LastThursday

@ZGROPIUS I don't have a direct answer in your case. But I have some experiences in rapid change. I have some ideas about magic also. The body, mind and environment form a dynamic system that likes to keep itself in equilibrium (which includes homeostasis). The equilibrium can maintain both positive and negative states, where a state is some part of the system: physiology or mental state. It can seem like a particular equilibrium is fixed or permanent, but this isn't the case. Even with a chronic condition, the symptoms (states) can come and go, this is an indicator that the system is in constant flux. All systems maintain equilibrium through feedback loops, if the system goes too far out of equilibrium then feedback loops push the system back into equilibrium. For example if your body gets low on energy then you will crave something to eat to restore that energy, the craving is a feedback loop. There are thousands of them in the body and mind, and even from and back to the environment. The mind/body/environment system can be pushed into a new equilibrium at any point, and this can happen suprisingly rapidly. This can be done by pushing it far enough away from its existing equilibrium that the existing feedback loops don't work to push it back. Because the system is dynamic it will generally settle back into a new equilibrium over time. All that is a long winded way of saying that if you mess with the mind/body/environment in the right way, you can experience rapid permanent change. I think some of the success of magic is down to suggestion, in other words hitting your mental feedback loops, so they stop keeping the system in equilibrium. I use "mental" here loosely, because suggestion goes deeper than just positive thinking, it can have strong unconscious and physical effects in the body if the suggestion is taken seriously. Having a Taoist Magician suggest things may help. I'm a pragmatist, the result is more important than the means, so I'm not against it, using suggestion can be very powerful. There is a more esoteric side to magic in that it may warp reality enough to change the world, and in your case, your somatic illness. It would do this because at its base level reality is fluid and largely undetermined, and magic shifts the probabilities towards what the magician desires. The rituals are designed so that there is the greatest level of effect achievable. In short we're doing magic all the time, but in a messy unconscious way, Taoist magicians are structured and focused about it. This also suggests that reality may attract towards outcomes, and work more like abstract thought, than a machine full of protons and light. TLDR the body/mind/environment is a system, magic shifts the system.

I was idly just wondering what spirituality is actually for, I mean that in terms of its application or usefulness. Does it have to be useful? Is it like maths which is either pure or applied? Is spirituality pursued? Is it a system with its own jargon and paradigms? Is spirituality just self-development in a different guise? Or is it just a bunch of reframings and recontextualisations on experience? Is it nonsensical, circular, self-referential reasoning and language disguised as profundity? Is it New Age wish fulfilment where crystals, vibrations, quantums and any other co-opted mystical language suffices? Is it just mysticism by another name, full of ineffable, barely explainable ideas and experiences? Is it pure metaphysics? Is it religion? A religion? Is it just an antidote for those that found STEM subjects hard? Take the above how you will. I'm not sure how I feel about spirituality at all. I'm not sure if it's something I practise, something I'm just interested in as an intellectual pursuit or just a way to pass the time; or if in fact I have no clue at all what it is. If there's no final end game with spirituality then what is it I'm doing with it? I find it ironic that I feel the same way about spirituality as the language used within it: everything is nothing, nothing is everything: spirituality is something, spirituality is not something at all. Huh.

It can, but only in retrospect. All this "stuff" happens and when you trace all the cause and effect threads, it leads back to something, and you create a story from that backtracking. Existentially, everything that ever happened no longer exists. All that exists of the past is what's in the present, including your memories. All that exists of the future is some idea in your imagination. A story is a sequence of events on a timeline. So where does that story exist? Where does the drama exist? There are two types of change in life, slow and fast. Sometimes things reach a critical point after which things change fast, and a new phase in life starts. I've found that being open and receptive and stable during these phase changes, is very helpful. But things will unravel in their own time, so patience is needed. You won't endure the tiredness forever, things are guaranteed to change for you.

You're recognising there that "a story" is not the fundamental ground of reality. A story is just a net cast over conscious experience. Existence or "it" doesn't work in stories at all, even if it can create them for itself. Existence is more like the rush of a great waterfall, different moment to moment (to use a story). Question is, can we live without creating stories or narrative or drama from our experiences? I don't know, but I don't see a fundamental limitation in getting rid of them. Or at least being more flexible and having more fluid stories. Recontextualisation as Leo says.

