LastThursday

I'm interested in not being deluded - which is a form of truth.

It's normal to question yourself when you start being successful. Because it's a new situation, it can feel fake or even overwhelming. I would say if possible just slow down your orders, but don't totally stop. Creativity has its ups and downs, that's normal. Creativity needs to be fed from various sources, find those sources as part of the process. Give yourself space to do some of those old things you used to do, go consume, recharge your creativity and then go back to it. Don't worry about age, unless you're on death's door, it doesn't matter at all.

House prices are a real problem. I'm in the UK in the South East of England. Over the road is a three bedroom house with garden, which is selling for around £600k (~700k euro). I rent, next door the one bedroom flat/apartment is going for £200k (no outdoor area). I didn't realise things are getting expensive in Spain too. It seems to be for several reasons here in the UK. Land is incredibly expensive, because there is limited land to build on. The cost of labour and raw materials is also expensive. If you could buy some land you could probably build a three bedroom maybe for £300k. Also there is the British dream of home ownership, everyone wants their own home. I think for example in Germany it's a lot more common to rent. So there's a cultural element to it. But this creates a pressure on the housing market. There is also population pressure, the density of people in the UK is relatively high compared to other European countries. This creates demand outstripping supply. Lastly, reading between the lines, it seems like the house building industry here likes higher prices because it makes for higher profits. So it artificially creates a supply problem which keeps the prices high. It works because of the London effect, where wages are quite a lot higher than the rest of the country - and those workers are able to afford the artificially inflated prices (and commute from the South East into work), which keeps the market buoyant. Also the government doesn't really seem to want to address the root cause of the problem by making more land available. There's a lot of talk about building affordable homes, but no real action. Saying that, house building has increased a lot in the last ten years here. I see building going on everywhere, but all at highly inflated prices that us normal people can't afford.

Truth is only available via psychedelics? Really? Which, of course, is another story, told by you, what a good imagination you have.

Says who? Where did you get this idea come from? What use is this idea? Ok. But we're not living in chaos. Stuff exists and persists. God doesn't change its mind on a whim, there's orderliness to everything. Someone's OCD doesn't disappear because God gets up one day and decides it to be gone. The OCD goes because you and the world evolves and changes in an orderly way. God is like a river: you are like a pebble in the river, thinking its the river. The river's imagination is not the pebble's imagination.

I would argue about your use of the word: clearly. Anyway, it's clearer now. And yet here is confusion: Localised imagination is being used here as a proxy to what is meant by God's (metaphysical) imagination. Your point @DrugsBunny is can metaphysical (God's) imagination even be called imagination? Yes, but not in any way in the same sense as localised imagination. Metaphysical (God's) imagination, would have to be of a special kind, not one that involves thought or desire or potentiality. It's more one that is spontaneously creative with aspects of both novelty and consistency and persistence. This kind of imagination unfolds rather than being planned: rather like zooming into a fractal pattern. There is consistency in the "look and feel" of the fractal as you zoom in, but it's constantly changing. Yes, God could stop your OCD but s/he's not going to. It's not the way God works.

There's confusion all round here. For a start what is "you" referring to here? I can sit here and imagine sitting on a beach drinking a mojito; when I stop imagining it goes away. But I can't sit here and imagine a solid gold bar into existence. But the phrase gets applied to all aspects of reality. So the "you" being referred to is not the conventional you in terms of hard cold existence. If I get hit by car, there's no way I'm imagining the bodily damage and hospitalisation that follows: it exists. However, it's clear that you can be mistaken about reality. Maybe you think that shadow in an alleyway is a knife-wielding murderer, but it's just the shadow of a cat. Or you look at an optical illusion and see things that are not actually there. So there is a sense in which a lot of reality is just imagination, whether consciously or unconsciously maintained. There's a lot of "filling in" of reality usually where information is lacking or ambiguous. There is an assumption that imagination is a process "you" can control. This is where the word is misleading. When you tell someone "you're just imagining your OCD", this implies it's possible to actually stop imagining that second and the person is just "too attached". This is disingenuous. The word imagination shouldn't be used in these contexts. So which you and what type of imagination is the phrase referring to? The whole phrase is too confusing and open to abuse. You can call existence itself imagination, but that doesn't add anything new, because "you" are not in control of it.

One way is to set up new better habits which crowd out the old worse habits. You only have so much time in a day to do things. As an example maybe you start going to the gym twice a week. Those times you are at the gym, you might have been gaming or drinking or whatever. At the start you may have to force yourself into new habits, but it gets easier with time. You want to set up a virtuous cycle. Each new healthy habit, makes you feel better which makes it easier to take up more new habits. Habits always fulfil some sort of need, just going cold turkey doesn't take away the need - which is why you relapse. Setting up new habits can fulfil your needs in a better way.

There really is no right way to be. There's an unlimited number of things we can focus on, hedonism and pleasure are only a tiny part. Or we could just not focus on anything in particular. As long as you're living all this just keeps on coming - doesn't matter what you do.

