I was happier as a kid

[Salvijus]

1 minute ago, Osaid said:

If I had to go through that I would not experience restlessness or impatience, yes. Probably just physical pain. I would never do that though lol.
 

Gheesh. Lol. Well... You have to agree with me when I say these are quite gigantic claims. I'm not gonna question if it's true or not tho. But probability wise, it's very very hard to believe imo

[Salvijus]

Okay it's enough chatting for me. I'm going to sleep. Was nice to participate in this talk:) 

👋✌️

[Osaid]

2 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

You have to agree with me when I say these are quite gigantic claims.

You're trying to turn it into a willpower thing when it really isn't. It is purely a psychological absolution of the perception of time. The length of time I sit somewhere doesn't make time more real, that is just a physically strenuous activity like exercise. There are much bigger motivations than restlessness and impatience though, those are the mental imaginations of yourself. There is the physical pain for example.

[Osaid]

7 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Okay it's enough chatting for me. I'm going to sleep. Was nice to participate in this talk:) 

👋✌️

Peace

[Ishanga]

@Salvijus @Osaid Just want to say very cool dialog btwn the two of You, and respectful too...Osaid You speak like Sadhguru in many ways and I can appreciate what Your saying and agree with it all, thanks for sharing so much guys good stuff:)

Just a quick note, if You identify with the Body, and believe that is You, then sitting for 50yrs is a chore and not possible, but if You identify with the Life You are, "I am not the Body, I am not the Mind", and truly Realize this on a ultimate level, which is possible for most every human being, then both physical pain and mental sense of time will be gone.  Its not easy though for those that are so caught up in identifying with things we are not, that is a huge problem on the spiritual path and realization:)

 

[Osaid]

7 minutes ago, Ishanga said:

@Salvijus @Osaid Just want to say very cool dialog btwn the two of You, and respectful too...Osaid You speak like Sadhguru in many ways and I can appreciate what Your saying and agree with it all, thanks for sharing so much guys good stuff:)

Glad you benefitted.

[Sugarcoat]

8 hours ago, Osaid said:

What is the entity that gets absorbed into thoughts? What sense perception is that entity made of? Touch? Sound? Sight? Smell? Is it really there? Check if you can find it.

That's the thing, I never manage to pin point myself as some fixed entity or define myself exactly. Im not any sense perception. But somehow I can still "sense" myself. When im thinking, wether auditory or images of my body, I sense myself in it. Yet at the same time I sense myself like I am behind my eyes  watching my thoughts. So there being like a division. Ive thought about it beforehow I kinda feel like im both the one who has their attention on themselves, yet simultaneously my sense of self is the object of this attention. But I can't identity one entity .

Quote

8 hours ago, Osaid said:

You also say that attention gets absorbed into thoughts. What is attention actually made of? Can attention exist without an object to pay attention to? What is the difference between the object of attention and attention itself? Perhaps they are both the same thing?

 

that does make sense. Attention for me seems to require a sense of self, so I am paying attention to something, could be myself

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8 hours ago, Osaid said:

No, it is not secondary. All separation is strictly just imagination.

The belief essentially boils down to "I am affected by past and future." It is equivalent to your sense of time. You create this sense of time only through imagination. It also does not help that language is inherently dualistic. I am not sure what exactly causes the creation of self-image or ego in the first place, whether it is parents, language, society, etc. But those are probably valid speculations. The people around us pass their pathologies onto us.

As an example, in current experience, the identity "I am a human" is actually not experienced. "A human" is an abstraction of current experience. Thinking that you are a human is different from being a human. The experience of a human perfectly contains everything inside of it, including smell, sight, sound, touch, etc. It is not an isolated experience of a singular human. You can only abstract yourself as "a human" through imagination.

 

When your sense of self disappeared, did you prior to that, go through a gradual process of dissolution, where layer by layer dissolved all the way to zero, or did it just drop one day without going through that entire process? 

i have noticed in my experience how my mind constructs my sense of time and how my mental self was related to it too. don't know if that's all there is to it though.

I can't still wrap my head around that it's all just imagination. How come I seem to be entangled with this imagination? and affected by it. That is also my imagination saying that (which im entangled with) so it's like a loop. I still can't tell if that's all there is to this self tho. 

 

Quote

8 hours ago, Osaid said:

There are sensations in experience, that much is true.

But, is there an entity observing those sensations? Is there an entity which observes the body? Is there an entity which imagines a voice?

What sensation is the entity which observes those sensations going to be made out of? 

