I was happier as a kid

[Salvijus]

7 minutes ago, Osaid said:

A big point of mine was to highlight that the physical sensation of the body is not ego

Sensation is not the ego. Yes. I hear you. 

But giving importance and attention to the sensation is the ego. 

And here's the most beautiful part that I want to share again. Once interest in ego is transcend. Interest in the body is transcend. Once interest in the body is tranceded. What happens in the body(even the pain of sitting for 50 years) doesn't even register in awareness anymore. Because "you don't give a shit anymore" to put it simply haha

It's a beautiful beautiful thing. 

 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

15 minutes ago, Osaid said:

That is the common conflation of it; that you become dysfunctional and what not

The only way to function is you need to have a sense of self first. Without a sense of self it is impossible to function anymore. This is basic logic. 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

1 minute ago, Salvijus said:

The only way to function is to have a sense of self. Without a sense of self it is impossible to function anymore. This is basic logic. 

No.

Why would you need something that does not exist to function? It's like saying you need Santa Claus to function.

Edited March 19 by Osaid

[strangelooper]

1 minute ago, Salvijus said:

The only way to function is to have a sense of self. Without a sense of self it is impossible to function anymore. This is basic logic. 

False. In most nightly dreams, there is no sense of self and things happen regardless. The projector of the content of consciousness which is also consciousness can project whatever images it wants, including a perfectly functional being without a sense of self

Edited March 19 by strangelooper

[Salvijus]

1 minute ago, strangelooper said:

In a dream, there is no sense of self and things happen regardless

In a dream if you feel attacked. Your sense of self feels attacked. That's why you feel fear. In a dream. And when you wake up you say. "fuck I thought somebody was attacking me" 

This also answers @Osaid your question. Without the sense of self. You would never feel something is happening to "you" ever. A person would be like a vegetable. Not responding to anything. That is basically the definition of samadhi. Not responding to anything. And not having any sense of self. Therefor absolutely disfunctional. 

[Salvijus]

For example to respond to a threat with fear. First you need a personal sense of self. And it will be that sense of personal self that will respond to different situations around it. 

If you have no sense of self. Any threat that comes your way. You don't feel any threat because you don't even have a sense of self that would need protection. Hence like a vegetable state. 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[Osaid]

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

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

If the dream contains the dreamer, wouldn't the dreamer be part of the dream itself? Which part of the dream is the dreamer going to be made of?

If the dreamer isn't made out of the dream, where is it? Outside of the dream?

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

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

Here is an angle to look at:

There is a rock. The rock is made of stone, which has a certain appearance. If you did not have eyes to see that rock, there would be no such thing as the "appearance of a rock." The rock depends on your eyes to perceive it and your eyes depend on the rock for it to exist as something which can be perceived by your eyes. Thus, the rock and your eyes both mutually depend on each other to be perceived. Where is the space for a "self" to take ownership over the "seeing" or "perceiving" of the rock? Isn't it the case that the perception of the rock and the existence of the rock are the exact same physical occurrence?

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

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

It is always ultimately the same occurrence, which is just a complete and total loss of self. Their ability to explain and comprehend what happened to them might differ, but they are all explaining and experiencing the same fundamental phenomenon. The route that they take to reach there probably has unlimited variety though.

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

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".

There is certainly no more imagined suffering about physical pain. There is no such thing as longing for a state where the physical pain does not exist, for example.

However, the physical pain itself can still be an object of desire. For example, if you cause physical pain to someone, there can be a desire to alleviate that. If you cause physical pain to yourself, there can be a desire to alleviate that. But there is no imagined resistance about how it will affect you in past or future.

If someone is saying that they don't care about physical pain at all anymore, I would be suspicious of that, because that is not what practically happens after enlightenment. There are many people who are resistant to pain, or even have genetics which do not allow them to feel physical pain at all, and they are not necessarily closer or further to enlightenment. Many of them are only able to resist pain because of purely egoic reasons. This should clue you in to the fact that the sense of self is not really about physical pain, but perhaps something more than that.

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

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. 

That seems accurate. The less you imagine yourself the more quickly redundant emotions will dissolve.

There are incremental improvements in regards to thoughts about yourself that can happen prior to enlightenment. Kind of like how therapy can incrementally improve how you think of yourself.

