I was happier as a kid

[Salvijus]

26 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

But I’m not “holding” my attention there, as in I’m doing it actively. It just rests there naturally by default , why? It’s not like “I have desire for this so let me hold my attention here” 

42 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

 

The desire could be unconcious. For example your attention abides somewhere inside naturally without you being concious of what is causing the attention to rest there. And suddenly a hot boyfriend shows up (or some other object of high interest) . Then all your attention goes on that object. Why? Because it is of higher interest. 

If your attention is inside most of the time than it's because it's a place of higher interest for you. 

See how it all connects nicely? 

If something is of no interest to you. You wouldnt even register that object in your awareness. 

 

Edited March 16 by Salvijus

[Sugarcoat]

37 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

The desire could be unconcious. For example your attention abides somewhere inside naturally without you being concious of what is causing the attention to rest there. And suddenly a hot boyfriend shows up (or some other object of high interest) . Then all your attention goes on that object. Why? Because it is of higher interest. 

If your attention is inside most of the time than it's because it's a place of higher interest for you. 

See how it all connects nicely? 

If something is of no interest to you. You wouldnt even register that object in your awareness. 

 

Mm I see. 
 

You can have your attention on certain specific things  this and that. I usually think in terms of the most basic level as a kind of foundation. So basically how outward vs inward you are which I see mostly as a consequence of how your brain is but it could perhaps change for some people idk for me it has been the same all my life . So the more inward the more attention on yourself and inside world and the more outward the more on outside world and then the other stuff like your desires etc reflect this basic level. But ofc there’s more nuances to this but

Edited March 16 by Sugarcoat

[Salvijus]

11 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Mm I see. 
 

You can have your attention on certain specific things  this and that. I usually think in terms of the most basic level as a kind of foundation. So basically how outward vs inward you are which I see mostly as a consequence of how your brain is but it could perhaps change for some people idk for me it has been the same all my life . So the more inward the more attention on yourself and inside world and the more outward the more on outside world and then the other stuff like your desires etc reflect this basic level. But ofc there’s more nuances to this but

I would propose an idea that the same principle that applies to surface desires apply to fundamentals of one's psyche aswell.

I would propose that it is not the brain and neurology that determines introvert from extrovert but a personality. And personality is conditioning. And conditioning is a set of beliefs and values. 

Note that key word "values" 

Edited March 16 by Salvijus

[Sugarcoat]

8 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

I would propose an idea that the same principle that applies to surface desires apply to fundamentals of one's psyche aswell.

I would propose that it is not the brain and neurology that determines introvert from extrovert but a personality. And personality is conditioning. And conditioning is a set of beliefs and values. 

Note that key word "values" 

But you being affected by societies conditioning so deeply is becuase you have a brain that is more or less focused outward so focused on the world 

 

but it’s the norm so it’s not really recognized 

Edited March 16 by Sugarcoat

[Salvijus]

I would propose that the brain is responsible for your cognitive functioning. Things like memory, assimilation of information, making links between concepts etc.

But it is the personality and conditioning that determines your values/desires/interest and thus the direction of your attention. 

[Salvijus]

1 minute ago, Sugarcoat said:

But you being affected by societies conditioning is becuase you have a brain that is more or less focused outward so focused on the world 

 But you being affected by societies conditioning is becuase you have a personality that is more or less focused outward so focused on the world 

[Sugarcoat]

4 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

I would propose that the brain is responsible for your cognitive functioning. Things like memory, assimilation of information, making links between concepts etc.

But it is the personality and conditioning that determines your values/desires/interest and thus the direction of your attention. 

Personality is a mix still of brain and conditioning isn’t it

 

 

im not here to argue btw just writing for no reason really

[Sugarcoat]

4 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

 But you being affected by societies conditioning is becuase you have a personality that is more or less focused outward so focused on the world 

Im still saying the brain is the basis for this inward/outwardness …

[Salvijus]

3 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Personality is a mix still of brain and conditioning isn’t it

That's what is usually assumed by people. But my own questioning leads me to believe the brain has nothing to do with your values. The brain is an instrument to express your personality. 