 

yea once again I cannot define myself and say what I am. So I can't identify some fixed entity located somewhere. I can't place my attention on it like an object in my experience. I notice how my mind is always referring to me or imagining me. So its like it is pointing to a me here, but simultaneously I am the thinker, and this is almost constant so it does maybe make a bit of sense in how it could be thought based, imaginary. 

 

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8 hours ago, Osaid said:

It is possible. It can happen in an instant, very simply. Just takes a bit of inquiry.

 

 I feel like im very open minded and can understand concepts well but that it could penetrate this seemingly constant sense of me is mind blowing to me

the belief thing to me is still puzzling. I can be open to the idea that there can't be an actual self, and I can understand it conceptually perhaps, but it doesn't seem to me that I believe I exist, I just "seem" to be here, if that makes sense.

 

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8 hours ago, Osaid said:

The frequency of thoughts is in direct proportion to how important you believe it is to think. If you believe you exist inside of thoughts, then you will think incessantly because you think that your survival depends on it. Fear is a strong emotion and desire, and if your thoughts can create that emotion and desire then you wont be able to stop thinking until you look directly at it and figure out what it is actually driving that emotion and desire

 

yea I can see, this does apply to my experience somehow . But still it just "seems" like I can imagine myself, even if it might not be actually true, not that it seems that I am the literal thought tho. Do I believe that I can imagine myself? is that the cause for this ability, and thus it creates this sense of self?  that is still what puzzles me, this belief thing, how could I realize that I can't imagine myself?  I would have to see that I don't exist at all, it would have to drop, Yet if  this self is the very imagination, then the imagination would have to drop, but then if I start to think again after a while suddenly im imagining myself again, and come back to existence, so I would have to see how I can't imagine myself, thats what it boils down to. kind of what you're saying ?

Quote

8 hours ago, Osaid said:

That's good. I remember a bit about your situation.

 

it is something else........

Edited March 12 by Sugarcoat

[Breakingthewall]

@Osaid

11 hours ago, Salvijus said:

 

If the past is not real and you live in the present, then if yesterday your 5-year-old children were tortured for hours to death in front of you, today you will be in a state of perfect equanimity since nothing is happening now, right? Look, the past is absolutely real, as real as your body, the only thing that is happening now, just like your body. It's a solid energetic pattern, it's just not "physical", but that doesn't make it any less real, you can't forget it. Millions of years of evolution have made it this way, it is the configuration of the human pattern of existence. 

The past has an emotional charge that takes time to deactivate and can be reactivated if the mechanisms that caused it have not been transcended at the current moment. You can erase the meaning of the psyche completely and be completely present, but to do so you would have to have a complete openness to the unlimited, that i dont perceive in you, which would erase the human psyche, to the level that it would not matter to you Life and death. There will be people who achieve that, but extremely few, and the question is: do you want that? because I think there will be time for it when i am dead, for now an intermediate level is what seems appropriate to me

Edited March 12 by Breakingthewall

[Osaid]

5 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

That's the thing, I never manage to pin point myself as some fixed entity or define myself exactly. Im not any sense perception. But somehow I can still "sense" myself. When im thinking, wether auditory or images of my body, I sense myself in it. Yet at the same time I sense myself like I am behind my eyes  watching my thoughts. So there being like a division. Ive thought about it beforehow I kinda feel like im both the one who has their attention on themselves, yet simultaneously my sense of self is the object of this attention. But I can't identity one entity .

When you have a dream, is there is a dreamer which is inside the dream?

5 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

that does make sense. Attention for me seems to require a sense of self, so I am paying attention to something, could be myself

Is it possible for there to be attention without an object or experience to pay attention to? Why does it seem that attention and the object of attention are always enmeshed? Maybe there is no difference between the object and observer? If there is no difference between the object and observer, then is there any space left over for a "self", or even a sense of it?

5 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

When your sense of self disappeared, did you prior to that, go through a gradual process of dissolution, where layer by layer dissolved all the way to zero, or did it just drop one day without going through that entire process? 

To a degree. I did a lot of self-inquiry which incrementally changed my perception of things. It ultimately led up to a singular "drop."

5 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

I can't still wrap my head around that it's all just imagination. How come I seem to be entangled with this imagination? and affected by it. That is also my imagination saying that (which im entangled with) so it's like a loop. I still can't tell if that's all there is to this self tho.

There is a psychosomatic relationship created using your imagination.

You are using your imagination to create desires within yourself which you then act out. The problem is that the desire is based on an imaginary self. 