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

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. 

Never looked much into Jim Newman. Physical sensations are not ego but they can be the symptom of one, which may or may not be what he is referring to.

Any physical sensation is not mediated by how you imagine it and therefore it is unrelated to ego. In the same way that hearing sound is unrelated to ego or seeing color is unrelated to ego. There is nothing existential outside of your imagination which can be ego. It is imagination which has to create the distinction afterwards and say "this is me, and this is not me." No point in your experience can claim that separation aside from your mind or imagination.

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

I mean seeming to be here as located in my skull

For example, there can be a genuine physical sensation in the skull, but the belief that "you" are "located" there has to be ego or imagination. Because you are creating a division in your experience by claiming that, and experience has no feature where it can divide itself, it can only imagine that.

On 3/13/2024 at 2:13 AM, Sugarcoat said:

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

No I didn't do any type of meditation like that. My mind is way too intellectual for that. It took a lot of self-inquiry and incessant questioning of my experience of what I am.

Edited March 19 by Osaid

[Salvijus]

14 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Without the sense of self. You would never feel something is happening to "you" ever. A person would be like a vegetable. Not responding to anything.

Without the personal sense of self. If somebody was talking to you it would be just random sounds to you and you would pay zero attention to it because it is the person(ego) who places value on sounds and gives it meaning. 

Without the personal sense of self all sensations would be "just a sensation" and nothing more than that and would have no value and so responding or paying attention to sensations (even 50 years of pain) would just be a waste of energy for some who has no interest in person(ego) 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

Without the personal sense of self. You wouldn't have any sense of duality. Everything would merge into one singularity. Again. Very disfunctional state to be in. Without the sense of duality... Functioning is impossible. Because you need to have a sense of point a to point b to make a function. But if everything is point a. All the functioning capabilities fly out the window. 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[TheSelf]

As a kid, all you have is a desire to enjoy yourself, be playful and alive, 

The vibe and energy that you have is very close to your true nature

Kids are very spiritual to me... untill they lose it all when grown up develop an ego and suffer it.

[Osaid]

4 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

First you need a sense of self to be a person. 

Being a person doesn't involve a sense of self at all. You just need the person. No extra sense needed.

There is a difference between being a human and thinking you are a human. The thinking is the redundant sense of self. It's an extra unnecessary input.

7 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

You don't feel any threat because you don't even have a sense of self that would need protection. Hence like a vegetable state. 

8 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Without the personal sense of self. If somebody was talking to you it would be just random sounds to you and you would pay zero attention to it because it is the person(ego) who places value on sounds and gives it meaning. 

9 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Without the personal sense of self. You wouldn't have any sense of duality. Everything would merge into one singularity. Again. Very disfunctional state to be in. Without the sense of duality... Functioning is impossible. 

Your sense of self has nothing to do with what is not imaginary. So you would protect what is not imagined.

The sense of self is entirely imaginary and it does not represent anything actually in your experience. It's redundant. You don't lose any functioning by discontinuing your imagination of something which never represented anything. You can't lose your body by stopping imagination. You can't lose your ability to understand language by stopping imagination. You are giving too much importance to your imagination. You only lose the duality that you imagined yourself in. Anything that actually exists outside of imagination cannot be dualistic, because there is no such thing as something which is existentially dualistic. All duality is imagined, no exceptions.

You are already functioning without duality, you're just imagining that you aren't. That is the crux of it. If you see duality as if it is something existential then you are mistaking the map for the territory.

8 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Without the personal sense of self all sensations would be "just a sensation" and nothing more than that and would have no value and so responding or paying attention to sensations (even 50 years of pain) would just be a waste of energy for some who has no interest in person(ego) 

A lack of interest or value does not equate to a lack of self. It is just a difference in desire and value based on the circumstance.

Being able to value something without any ulterior motive is exactly how love is experienced. When you taste vanilla, you love it purely for the sensation of what it is, not because of something you imagine about it. You don't need to imagine things to value things. You just need to experience them.

[Osaid]

9 minutes ago, m0hsen said:

As a kid, all you have is a desire to enjoy yourself, be playful and alive, 

The vibe and energy that you have is very close to your true nature

Kids are very spiritual to me... untill they lose it all when grown up develop an ego and suffer it.