Like the hand doesn't have a personality but is an instrument for personality to be expressed

7 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

 

im not here to argue btw just writing for no reason really

I know 🙏

[Sugarcoat]

18 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

That's what is usually assumed by people. But my own questioning leads me to believe the brain has nothing to do with your values. The brain is an instrument to express your personality. 

Like the hand doesn't have a personality but is an instrument for personality to be expressed

I know 🙏

I mean the brain as the basis for the most basic things how inward outward you are, some things, something like that

[Salvijus]

11 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

I mean the brain as the basis for the most basic things how inward outward you are, some things, something like that

I understand what you're proposing. I'm not dismissing your theory. I just find the theory that "the personality is more fundamental to human conditioning than brain" more compelling for me personally. I can only share my logic and way of thinking of how I arrived at that conclusion. Whether or not that theory makes sense to others is up to them to decide. No harm in contemplating different view points tho. It's just exploration of ideas as far as I'm concerned. 

Edited March 16 by Salvijus

[Sugarcoat]

2 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

I understand what you're proposing. I'm not dismissing your theory. I just find the theory that "the personality is more fundamental to human conditioning than brain" more compelling for me personally. I can only share my logic and way of thinking of how I arrived at that conclusion. Whether or not that theory makes sense to others is up to them to decide. No harm in contemplating different view points tho. It's just exploration of ideas as far as I'm concerned. 

Yea there’s nuances 

take care✌🏻

[Salvijus]

@Sugarcoat :) 

 

[Schizophonia]

Because you have developed mood problems because of your lifestyle.
You are in a state of hibernation, but nothing is stopping you from reversing the trend.

[Breakingthewall]

10 hours ago, Salvijus said:

would propose that it is not the brain and neurology that determines introvert from extrovert but a personality. And personality is conditioning. And conditioning is a set of beliefs and values. 

I would say that these values are the result of the evolution of thousands of generations together with the genetic structure of the human mind that evolves unstoppably in a subtle way. All the springs that make people be whatever they are point in an evolutionary direction, it is the push of the intelligence of reality that goes in one direction. for some purpose? I would say that the only purpose is to look for new ways to increase complexity and depth. so that? It is something like a plant, which develops because it is in its nature. It's impossible to understand it, or at least it seems. You can be open to it's substance , but the understanding is real? Seems always limited 

Edited March 16 by Breakingthewall

[Osaid]

14 hours ago, Salvijus said:

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. 

Yes that's right, desiring something is the same as putting attention on that thing. This is mostly correct except for one thing about the ego.

The body is a common identification but it's not actually what ego fundamentally is. Ego is simply the belief that you can imagine what you are. Many imagine themselves as the body, but they can actually imagine themselves as many other things too. They imagine that they experienced the past, that they will experience the future, perhaps they imagine that they are the universe, etc. The variety for identity is really pretty much limitless. This doesn't necessarily increase or decrease the pain perceived in the body, it is desire which does that, and that desire may or may not come from ego. If you desire to avoid pain, it actually creates an emotion to drive you away from that pain in the form of fear/angst, and so yes it brings attention to it which exacerbates it. However, if there is no desire to avoid pain, or if there is even a desire to experience pain for whatever reason, it does "override" the sensation to a degree, because there is no emotional resistance, and furthermore there is going to be some another sensation/emotion which takes its place, like love/excitement/pride/joy. In the case of playing video games, that is a perfect example of how a strong desire can create a feeling of love which can completely override your perception of pain, so yes that is possible.

As you said, when you're focused on a game, you don't really notice the pain in the body. That is because you actually have a desire to continue playing the video game despite the pain you are experiencing. This is the exact same thing that happens when you "surrender" to physical pain, but in this case instead of surrendering you are replacing the desire to avoid pain with the desire to continue playing video games. I imagine that the game probably induces a flow state which causes you to ignore the pain too, because the flow state has no "self" in it.