As an example, if you imagine yourself in an undesirable future scenario, you genuinely believe you are experiencing that future scenario from that present moment, and so it creates a desire to avoid the literal imagination of that future scenario, which creates real physical biological symptoms in the present moment such as a racing heartbeat, high cortisol, etc. In other words, it creates the emotions which would transpire if that imagination really happened to you. You now have a desire to change your physical environment so that you can stop imagining the scenario which you imagine yourself inside of. For example, if you were stressed about going to work, calling in sick would cause you to stop imagining yourself at work and thus it would alleviate the stress and anxiety caused by that imagination. This psychosomatic connection can be severed by realizing that there is no entity called "you" which can be at risk of that future scenario in the first place.

5 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

the belief thing to me is still puzzling. I can be open to the idea that there can't be an actual self, and I can understand it conceptually perhaps, but it doesn't seem to me that I believe I exist, I just "seem" to be here, if that makes sense.

There is obviously the qualia and different phenomenon happening in your experience, that much is true, and perhaps that is what you mean by "seeming to be here."

The imagined part is the entity which you imagine to observe that phenomenon/experience. There is no middleman which has to observe experience, because which part of experience would that entity be made out of?

5 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

yea I can see, this does apply to my experience somehow . But still it just "seems" like I can imagine myself, even if it might not be actually true, not that it seems that I am the literal thought tho. Do I believe that I can imagine myself? is that the cause for this ability, and thus it creates this sense of self?  that is still what puzzles me, this belief thing, how could I realize that I can't imagine myself?  I would have to see that I don't exist at all, it would have to drop, Yet if  this self is the very imagination, then the imagination would have to drop, but then if I start to think again after a while suddenly im imagining myself again, and come back to existence, so I would have to see how I can't imagine myself, thats what it boils down to. kind of what you're saying ?

To be as accurate as possible, you believe that your imagination is representing real objects of experience, which is to say, you believe your imagination represents something beyond your imagination. You have turned yourself into an "object" inside of your imagination which you believe actually represents you. You use your ability to imagine yourself in order to place yourself inside of various forms of imagination about the past and future, so you have turned yourself into an entity/object which exists inside of those imagined scenarios which you must protect and look after.

Similar to how when you look at the ingredient label of a food product, you have to imagine that those ingredients exist inside of the product. You are using your imagination to symbolize the existence of the ingredients inside of the food product, that is how you know the ingredients that the food is made of. So, the imagination serves to represent something in your experience, which would be the ingredients inside the food. You are doing this exact same thing to your "self", you are imagining yourself as if you are a real object of experience, but that imagination actually symbolizes and represents absolutely nothing in your experience. There is no part of experience which that imagination of yourself represents, it is purely self-serving. Once you stop imagining, then the self stops appearing too, the imagination is self-contained, and thus it does not actually represent anything outside of itself.

Edited March 12 by Osaid

[Sugarcoat]

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On 2024-03-12 at 7:53 AM, Osaid said:

When you have a dream, is there is a dreamer which is inside the dream?

 

I would say yes. Dreams contain me. Can be first pov or third

Quote

On 2024-03-12 at 7:53 AM, Osaid said:

Is it possible for there to be attention without an object or experience to pay attention to? Why does it seem that attention and the object of attention are always enmeshed? Maybe there is no difference between the object and observer? If there is no difference between the object and observer, then is there any space left over for a "self", or even a sense of it?

 

no

they seem enmeshed because attention is not a thing its just the sense of me being separate that makes it a useful concept 

maybe there is not. But it just seems like it

 

Quote

On 2024-03-12 at 7:53 AM, Osaid said:

To a degree. I did a lot of self-inquiry which incrementally changed my perception of things. It ultimately led up to a singular "drop."

 

that's cool how that happened to you.

I believe it might affect how different people without a self talk about the self. If for someone it just drops randomly then maybe their understanding of the self will be whatever they had prior to that. But if you go through a long process off shedding all the layers you understand it differently

in my experience the reason for all my shedding of layers boils down to attention on the self, then self-inquiry has came naturally but not extensively, but no I haven't had that singular drop you seem to refer to. Although I did completely detach from my mental self. 

