from the book Curious by Ian Leslie.

You could also argue ofc that AI shortcuts that entire process and weeds out unnecessary info. So there are trade offs. But overall, I feel like these AI bots are more of a hindrance than they are a success.

Edited April 14, 2023 by r0ckyreed

[FlyingMan]

They ban the curious and open-minded ones...

[Breakingthewall]

I have many genuine questions, but the only one who can answer them is myself, so I do not come here to ask anyone anything, because no matter how much wisdom they have, what they tell me will not answer anything. What I come to is to do a joint exercise of self-inquiry and understanding of reality. for me quite useful by the way

[Water by the River]

8 hours ago, Moksha said:

You're correct that there are false awakenings, where the absolute convinces itself that it is lucid but it is still thought-identified. It's a common spiritual trap and everyone (including me) is wise to be wary of it.

Conceptions of awakening are never awakening. It is direct realization, or it is false.

When mystics speak of ending suffering, they are referring to the suffering caused by identifying with the conditioned mind. Desires and fears always lead to suffering, because they are based on the false belief that the object of desire or fear is real. Love, integrity, and happiness are only directly realized within.

Fully Agree.

And I believe there is a hard-wired element in every human to go for the radiation of love,bliss  and happiness when choosing a path/teaching/guide. The Archetype of the Enlightened Sage, hardwired as Archetype in Humanity since the dawn of time.

Which is actually a nice thing that Mara didn't kill that hard-wiring. She only tries . Check the Wikipedia overview of Mystics for the favourite ways of executing Mystics: Nailing to the Cross, burning at the stake, drowning, .... Weren't we (capital W) having fun at certain past incarnations. 

First time? 

Luckily, humanity as evolved a bit. Main risks nowadays are ranging from being fired/kicked out from a spectrum of social activities, ranging from your job to online forums.

Water by the River

 

[Leo Gura]

11 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

The more insights I have, the less curious I notice myself becoming.

It's the opposite for me.

Curiosity in the spiritual domain can follow a U-shaped graph where it starts off high because you are so clueless, then as your mind gets filled with Buddhism, nonduality, and New Age crap it can drop down low because you think you've figured it all out, and then one day you smoke some salvia which bitchslaps you so hard you realize all that human spiritual stuff was just silly dogma and you go back to square one with not-knowing, and now you have real curiosity.

The root solution is a profound realization of not-knowing and a pure love for Consciousness.

See... the problem is that you think you actually know Consciousness. It takes a decade of work just to realize you don't.

Edited April 14, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Lilia]

Perhaps we need to make it safer for each other to not know and stay curious.

Some time ago I created this practice for myself where I would practice saying 'I don't know' and 'Can you explain this in simpler terms, please?' when talking with people.

I taught myself to:

1) not justify my not-knowing;

2) refrain from obsessive nodding, especially when I don't understand;

3) be okay with people making assumptions as to my level of intelligence. I discovered that one of the reasons I was so scared of being openly curious was that I didn't want people to presume I was stupid.

Another practice I developed for myself is non-judgemental listening. If I'm honest, I never know why someone is saying what they are saying. Could there be a better time to master not-knowing? On such occasions, if it's appropriate, I purposefully choose to not-know, sit back and simply listen to how the Void responds on my part.

All in all, not-knowing is truth. One can either practice it or overlook it. In my experience, the more I consciously live truth's attributes, the more fun my experience gets. 

[BlueOak]

Unless it's built into the foundation of what we do day to day, curiosity won't be there.

Maybe I can identify as a curious person again for a while. It won't last more than a month at most, it never does for me. I can put the reasons down, get them clear in my mind, and even using old NLP tricks I can't get those reasons to stick more than a month.

Because there is just this


 

 

 

....

But maybe a month is enough for all of us? Now and again. 

The other option is to have a collective structure where curiosity was taught as a virtue, in how people approached life. OR somehow stop people jumping to denounce any slightly off-script idea or concept. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by BlueOak

[r0ckyreed]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

See... the problem is that you think you actually know Consciousness. It takes a decade of work just to realize you don't.

Yeah. I’ve noticed myself becoming a know-it-all. Always trying to teach others and my friends spirituality. I need to go back to a Beginners Mind and start everything fresh. And question all the “insights” I’ve had to determine which insights are true vs. false.

False insights are very tricky. They are so tricky that I initially thought that they did not exist. 

Edit: How do we notice false insights easier?

I think it is the same with how do we recognize falsehood at all? Awareness/observation.

Edited April 14, 2023 by r0ckyreed

[Adam M]

Wipe the slate clean.

Your insights are bullsh*t.

Start again from scratch.

[Yimpa]

2 minutes ago, Adam M said:

Your insights are bullsh*t.

Not all of them at a given time. 

[Yimpa]

14 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

AI and technology spoonfeeds you information, which is partly why todays society is so lazy and lacks self-discipline.

Do not underestimate the power of having access to the collective knowledge of millions of people and condensing the golden nuggets. 

It also doesn’t have to make you lazy and lack self-discipline. If you use the tools properly, they can transform your life. 

Give a gun to a Green Beret and a toddler. 

Same gun, radically different results. 

(Notice how this same argument I’m making can apply to people who are against psychedelics)

Edited April 14, 2023 by Yimpa

[Moksha]

10 hours ago, Water by the River said:

And I believe there is a hard-wired element in every human to go for the radiation of love,bliss  and happiness when choosing a path/teaching/guide. The Archetype of the Enlightened Sage, hardwired as Archetype in Humanity since the dawn of time.

Which is actually a nice thing that Mara didn't kill that hard-wiring. She only tries . Check the Wikipedia overview of Mystics for the favourite ways of executing Mystics: Nailing to the Cross, burning at the stake, drowning, .... Weren't we (capital W) having fun at certain past incarnations. 

I agree, the power of a guru is its transparency to the light of the absolute which shines through it. People are naturally drawn to this energy, although they usually don't realize why. It resonates with the absolute within them.

I don't know if one of my preceding forms was a mystic, but am convinced that once upon a time I was a tree 

[Moksha]

7 hours ago, r0ckyreed said:

How do we notice false insights easier?

The deeper you sink into direct realization, the easier it is to recognize immature insights. Instead of seeing them as false, appreciate them as downward spiraling stairs into the absolute. Had you tried to jump the stairs to an entirely lower level, you might have cracked your skull in the process.

[HMD]

 

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

See... the problem is that you think you actually know Consciousness. It takes a decade of work just to realize you don't.

Fuck.

[HMD]

13 hours ago, Lilia said:

simply listen to how the Void responds on my part.

@Lilia That's a great Idea  ... 

[Yimpa]

1 hour ago, HMD said:

Fuck.

At least Consciousness isn’t bound by time…

…or so I’ve heard.