In the scenario of sitting for 50 years, the problem with the pain is entirely dependent on your desire, yes. If there is a genuine desire to endure the 50 years, there would be no problem. If there is a desire to preserve the health of the body, there would be a problem. If I am forced to do it with no way out despite having the desire to leave, it is possible to "surrender" to the pain which simply means that I absolve the desire to avoid the pain momentarily because I see no way out of it. It entirely depends on what you want. You could "phase it out" as if you are busy playing a video game, but nonetheless it is biologically programmed that your body will indicate that it is being harmed through pain, and that will create a biological motivation to drive you away from that pain unless for whatever reason you have a desire to stay with that pain. 

15 hours ago, Salvijus said:

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.

I want to make something very clear about this part though, which is that the sensation of pain itself is infinite. Same goes for the sensation of the body. I imagine you could figure out some technique which "zones you out" of perceiving physical pain in some way, but that is more like a mental "resistance training" because you are training yourself to phase out the literal perception of pain in some way. 

Samadhi is simply the state of having no ego which "merges you into infinity" because you realize that you exist as something which has no limitations or boundaries. Physical pain does not contradict that state though, because physical pain has no boundaries or limitations to it either, along with the rest of your experience. Physical pain doesn't inherently have anything to do with the ego because you don't imagine it. It is like hearing sound or seeing color.

[Salvijus]

17 minutes ago, Osaid said:

In the scenario of sitting for 50 years, the problem with the pain is entirely dependent on your desire, yes. If there is a genuine desire to endure the 50 years, there would be no problem. If there is a desire to preserve the health of the body, there would be a problem

I think you missed the third option which I was trying to share. 

The third option is "to not even notice the body". Because attention goes only to those places that we believe are of value to us. And body has value only for the ego. Hence when all ego is gone, all attention would be on infinity. And 50y pain would not even register in your awareness because your attention is on the Beyond only. 

 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

26 minutes ago, Osaid said:

I imagine you could figure out some technique which "zones you out" of perceiving physical pain in some way, but that is more like a mental "resistance training" because you are training yourself to phase out the literal perception of pain in some way. 

No. It's not a technique. It's simply what happens when you lose all interest in ego. Automatically you lose all interest in what is happening the body aswell because body = ego. (of course ego is more then that like mental conditioning and what not, but fundamentally ego is very closely tied with the body) 

And it's not about trying to zone out of sensation. All sensations simply get recognized as "not worthy of attention". And in such a state a person becomes unfunctional anymore. He's just in samadhi. Truly out of time now.

This is what true no self, no ego looks like. 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

1 minute ago, Salvijus said:

I think you missed the third option which I was trying to share. 

The third option is "to not even notice the body"  Because attention goes to those places that we believe are of value to us. And body has value only for the ego. Hence when all ego is gone, all attention would be on infinity. And 50y pain would not even register in your awareness because your attention is on the Beyond only. 

 

A big point of mine was to highlight that the physical sensation of the body is not ego. It is as much ego as hearing sound or looking at a color. I feel this is a common conflation. Physical sensations are not ego or limitations. It is what you imagine about them that is ego. The body is as valuable as your current experience of it.

In order to not notice your body you would have to phase yourself into some state where the perception of body does not exist. Otherwise, the body is not imaginary, and thus it is inherently unrelated to the ego. If you remove your hand from a hot stove because of the pain, that is not ego, that is a biological motivator designed to move you away from physical danger. If you afterwards say "I decided to move my hand from the hot stove" and you genuinely believe that, then that is ego, because it is the imagined sense of control and ownership which you are overlaying on top of the experience.

[Osaid]

9 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

And in such a state a person becomes unfunctional anymore. He's just in samadhi. Truly out of time now.

This is what true no self, no ego looks like. 

That is the common conflation of it; that you become dysfunctional and what not. There is a conflation that the body is antithetical to no self, which is just not true. There are common "anti-human" sentiments like this which pop up in spirituality; that no self or absolute truth is located in some ethereal state of consciousness outside of being human.

You are talking about a specific state where you cannot function in the body anymore, that is all. If you say that state is coexistent with a loss of the perception of time, that could be the case, but then you are conflating specific ego-defying states with enlightenment itself. Enlightenment exists everywhere, always.

Edited March 19 by Osaid