RendHeaven

@whoareyou Would you say that romantic love is "real?"

What's your frame of reference?

HAHAHA LOL

This is very very true. ~95% of girls (just a guess) have genuine crippling anxiety, and maybe over half of them also have a slew of other issues on top of that: body image issues, food issues, loneliness issues, acceptance issues, abandonment issues, sexual abuse trauma, sexuality complications, bipolar-esque behavior, poor family life, poor financial situation, addictions, etc. This is completely normal, and certainly not exclusive to women. Men have just as many issues on average, though they tend to experience depression more than anxiety (and numbness more than strong polarizing emotions). Nonbinary folks have a nice juicy blend of all of that with the added pressure of fitting in with the demands of society. And I haven't even mentioned distracting activities and thoughts. Ain't humanity lovely Now, the key insight though is that stable people (and thereby women) actually DO exist! Maybe like 5% of women actually have their shit together or are at least actively structuring their lives to eliminate dysfunction. So the real question is not whether or not they exist; but rather, are YOU someone who deserves to be with one of these high-functioning women?

Next step is self inquiry:

@Leo Gura What was your first psychedelic ever, LEO?

I don't question the idea that individually and collectively, it is most appropriate to ask the question “what action(s) are most likely to promote well-being and reduce suffering”? This seems rather correct, given that most people prefer not to suffer What I do question, though, are the many assertions you make about the nature of Reality. Specifically, the notions of "suffering," "experience/consciousness," and "I/me" seem underdeveloped. 1) You say this as if to say: "The ego identification is merely the one choosing to dislike the experience. The thing which actually does the suffering is the consciousness/experience! When suffering occurs, it is woven into the fabric of consciousness/experience." Really? You don't know that. That is an unchecked assumption. It's good that you acknowledge the possibility that with the elimination of identification, perhaps suffering entirely vanishes. If this possibility were True, that would mean that suffering is NOT woven into the fabric of consciousness/experience, for consciousness/experience is prior to identification. This whole conversation - and your entire proposal for moral realism - hinges on how suffering comes to be. Don't take your foot off this pedal. You must ask, "what IS suffering?" Here's a hint: "an experience of discomfort or stress" - or anything along those lines - is NOT what suffering is existentially. Such a definition describes suffering in terms of other words, which gets you no closer to its substance. All you have is alphabet soup. Here's a good starting point: for suffering to occur, there must be identification. No identification, no suffering. That is my claim. Now, THIS goes beyond alphabet soup! Don't just believe me... check for yourself. Of course, you must further ask, "what IS identification?" and then the hydra has suddenly grown another head. But you see, that's exactly right... because this hydra has been here the whole time. You've simply been ignoring it 2) Yeah no shit, PAIN still occurs! Enlightenment isn't a big Ibuprofen pill Make sure you grasp that suffering and pain are not the same thing. They have many overlaps, but it IS possible to experience one without the other. You can suffer without experiencing any pain. (Think: a breakup, the death of a loved one, or deep loss of any kind) You can also experience pain and not suffer. (Think: working out hard and getting in that last rep while lactic acid eats your limbs - painful as SHIT, but feels good!) If you were to torture the Buddha, he would scream in agony. But he would not suffer. Why? Because suffering is subjective. It is not etched in the bedrock of consciousness/experience. At least, that's my claim! Investigate this. 3) Here's the big-bad metaphysical slip! You imagine that you are an "I," trapped within a human meat-bag, looking out into the "physical world" from somewhere within the skull. You imagine that this "I" possesses an "experience" which can either be happiness-flavored, neutral-flavored, or suffering-flavored; and that's just the way Reality is designed. Well, if this were the case, you could clearly assign the suffering to an individual such that if I were to ask "who suffers?" you could easily point to your skull and say "I!" Totally not a projection or interpretation However, IF what you fundamentally are on an existential level turns out NOT to be some form of "I," trapped within a human meat-bag, looking out into the "physical world" from somewhere within the skull, we run into a problem. Who suffers? Notice that you cannot quite say that YOU suffer unless you are crystal clear as to who you ARE. Who even are you? "Body" is insufficient. "Brain" is insufficient. "Mind" is insufficient. "Soul" is insufficient. Even "Consciousness" and "Experience" are insufficient. These things are all alphabet soup. Again, this whole conversation hinges on how suffering comes to be. The problem is, we don't even know what suffering is. Furthermore, we don't even know who we are so we cannot say who suffers. To add insult to injury, what the hell is an experience anyway? You realize how much we take this thing for granted? Why is there phenomena at all? Close your eyes. Now open them. Notice that you made everything go black for a second. Huh? Don't explain this away by citing some theory about the optic nerve. All scientific theories are merely correlation. Correlation is not causation. What is the cause for all these colors? Don't you ever wonder that? No, it's not pigments or light waves. There is no reason that a wavelength of 700 nm should equate to the experience of redness. It would be a mistake to throw up your hands and just go with what APPEARS to be true. You say that suffering = experience. I say DIG DEEPER! 4) If only it were that simple. Oftentimes suffering occurs in reaction to events that are out of our control. Let's say your mother dies. So, you self reflect, and acknowledge that you suffered... and... well, you can't really resolve to not have your mom die again, can you? So "morality," in this sense of "which action should one aspire toward," is more than strictly the manipulation of events. Counter-intuitively, by attempting to micromanage events in order to mitigate suffering, you will suffer more! The battle to end suffering is largely done between you and yourself, alone, without anything to do. Anyway, to wrap up. Let's say I have a knife and I'm free to stab you. Should I do that? Probably not. Why? Because that would most likely cause unnecessary suffering. Why prevent suffering? Because I'm really not a fan. I think this is a fair way to view morality. If I can prevent suffering, I will choose to do so precisely for the reason that I dislike suffering myself. That is my personal, subjective moral stance. Is there any "realism" here? Any objectivity? Yes? No? Actually, it doesn't matter. Because whatever answer you give, there is still existential investigation to do!