Being on this forum? Actually it's that first sip of beer after a long hike in the countryside, it's better than an orgasm.

Dear Diary, Today I'm mostly sneezing. It's not often I'm ill. In all the time this pandemic has been raging I've not felt ill once. Now two years on SARS-CoV-2 has finally struck and it's using my body for its own survival agenda. Being ill is a very good way to bring you into the present moment. The body screams at you to pay attention to it and to do that you must drop everything else. The thinking faculties slow down, become foggy and eventually stop. Normal routines become interrupted because moving from A to B becomes exhausting. You are transported into a semi-dream like state of constant unpleasantness: enough with the sneezing already! The body is often likened to a machine or a robot controlled as it is by a plethora of hormones and chemicals, topped off by that fat bulbous energy consuming amorphous mass between your ears. Your sense of being in control of yourself is shown to be a sham when you are ill. No, the body is the Lord and Master, you are just the serf tilling the fields with your petty thoughts and grand plans. To call the body a machine is disingenuous, it's more intelligent and devious than you. Covid really is a marvel. Its only plan is to reproduce and it achieves it extremely well. I wish I was that single-minded and successful. The flipside is that Covid really only cares about itself, it's happy to kill for the sake of it's own survival. In its wake governments lock up its citizens in terror and upset the normal world order, in its wake your body goes into full overdrive and incapacitates you for your own good. If you're going to be as successful as Covid then you must take your body with you on the journey. All those fears and insecurities, depressions and inadequacies are mediated through the body, not the mind, and often no amount of ruminating will make a jot of difference. Instead you have to learn to coax and negotiate with, and regulate the body, treat it well, understand its inscrutable workings both physical and emotional. Only then will the mind get its way and the body obediently follow. I'm not there yet.

You help at whatever level you're able and willing to. There isn't some minimum level of help you should be giving. My way of helping @kag101 is to show that the option of walking away is ok. There's no need to try and be a hero.

In many cases that is enough. It's always a judgement call whether to help someone or not. Even if you are well meaning and want to help someone, you may find that you're out of your depth - which is why professionals exist. The person may or may not be ready to receive help. Often people who need help look for it from the wrong people. I can't speak for @kag101, but it seems clear that s/he is not in a position to be able to help and so should be kind to her/himself and cut contact.

That is super clear. So it's just a matter of when you cut off contact. Now or in five years or longer.

An informative overview of the mindset of Russia and Putin:

Hence my lame joke earlier. Although in my case I'm not sure what is coercing me to stay. Maybe I'm being existentially terrorised without knowing it? Although if I was going to be existentially terrorised @Leo Gura 's charismatic expositions would definitely do the trick. I blame solipsism and free will: I've got none and I've only got myself to blame for sticking around. Still not a cult.

I'm trying to convince myself that I have free will? Ok I'll stop joking around. If you were in a cult, leaving the cult would be very difficult. But people come and go here all the time, ergo it's not a cult.

No. I'm free to leave at any time. I'm free to leave at any time. I'm free to leave at any time...

@Someone here practically, the suicide rate is very low something like 0.01%. It can't be used as a good argument for happiness and truth being anything to do with living. But you are right, happiness is not one-dimensional and neither is truth, they have many sources and qualities. How can you judge if one type of happiness is equal or better than one type of truth and that those things are essential for living?

And yet many millions live like this.

Truth has nothing to do with happiness. Happiness and Truth has nothing to do with living. You can be miserable and not know Truth and still live.

It seems clear that you know what you want in this situation. However you distance yourself from him, in the long run the result is the same. Logically, you want to make it as quick as possible for yourself. But you should deal with the situation with integrity and respect. Why not do both? Explain why you're distancing yourself, and that he should get help, but also explain that you are blocking him immediately - don't give him the option of contacting you.

I've missed these free will questions. God wants to awaken to itself, that is the game its playing. The joke is that you're already God with complete free will. But be careful, because the ego wants to believe it is God; avoiding delusion is hard.

Nearly none at all I would say. The only subtle difference is one of "ownership". With LOA/manifestation you simply set things in motion and give up on owning the process, with goal setting you take ownership of what happens with every step. But, the result may be the same in both cases. I wouldn't say LOA is any easier than goal orientation and taking action. It could be that a lot of things have to take place and run their course before the manifestation happens: in some ways the journey is always more important than the end result. Even with the goal orientation/taking action approach, there is a lot of luck, synchronicity and grabbing chances which you can't "own".

I thought I'd pick up on this. If manifestation is true, then this would be exactly what would be expected if God "leaked" into lower levels of being. As a God, you/it would hide its own powers from itself, by separating itself from itself. In other words if you wanted to pretend you were not a god (as a kind of game of forgetting), then you would hive off a part of yourself and make it less godlike and less powerful. This game of forgetting isn't perfect, and glimpses of godlike powers (manifestation) would occasionally happen. It's not perfect forgetting, because God delights in discovering itself again, but only slowly and bit by bit.