I believe it is because they experienced "less time" on Earth, thus they have less memory and knowledge to tie their identity to. Tying your identity to your imagination makes the world unnecessarily rigid. 

[Salvijus]

16 minutes ago, Osaid said:

The sense of self is entirely imaginary and it does not represent anything actually in your experience. It's redundant. You don't lose any functioning by discontinuing your imagination of something which never represented anything.

The sense of self is a perception first of all. 

A perception that we are a seperate entity of some kind of mixture of mind and body. 

This perception is what inspires us to place the value and importance on protecting the body. Then this perception says. "if body dies I will die" hence I must protect the body and serve this perception of a seperate entity by serving the body. 

Now let us look at this question carefully because it is super beautiful. What happens when the perception that you're a separate entity of mind and body is taken away?

First of all... All the need to protect the body is gone. Why? Because you no longer believe the body is you and the importance the body has becomes zero. The body is only important because of the belief and false perception that we are the body. All of that crumbles. 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[TheSelf]

5 minutes ago, Osaid said:

I believe it is because they experienced "less time" on Earth, thus they have less memory and knowledge to tie their identity to. Tying your identity to your imagination makes the world unnecessarily rigid. 

Yeah, that's probably it.

[Osaid]

2 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

The sense of self is a perception first of all. 

It's as much of a perception as Santa Claus.

2 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

A perception that we are a seperate entity of some kind of mixture of mind and body. 

Sure.

2 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

"if body dies I will die" hence I must protect the body and serve this perception of a seperate entity by serving the body. 

For this specific example, I'm gonna be anal and say that no, you don't need to fear dying in the future in order to take care of your body. There is more to caring about life than fearing death. Many religious zealots would actually have no fear of death purely motivated by ego, because they believe that they have virgins waiting for them in the afterlife.

However, the fear of death can be a motivation created by the ego to preserve the body, that much is correct. But that type of motivation is not necessary to value being alive.

6 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

First of all... All the need to protect the body is gone. Why? Because you no longer believe the body is you and the importance the body has becomes zero. The body is only important because of the belief and false perception that we are the body. 

You don't need to believe that something is "you" to value it. You don't need to think another person is "you" to value them. You don't need to think that the taste of vanilla is "you" to value it. "You" adds absolutely nothing of value to experience. It is redundant.

[Osaid]

1 minute ago, m0hsen said:

Yeah, that's probably it.

I remember visiting my childhood neighborhood a while ago and it felt way smaller. Like about 10x smaller. It physically felt smaller and claustrophobic. As a kid it felt like an open world adventure game. It really made me contemplate about that, and I believe it is because of how we tie our identity to imagination over time, aside from just the physical size difference. I wonder how it would feel to visit again.

[Salvijus]

1 minute ago, Osaid said:

You don't need to believe that something is "you" to value it.

That's actually true. You can protect the body out of other reasons not just fear of death. But I was consciously keeping that subject aside to make another point. 

[Salvijus]

28 minutes ago, Osaid said:

It's as much of a perception as Santa Claus.

Yes. And it is not a harmless perception. A belief in Santa Claus will make a person do many weird things. And experience many emotions that would otherwise not arise. 

Same with the perception of personal sense of self. This personal sense of self gives rise to many emotions (everything from fear to greed to anger impatience etc.) 

AND this sense of self places value on things that are good for its survival. And that's like 99. 99% of human focus. If perception of personal sense of self is recognized to be false, it is not an exaggeration to say, the loss of interest in what happens in the body can drop totally to the point that pain doesn't even register in that person's awareness because attention simply doesn't have any reason to go there anymore. Or interpretation that pain needs to be avoided would simply not arise. 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

Anyhow...

Let's have some closure because I'll be going to sleep soon. 

 

[Salvijus]

To be fair... I lost my cool a bit haha. Got carried away. And I feel the conversation could have gone better. More open. More exploration less defending our ideas. But I'm glad I had a chance to share this perspective. You don't need to accept it or agree with it. I just thought it makes a lot of sense and is kinda fun and challenging:) 

Anyhow. What you do with it is up to you:) 

#NoHarmInExploringDifferentIdeas

Ciao 👋 

Edited March 19 by Salvijus