@Bill W ZOINKS my dude chill! No need to murder him he needs to be alive for the bomb viewing

I am most confused about the various facets of the Absolute - and that you claim to know them without a doubt. You say reality is exactly the way it is for a reason - that being, "Absolute Love." Each hair on your arm is precisely the way it is for the sake of Absolute Love. ...What?? At my current stage of development, Absolute Not-Knowing is King. If anything can be known, it is that I do not know. And I would like to end it there, but I can intuit that such a stance is limiting. So I have to be open to the possibility that actually I CAN Know. But I can't really know that either. So amidst this profound ignorance, I have also had profound experiences of Reality-Loving. It's impossible to describe. I recall once showering and breaking down in tears because the water running down my body was LOVE. Not the word "love," nor the idea of it, nor the conventional conditional bartering of affection, but the water was just IT. Not even "water." It felt so personal, and I had so much gratitude. (Not in the sense that, "Oh bless this water for providing for me," but rather a gratitude that the water was being itself) I've more or less begun to accept that Absolute Love is an essential aspect of Reality. But to say that Absolute Love is the REASON for which Reality IS? My instinct is to say "You don't KNOW that!" Could it not be the case, rather, that everything is for the sake of being itself, (ultimately without reason) and that Love is the expression/manifestation of this reason-less-ness? You could wave away this question by merely saying that the words "Reality" and "Love" are interchangeable, but then why stress that everything is for the sake of Love? Why Oh Why? I feel like it's right there at the tip of my tongue, but I just don't got it. How is it that you've got it?

I see. Fantastic answer. I think in the back of my mind I am still wrestling to have both going at the same time. Must contemplate more!