And maybe there are different levels of "no self" too. For me the most extreme seems like someone like Jim Newman for example. I asked one enlightened person online about physical pain, they said "it's a sensation like any other, there is no rejection of it, desire for it to go away, no discrimination against it". That's another example of the deepest level, its to me is like walking dead.  So wherever you are maybe is like a level above. Then where I am would be one level above that. Then the average human one level above me, I don't know tho. Its hard for me to pinpoint sometimes "am I like this person but it just expresses itself differently because of brain difference"

Quote

On 2024-03-12 at 7:53 AM, Osaid said:

There is a psychosomatic relationship created using your imagination.

You are using your imagination to create desires within yourself which you then act out. The problem is that the desire is based on an imaginary self. 

As an example, if you imagine yourself in an undesirable future scenario, you genuinely believe you are experiencing that future scenario from that present moment, and so it creates a desire to avoid the literal imagination of that future scenario, which creates real physical biological symptoms in the present moment such as a racing heartbeat, high cortisol, etc. In other words, it creates the emotions which would transpire if that imagination really happened to you. You now have a desire to change your physical environment so that you can stop imagining the scenario which you imagine yourself inside of. For example, if you were stressed about going to work, calling in sick would cause you to stop imagining yourself at work and thus it would alleviate the stress and anxiety caused by that imagination. This psychosomatic connection can be severed by realizing that there is no entity called "you" which can be at risk of that future scenario in the first place.

 

I feel like this is possible as long as there is any sense of a you as the body. 

when I had a fixed mental self, for example I remember I had this mental identity of myself as being socially awkward, then this could happen in regards to that. 

altough there was a period after my dissolution of the mental self which I could still experience this fear, like there was residues of those old identity patterns. but the way it expressed itself was radically different, it was like directly in the body, and was quickly dissolved because no fixed mind was blocking it kind of. 

basically what you describe sounds to me more typical to how it is when one has a fixed mental self.

Now when I have dissolved that fixed mental self, but I still sense myself as this body, above scenarios can happen to me still in regards to physical pain.. which it does... 

can't see how it wouldn't unless you reach the walking dead level like Jim Newman and such

maybe it would express itself differently for you tho, hard for me to even define "your" level.

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On 2024-03-12 at 7:53 AM, Osaid said:

There is obviously the qualia and different phenomenon happening in your experience, that much is true, and perhaps that is what you mean by "seeming to be here."

The imagined part is the entity which you imagine to observe that phenomenon/experience. There is no middleman which has to observe experience, because which part of experience would that entity be made out of?

 

I mean seeming to be here as located in my skull

i find what Jim Newman says about how the self is this physical tension in the body that creates the sense of im here and then the belief of that. I think it's quite accurate description where im at. It seems to me different than saying it's imagined. 

what you say as this imagined entity sounds to me like the fixed mental self which I have dissolved fully already. I dont know for sure tho if youre referring to that. I can imagine myself in my mind still tho.  I wouldn't say the sense of me located in my skull is imagined in that same regard. If it were, couldn't I see how its imagined in the same way I could see my mental self and dissolve that, hmm....

Quote

On 2024-03-12 at 7:53 AM, Osaid said:

To be as accurate as possible, you believe that your imagination is representing real objects of experience, which is to say, you believe your imagination represents something beyond your imagination. You have turned yourself into an "object" inside of your imagination which you believe actually represents you. You use your ability to imagine yourself in order to place yourself inside of various forms of imagination about the past and future, so you have turned yourself into an entity/object which exists inside of those imagined scenarios which you must protect and look after.

Similar to how when you look at the ingredient label of a food product, you have to imagine that those ingredients exist inside of the product. You are using your imagination to symbolize the existence of the ingredients inside of the food product, that is how you know the ingredients that the food is made of. So, the imagination serves to represent something in your experience, which would be the ingredients inside the food. You are doing this exact same thing to your "self", you are imagining yourself as if you are a real object of experience, but that imagination actually symbolizes and represents absolutely nothing in your experience. There is no part of experience which that imagination of yourself represents, it is purely self-serving. Once you stop imagining, then the self stops appearing too, the imagination is self-contained, and thus it does not actually represent anything outside of itself.

 

okay i understand what youre saying here and I would agree

the only thing I would question is that last part where you say once you stop imagining, yourself , the self stops appearing. idk about that one. I know ive said this before. 

 I still feel like it's more that I experience myself as in the body, and believe im here, and this is what makes it possible for me to imagine myself and believe it represents me. . So me being in the body the basis, not the thought. I could investigate this more ofc but by now I feel its more accurate to my experience .

did you come to that conclusion by not thinking for long enough then you "dropped" permanently? or

Edited March 13 by Sugarcoat

[Salvijus]

Here's an interesting thought. @Osaid

Where desire goes, there attention follows aswell. 