Giving myself advice here I would say: It's ok to have expectations, but you should also engender having a flexible attitude, shit happens. Inflexibility takes the joy out of life. The world is messy, don't force it into your mould, mould yourself to it, exactly as kids do.

Agreed. It's also "it" pretending to be you. But I don't think you're quite there yet (not that I am either):

ChatGPT says either Maqsum, Baladi, Malfuf or Saidi. I like that guy in the video, just wandering about the Giza plateau doing this and that. When I went to the pyramids I wish I'd had more time to wander about, I could have spent days just doing that. I think with the imaging of the huge structures under the pyramids, if there had been any more to it, then they'd still be talking about it now but they're not. To me it doesn't seem plausible as having any amount of voids under the weight of the pyramids is probably structurally unsound; you want solid bedrock all the way down. Saying that there's definitely a rabbit warren of tunnels throughout the plateau, some probably man-made most probably natural. I think if they begin to dig up the labyrinth it will turn out to be huge and probably one of the biggest constructions in Egypt. I need to go back there!

All experience good or bad is godly. But when I'm sick god can go do one.

My theory is that drama primarily comes out of emotion. Someone's actions trigger us emotionally for example, and then we justify and explain those emotions with a story and characters. And, people are addicted to stories, they can even believe them absolutely as if they're concrete fact. Some drama never de-escalates because of this. You do have to be careful though, in not creating drama from observing drama. Even if you're not part of a drama, it can still engage the emotions negatively, and you can create more stories for yourself from there. The ultimate escape route is complete indifference to drama. But to achieve that you really have to be honest and not pretend you don't have emotions. Listen to what they're telling you, absorb any learnings and then move on. Don't make a drama out of it.

@TheGod this is interesting. I do feel kind of jaded and it's got worse with age. But I know in my case it's not age that's the problem exactly. I'm fit and healthy and probably at the peak of my powers, so it's not that. What I do think it is is survival. I'm constantly on the lookout for negativity and ways to avoid it, or rehearsing ways to confront it, or looking at minor problems microscopically. With that also comes looking for disappointment. I've learnt to build things up in my mind and then when they don't work out as I wanted, there's disappointment. My youthful idealism has given way to unsatisfying pragmatism and compromise. Kids also do this though. They need to avoid dangerous situations and cry if they're hurt to get help, so they are also always on the alert for negativity. They also get disappointed if they're excited about something and it doesn't happen, and they can be very vocal about it! The BIG difference between adults and children is that children generally forget negativity very quickly and move on - something that adults should re-learn I think - they have shorter memories. But adults are generally fully responsible for themselves and also others, so they can't get off the hook so easily as kids, who generally just think about themselves. Kids' lives are also generally a lot simpler than adults', there is less negativity to avoid and less disappointment to be had. But, adults are hugely better at emotional regulation and they have greater control over their lives. Nevertheless I find there is an underlying feeling of disappointment in everything that's hard to shake, people and circumstances just don't match up to expectation. Kids care far less about people and circumstances, stuff just "happens" to them and they have the luxury of not having to cogitate over it. Saying that, we were all kids once, and I believe that that inner kid is always there, and you can temporarily return to that state with practice. Play games, put yourself in new situations, take yourself to new places.

Good stuff @kavaris I haven't watched the video yet, but I will. I'm itching to know what's really under the sand there. Here's an older video that goes into some of the ins and outs of it, and an intriguing conclusion that there is something large and oddly shaped buried there:

I'm not against the idea in principle. But if there are more down to earth explanations then my pragmatic brain would go for those personally. We should look for the simpler explanations first. After all ETs are quite a mystery as well.

Come on let's be civil to each other, even if we disagree on things.

@Someone here good. You mother in direct experience doesn't exist either, she's just light and shade, splashes of colour, soothing sound and warm touch.