@cetus56 Haha, not yet! I'm still 20. I was asking that question from the POV of my cousin. He's the one to congratulate This is so fascinating. How do you reconcile the Stillness of the Eternal NOW with the fact that you've watched your daughter grow so much? Do you have to reground yourself every time you imagine the progression of time? Or do you let yourself fantasize, knowing that dualistic thinking is part of life's pleasures?

@cetus56 Gotcha

@Inliytened1 Yes I'm aware. But can you maintain that resolve when a loved one dies in front of your eyes? I don't think this is something that can be hand-waved away so easily, even after realizations of oneness. It's a total mindfuck, especially because your ego may want to grieve and your ideas about "oneness" might prevent you from being authentic in that moment.

@kieranperez Do you insist that your question goes beyond language, imagery, and symbols? Dissolve these and you no longer have a question. In fact, this could be said of all questions in this thread, although the way in which these symbols are dissolved differ from question to question. @cetus56 Am I being discouraged from answering certain questions? It's hard to tell. This particular one about gravity caught my interest, as I used to hold the same question in the past. Anyway, now that you ask: I do indeed have a question! "But Leo, how could you say that I was never born? I just watched my baby daughter being conceived, are you denying that this is how human beings come to be?"

@Leo Gura and all others, have you watched someone die or be born since integrating your non-dual experiences? @Rodrigo SIlva I'm tagging you in case we get interesting responses. I think this might be insightful for everybody. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For the average person, when watching someone die, we might think: "oh, so human beings eventually cease to be." We think this because the human meat-bag that we observe, which was once animated, is now no longer animated. This apparent lack of animation tends to characterize what we call "physical death." We don't consider death to have occurred until the body stops acting. (breathing, heart beating, etc.) I am using "acting" and "animating" interchangeably. Along with this ceasing of animation, the distinct qualities that the human meat-bag once exhibited appear to cease as well: the things which we might call "personality" or "soul." "Personality" and "soul," it seems, are merely the labels we give onto the cumulative actions we observe of a human being. This is why we think of "souls" as exclusive to "sentient beings." It is conventionally agreed upon that rocks do not have "soul" simply for the observation that they do not act. So throughout the process of observing a "physical death," we might conclude that death is the ceasing of animation in a body and consequently the extinguishing of whatever self-animating qualities were contained within (i.e. "soul.") Furthermore, we tend to believe (unsurprisingly, due to culture): "I am a human being." This is a vague notion. Are we the body? Are we the soul? In my experience, most people I talk to believe that they are a soul of some type. The body is what is "had" by the "I." So what is the "I?" The soul! Of course! Well, the "soul" was seemingly shown to be annihilated through the process of "physical death." Since many believe that they ARE the "soul," this might lead us to think: "I will eventually cease to be." That is to say, we can make the abstract connection that just as the meat-bag before our eyes is no longer capable of animation, and consequently there is no "soul" to be found within, the same thing will occur to ME, the SOUL that I AM if MY body were to undergo this "death." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conversely, as the Greeks once thought, one might arrive at the opposite conclusion that, "though the body has died, the soul lives on!" One might argue this on the basis that since the body was possessed by the soul, "physical death" is merely the relinquishing of this possession, and that the "soul" is doing its "soul thing" elsewhere independent of the body. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, I understand that everything typed thus far is absolutely relative, grounded in nothing but circular, self-referencing imagery. Furthermore, it would be impossible to arrive at any of the conclusions above in the absence of a thinking mind. The biggest kicker is, this whole thing hinges on a false notion of "I." So I am not arguing for these conclusions whatsoever. Rather, I am doing my best to illustrate the common way of thinking about death, and I am acknowledging that there is a fair reason that one might imagine that they will eventually cease to be. It's not an accident that almost every adult human has some notion of nonexistence. This notion was deliberately arrived at through a combination of hearsay and observation. This notion is especially convincing if you happen to have the opportunity to watch a death occur right in front of your eyes. Personally, my grandmother is due to die within a week. This might sound (very) insensitive, but I'm weirdly looking forward to watching it occur. Of course, I love my grandmother (to whatever limits relative love has) and... now I just sound like a dick haha. Wow, it's very hard not to sound crazy the second you question cultural norms. (i.e "death" is "bad," "love" is "good") So anyway, have you witnessed what we call "physical death?" Or conversely, have you witnessed "birth?" It's easier to accept that "you were never born" or that "you can never die" while you are sitting alone in your room, but can you really say that while watching your grandma die? Well, I'll find that out soon, but I'm interested in hearing your take