If one had no desire to serve the ego. That one would have zero attention on the body. Because ego is the identity with the body/belief that the body is "me". So without any desire to serve the ego, attention would be sucked away from the body into infinity (also called samadhi where one zones out of existence for a while in infinity) . And the pain of 50years of sitting he would have no special importance that would require attention. And what you pay no attention to, you don't register its existence even into your awareness. 

(For example when I used to play video games in cross legged. I wouldn't register the pain/numbness in my legs (and other simptoms associated my body) because I would be so absorbed in gaming.)

Just something I was contemplating and wanted to share. 

Edited March 16 by Salvijus

[Sugarcoat]

@Salvijus isn’t it the opposite attention first then desire comes second

so your brain the way it’s built determines how your attention is divided , so if you are more outward , you have that kind of brain, meaning more of your attention out on the world then your desires will reflect it you’ll be the type of person who is more dependent on for example others for your happiness then the opposite if your brain is built in more inward way meaning more attention on yourself then you’ll have more desires connected to that so you’ll be more likely to want your ideal self for example 

 

so it’s like we have a default in how our attention is divided we can’t control 

Edited March 16 by Sugarcoat

[Leo Gura]

I was happier as a dog.

[Salvijus]

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

@Salvijus isn’t it the opposite attention first then desire comes second

Well here's a question:

1. Can I hold my attention on something I have no interest in? 

2. And why would I pay attention to something if I have no interest or desire to hold my attention there? 

3. Or why would I hold my attention on something if I see no value in doing so? 

In my understanding. The focus of energy/attention goes only to those places that are perceived as valuable/of interest/of benefit. 

I don't know if I'm missing something here. But so far it looks like solid and perfectly logical position. 

 

Edited March 16 by Salvijus

[Sugarcoat]

38 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Well here's a question:

1. Can I hold my attention on something I have no interest in? 

2. And why would I pay attention to something if I have no interest or desire to hold my attention there? 

3. Or why would I hold my attention on something if I see no value in doing so? 

In my understanding. The focus of energy/attention goes only to those places that are perceived as valuable/of interest/of benefit. 

I don't know if I'm missing something here. But so far it looks like solid and perfectly logical position. 

 

 

I just say your neurology is the basis for how your attention is by default without you trying and desires just reflect this

In my experience 

[Salvijus]

1 hour ago, Sugarcoat said:

I just say your neurology is the basis for how your attention is by default without you trying and desires just reflect this

In my experience 

Well i think that view point crumbles under questioning. At least i don't see any basis to support that view point yet. 

Also. It's probably your logical deduction, not your experience. 

Edited March 16 by Salvijus

[Sugarcoat]

19 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Well i think that view point crumbles under questioning. At least i don't see any basis to support that view point yet. 

Also. It's probably your logical deduction, not your experience. 

I know I didn’t answer very much pertaining to what u wrote specifically. In regards to your first question : no,  that is hard 

2nd and 3rd: you wouldn’t. For the things you do have desire for, you don’t need to “hold” the attention there actively it just effortlessly goes there, isn’t it? Why? Did you chose how it naturally goes? Isn’t it just how you function naturally that dictates that aka your neurology?

 

it is my experience. In the way that I have a certain way my attention rests naturally, because my brain just is that way .Then I can chose where to direct it to other places by effort but where it rests naturally is where all my desires are related to

Edited March 16 by Sugarcoat

[Salvijus]

13 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

where it rests naturally is where all my desires are related to

Bingo. 

And why is your attention at one place naturally and not the other? 

My suggested answer: because you see value in holding your attention there. 

The conclusion thus follows: Where your interests are there your attention goes.

Edited March 16 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

14 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Then I can chose where to direct it to other places by effort

A suggested view point: you can direct your attention somewhere else only if there is desire to do it first. Desire dictates attention. 

[Sugarcoat]

7 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Bingo. 

And why is your attention at one place naturally and not the other? 

My suggested answer: because you see value in holding your attention there. 

The conclusion thus follows: Where your interests are there your attention goes.

But I’m not “holding” my attention there, as in I’m doing it actively. It just rests there naturally by default , why? Because I’m built that way. Then all my interest and value and desire and all come from this. It’s not like “I have desire for this so let me hold my attention here” the attention rested there prior since childhood as far back as I can remember 

maybe it’s different for you tho can’t know. More nuances for you maybe 

Edited March 16 by Sugarcoat