Which god, the Abrahamic one? Aren't we shaped in God's image? Anthropomorphising God makes Him easier to reason about and understand for the masses. In the Bible He's portrayed as very much the head of the household of humanity and male, because reasons. Away from conventional religions, I don't see a problem with having a personal god or gods (Roman style) and making them non-human or even something completely abstract. Why not.

I'm with your mum, definitely unsuitable watching, straight to bed young lady 👉 I'm derailing my own thread. Back on topic...

@Judy2 not to glamourise eating disorders, but someone having a cooking channel with an ED could be inspiring to lots of people in the same position. A USP of sorts, the human interest angle could work in your favour. You absolutely don't have to show your face or use your voice, plenty of YT channels without either, for example. Just be conscious from the outset and throughout that it may get emotional. Sometimes staring at pain directly in the face is the best way to overcome it. Go with your instincts.

But... but... @Mellowmarsh consciousness is not a thing 🤪

Caught red handed. I watched every second of the X-Files BITD @Natasha Tori Maru

Like any craftsperson if you're doing it day in and day out, you learn mastery of the craft. If you're laying potentially millions of blocks, you'll very quickly learn to master it. Especially so if you've already built smaller pyramids before, which is exactly what happened. And extreme mastery can look like magic or supernatural ability. I'm pretty sure this is the case with the pyramids.

@Ramasta9 Ah yes good old David Wilcock. I've read his book the Source Field Investigations, interesting stuff. The power of pyramids was already being talked about by Lyall Watson in his book Supernature. I think I even made a cardboard pyramid razor sharpner in my youth. I'm more intrigued by your direct experiences than a video with a bunch of anectodal evidence however. Maybe start a new thread explaining what you've witnessed? Sounds interesting.

Most likely. The Thunder Stone was 1,500 tons and took nine months to move into place. 80 tons is nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Horseman @Ramasta9 as much as I love the idea esoteric technology (and I've researched it a lot), conventional technology is plenty magic already. But I have no doubt the Egyptians thought about building and technology differently to us. If you watch the third video I posted above, it explains that most of the pyramid is "infilled rubble", with the rubble being largish unshaped blocks. It would be a lot quicker to place those. Only the exterior and some interior structural "walls" where shaped and carefully placed blocks.

Here are my thoughts, just some ideas to play with. 1. A thought is a category of experience which by its nature is made separate from the category of "world out there". The stuff that happens that doesn't affect the world. 2. When you move your body is that a thought also? Can thoughts cross the boundary from one category to another? 3. Is thought just rational step-by-step goal oriented processing? 4. Does a thought depend on an internal voice? Does it need an auditory hallucination? Can you think in images, sounds etc? 5. Is a memory, thought? 6. Are hallucinations thoughts? 7. Are dreams thoughts? 8. Is reality thought? Why? Why not?

I agree but you're confusing limitations (aka boundaries). Counting numbers are infinite, because there is always a next number (i.e. no limit). But they are infinite only with respect to that lack of limit. Counting numbers are not letters, so they are not infinite in that sense, they are a category of 1, i.e. Counting Numbers. So the infinity is always with respect to some criterion. For another example a circle is both finite and infinite. If you mark a point on the circle then walk your way around it, it is finite in distance, when you hit that point again. But the number of times you could walk around the circle is unlimited, so it is infinite in that sense (trig functions rely on that sense of infinity). However, we're not talking about ordinary infinities here, but absolute infinities, which by their nature are unlimited in every aspect. Consciousness is supposedly such a thing. Nothing can limit consciousness, and consciousness can't limit itself (maybe?), so it is an absolute infinity. An infinity is always something, it is the lack of limit in some aspect - by definition.

@Inliytened1 anything without a boundary is infinite. In fact that is the definition of infinity. And it's also absolute by definition, because there's nothing to contrast it with, and so it can't be distinguished and hence it's an unchanging Truth. I 100% agree with you. Can consciousness know an infinity? There seems to be many finite things in consciousness, but how do you "know" you have an infinity without taking it on faith? Is consciousness infinite? Is intelligence infinite? Or does consciousness recognise infinities without using reason?