You might want to look into this more. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you literally could not say that "falling" occurs if you eliminate things from your worldview. Actions cannot take place without objects. You have verbally eliminated objects, and yet you accept actions as occurring because physically you still believe objects exist. What happens if you seriously eliminate all objects, physically? That means when "I" "throw" "a rock" "up" and it "hits the ground:" There is no "I," and consequently no "throwing." There is no "rock," and consequently no "up" for it to aim toward. There is no "ground," and consequently no "hitting." This is certainly worth contemplating.

It's a metaphor for the human psyche. Wow. Duh. That's so obvious now! Thank you Leo. We as humans are just like the Greek gods... immortal, neurotic man-babies. I wonder if the creators of this myth understood the literalness of immortality.

It's even trickier because academics that build their lives around the construction and maintenance of thought-stories need to be taught (if Truth is their goal) that thoughts are limited. E.g., a philosophy major who has a genuine intuition for Truth-seeking but is lost in reading Kant and Nietzsche needs to temporarily adopt a "get rid of thoughts" mentality to reach the next level of development. If you swooped in at that moment and informed him that there is no need to eradicate thoughts, it will be very easy for this person to twist that teaching such that he can let his thought-stories about "the truth" survive.

@Leo Gura There is only one video game that has ever influenced me on a deep existential level. It is also perhaps the single most conscious piece of art/media that I have ever encountered. The game is called Shadow of the Colossus, originally released for PS2 back in 2005 but now there is a graphic remake for PS4: https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Colossus-PlayStation-4/dp/B071WPKD5P?th=1 I can not recommend it enough. Though I cannot say much without spoiling the brilliant ending, I will say that it explores devilry (precisely as described in your video: what is the devil?) like no other work of art has. The very fact that Shadow of the Colossus is a video game (where one takes control of a character and is responsible for their actions) allows for its exploration of devilry. The narrative impact would not be anywhere near as powerful if this were a movie, for example. Furthermore, the game has a rare simplicity and serenity. It consists of 16 back-to-back boss fights (no mobs) and breathtaking scenery. It's also rather short. You can probably complete it in ~10+ hours. If you ever play a video game in your life ever again, Leo, remember this!

A yellow country is almost impossible at our current state of development for the reason that a yellow country will have to admit that it itself is collective delusion.

Do you think you can expand on this? I understand this intuitively but not on an intimate level. Immortality = no limits = no fear = no need to defend/preserve/manipulate... Does that sound about right? This is precisely why I've always been skeptical of the Greek Pantheon, by the way. Supposedly each individual god is immortal, but they all act like neurotic man-babies. I still wonder what the Pantheon is supposed to be a metaphor for. I struggle to see any nondual implications (whereas the Hindu gods, for example, are clearly facets of the same Whole).

I wonder what you're like in real life

@Everyday All plans eventually fail. I always gather my resolve and blast through the laziness with passion and fury only for it to burn out within a week or so. This pattern is constantly on loop. I've more or less accepted this. Ideally the fluctuations will lessen, but it's really tough. I cannot trust myself to tame this with "willpower." At this point, the strategy is patience. As long as I bounce back, I consider myself on the right path. On another note, will you be going back to college this year? Interesting how this thread has "college" in the header but you don't talk about it that much anymore!

So was it worth it?

This book is a monster. You're a champion for that